The Pro "AnVaru" during test hits in front of Heiligenhafen
The Lübeck adventurer spent three weeks with his friend Nash Camacho on the modern interpretation of a historical South Sea Pro in the Pacific. Without modern navigation, without technical bells and whistles on board, the two want to sail along the Polynesian migration route.
Burkhard Pieske and his fellow sailor Nash Camacho
"Yesterday they finally arrived on Palau", Pieske's wife Silke told the YACHT today. They reached the island in the middle of the night and could not find the reef entrance to the harbor. So they finally waited at sea before they could anchor. The two sailed over 1300 nautical miles with the eleven-meter pro "AnVaru". "Burkhard says it was one of the toughest trips of his life, they got caught in a terrible storm at the end and had to continue to the southeast so that they could not reach Guam as planned."
YACHT-tv report on the preparations for the project
Pieske's sailed route
There were some difficulties with the boat, which they had made ready for sea without long preparatory trips. "Towards the end there was a bigger technical problem, but I don't yet know what it was exactly," said Pieske's wife to the YACHT. You can see the exertion of the two, fellow sailor Nash Camacho is said to have lost more than ten kilos. Everything on board was soaking wet, and both were covered with bruises that the boat, which was very actively sailing, had given them.
The original plan was to sail to Guam - the home island of his companion - and take part in the Pacific Art Festival there in May. Now the 57-year-old Pieske will probably have to approach the island in a second shot, and there are still around 670 nautical miles to the east to reach the destination. This is to be followed by further stages through the entire South Pacific to the Easter Islands.
But at the moment the duo is enjoying the landfall on Palau. "There was a reception for both of them, they are the topic on site," said Silke Pieske. The locals would be enthusiastic about the project with the boat type of their ancestors - exactly as Burkhard Pieske had hoped.
Pieske's planned route for the entire project