No desire for comfort in ambitious voyage
SOME may say it is complete madness to singlehandedly sail a 5.76m homemade yacht through heavy seas from Ireland to New Zealand.
But 79yearold Swedish sailor and boat builder Sven Yrvind has a history of successfully sailing alone across oceans in tiny boats of his own design.
In 1980, he rounded Cape Horn alone, and in the middle of winter, on Bris 2, a 5.90m boat he designed and built.
He holds the record for sailing the smallest boat past the Cape, and the achievement won him the 1980 Royal Cruising Club medal for seamanship.
Now, he is in the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland, aboard an even smaller vessel, Exlex, hoping to reach New Zealand by March next year.
Mr Yrvind said Exlex was an experimental craft.
‘‘She is not very suitable for the planned voyage, which will be difficult by any standard. She was built as a daysailer and the real boat was meant to be bigger, but unfortunately I ran out of money.
‘‘So brave Exlex willingly volunteered to take on the big oceans.’’
He said his voyage to New Zealand was not a record attempt. Rather, he wanted to see if he could design and sail a small, cheap, seaworthy, environmentally friendly, lowenergy, shallowdraft cruising boat with a small sail area (and an oar for rowing when winds are light), halfway around the world.
‘‘Many people misunderstand life. They think comfort is happiness, but unfortunately, that kind of happiness only works in the short term because, like drug abuse and instalment purchases, it burns energy intended for your future wellbeing.
‘‘Those who enjoy effortless comfort are constantly deprived of energy. They lose strength, become lazier and fatter, have less good health and are more easily bored.
‘‘Sailors too, want more comfort in their cruisers, but comfort cannot be combined with simplicity. And when life is no longer simple, it loses both beauty and joy.’’
He said June was the ideal time to start his journey because summer had just begun in the north ern hemisphere, and by the time he had crossed the equator, summer would have returned to the southern hemisphere.
He expected the Southern Ocean to throw storms and icebergs at him, but he hoped, by then, he would have adapted to the nautical environment.
‘‘I will be strong and at one with the sea, and I will be able to marvel at the enormous energy that nature displays and how wonderfully my little boat copes with it all.
‘‘When I arrive in New Zealand, I will have verified that my next design is superior.’’