Hello, we are Kirsten and Ulrich!
In 2009 we bought the sailing vessel Easy, a Swan 44 MK II. We spent most of our summer holidays cruising Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands.
From May 2018 on we sailed Easy in several steps from our home in Niendorf at the Baltic Sea coast to Lanzarote, the northernmost of the Canary Islands. During this time both of us were still working full time. The big journey started in November 2019 on Lanzarote.
Kirsten is living in our home in Germany. She has employed a coworker in her doctor´s office. This enables her to travel a lot and enjoy time in beautiful locations on board of SV Easy.
Ulrich sold his doctor’s office in 2019 and started living on Easy full time. Before COVID-19 he wanted to be back home in 2023…
Let me start from the beginning. When I was a young boy, I deeply fell in love with ships. Soon I had read all available books on ships, sailing and navigation in my hometown library.
In 1973, I was 12 years of age, Rollo Gebhard gave a talk on Spiekeroog, showing his film of his first singlehanded circumnavigation with his boat Solveig III. I was deeply impressed and instantly decided: ” I want to do that, too!”
At the Age of 13 I learned to sail on the North Sea, on the island of Spiekeroog. Then we had a 420 dinghy and sailed mainly on german lakes.
Later Heiner and I bought a Nordic Folkboat named Velvet. We cruesed the Baltic Sea and the North Sea and nearly sunk the ship when entering the Wattenmeer between the islands of Langeoog and Spiekeroog, on our route round Denmark.
The Contessa 32 served as family boat for many years. The most exciting trip was a singlehanded sail from Niendorf to the Azores in the year of 2000. Kirsten and the kids joined me there and we had two fabulous months on Sao Miguel, Fajal and Pico.
2009
46 years later, I finally had the chance to start my own sailing journey. So far I sailed 6236 nautical miles (11 549 km) from home to Bonaire, and we will see, how far I will get…