Wilfried Erdmann can be called an exceptional sailor without question. The now 79-year-old has sailed around the world four times and has achieved numerous pioneering achievements in the process. He was the first German to circumnavigate the globe alone, later he sailed around the world solo non-stop twice, most recently against the prevailing wind direction. Against reason, against yourself.
Erdmann on board his "Kathennui"
For 343 days, almost a year, Erdmann was on the oceans from 2000 to 2001 on his North Sea 34 "Kathennui". The 10.60 meter long aluminum yacht had already proven itself on the circumnavigation with the prevailing wind direction. The passionate single-handed sailor was on the road for 271 days, 16 years earlier. But the circumnavigation of the world from west to east awaited challenges in a different league, for the ship as well as for the skipper.
An almost impossible trip
Since then, many German sailors have also attempted a solo non-stop circumnavigation - albeit with the wind - but all of them have failed. Susanne Huber-Curphey was the only one who managed the show last year. However, she did not return to her port of departure, as Erdmann did in Cuxhaven in 2001 - at the end of his tether.
Countless times during the 343 days he had reached his own limits, weathered storms and calm, hunger, loneliness and the longing for home.
Wilfried Erdmann live
Wilfried Erdmann reports on all these exertions, but also on the grandiose moments of the trip, in his slide show "Alone Against the Wind". Two more times this year he will give the lecture about his second non-stop circumnavigation: about the development of the plan, the preparation, the implementation - combined with all the problems as well as the ups and downs of single-handed sailing.
Impressions from Erdmann's non-stop trip against the wind
The multimedia lecture lasts 90 minutes and contains, among other things, impressive video recordings from the inhospitable oceans that the circumnavigator filmed, as well as the meager life on board that he captured with the camera.
The appointments
Brunsbüttel on November 8, 2019, 7.30 p.m. in the Brunsbüttel lock community school, Kopernikusstraße 5. Advance ticket sales: Brunsbüttel Sailing Association, email: [email protected]
Bern (Switzerland) on November 22, 2019, 7.30 p.m. in the Evangelical Community, Nägeligasse 9. Advance ticket sales: [email protected] or +41 79 670 60 50.