Thies Matzen

I was building the yacht Flying Cloud and also doing the restoration to Astra,the 1934 Tumlaren design by Knudd Reimers when Thies arrived on Wanderer at the Hout Bay YC marina,I think he had just sailed across the South Atlantic from South Georgia island?

Thies Matzen: It started the moment my 3-year-old eyes met the 99-year-old eyes of my great-grandfather??and never forgot them. He was a South Seas captain and later harbormaster of Apia, Samoa, for nearly 30 years, both sides of 1900. He had been in charge of boats that had sailed far. So had my grandfathers, as professionals and as amateurs. One of them doubled the Horn, first under sail, then later under steam.

Apart from my early cruises in dinghies and a self-built clinker double-ender on the Baltic, which is a sea, I started to cross oceans in 1978. In pre-Satnav times, a good hand on the sextant was always in demand, which helped me en route to my forebears' home, Samoa.

I have lived and cruised aboard Wanderer III since 1981.
there. Going was all that mattered, and the sooner the better. I was 22. Youth has a lot to do with being able to cope aboard a small boat.

Thies Matzen: I am a wooden boat builder by trade, so it has to be wooden. I know and like wood, the voyages inspiring me to cruise were done on wooden boats. Wooden boats are pleasing in all three stages of their life: one likes to gather around them when built, they charm in their active life, even as wrecks they remain pleasing. Accordingly, more so than boats of other materials, in each stage they blend well into our flow of being.

Our yacht Wanderer III can be called the 'mother of all cruising yachts' and had completed three circumnavigations when I bought her. She was an idol I had wanted to build, but never thought of buying. In a way, meeting her at the right place at the right time, I was lucky that she chose me.

Her simpleness is proven. She has done 270,000 miles in five decades and one is hard pressed to come up with another cruising yacht as pelagic as her. She is well built with a high displacement-to-length ratio. Therefore, she doesn't shine in light conditions, but she stands up well to much wind.

We never keep her in flash looks, but under a good coat of paint. Thus we worry little about possible rough treatment by, for example, visiting canoes. I'd rather be comfortable with wooden clogs than to have to unnaturally tip toe for the sake of shininess.

Harmony matters more than a shiny and polished boat. If a boat is beautiful, you can dream with it, somebody will care for it, somebody will take over caring.

During my first years with Wanderer the North Atlantic Islands, Scotland, Northern Norway was the cruising ground. Since 1987 we began sailing circles on all other oceans. Though Wanderer has done it often, to me it has never been important to sail around the world, but to sail around in the world.

Of importance, though, was to get back to my Samoan family under my own wings.

Similarly, to sail around Cape Horn, for example, had never been an aim and didn't mean much to me. Records are without meaning. The biggest, highest, fastest are not criteria by which I measure my life. But when somebody who had been at the Horn eight times said that both the Horn and the Wollaston Group are of tremendeous beauty and that we must see them, that was a criteria that appealed to us. And we went.

30 feet of length with only 8 feet 6 inches of beam makes for a very small home, a size which nonetheless suits us well. Logistically its just at the limit of allowing us to visit our destinations for the length of time we wish. That's part of the challenge and makes for tight calculations.

She could do with a bowsprit and more sail area; with the transom less submerged or more carrying capacity. Yet considering her size very little could be improved for what she does with us. The characteristic I value highly is her standing power in high winds. She'll hold her ground under sail. She hoves to well. Her drift is minimal, something of underrated importance for a small, underpowered boat .

As small as Wanderer is we have, like marine mammals which molt, to lose our skin every now and then to remind us of the essentials. And that's not limiting, but healthy.