SAIL.SailMagazine

I love this time of year. In Wisconsin, April is when people prep boats to go back in the water. It has been a long, hard winter of reliving last year’s races at the bar, reading magazine stories about other people sailing in warmer weather, visiting ocean racing websites and yearning. And now it’s time for the northern sailor’s rite of spring: getting ready to launch.

The first bareboat I ever hired in the Virgin Islands, many moons ago, was from a small hole-in-the-wall charter outfit with a rather motley fleet of vessels.

At 74 years old, Sven Yrvind wants to save the world. When I ask him how he plans to do it, his answer is simple: circumnavigate in a ten-foot sailboat. If—or rather, according to Sven, when—he accomplishes this, he will have skippered the smallest boat to circle the world.

The wind was too light to sail, so we started out motoring. Soon, however, my buddy’s motor started heating up. The access hatch was buried under camping gear, and he didn’t want to investigate right then, so he shut his engine down, and I took his boat in tow.

“Help! I can’t see land anywhere. My kids were right, I’m going to die!” This was the panic-stricken thought that jumped into my head that first night as I left Mexico and headed toward Hawaii alone.