A welcoming committee of Cape penguins greets the Kanaloa crew during a shore expedition near Cape Town. Wolfgang is on the watch for coconuts while walking the beach. They make it a priority to find anchorages that will allow them to take Zulu, their South-African born Norfolk terrier, on long walks.
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satellite phone, and no AIS. Yet the gel coat on the 14-year-old boat shines with a deep gloss that says “just polished,” and the varnish on the exterior teak glistens with perfection. Inside, the yacht is pristine, functional and extremely well organized. Seeing Kanaloa at the pier, you’d never think this unimposing yacht had covered so many miles. Yet the unmistakable impression upon first meeting the Hasses is that these are two adventuresome cruisers, a capable couple tightly focused on their boat and their cruising, a team where each partner is self-reliant and never needs to be told what to do or how to do it. Heidi, a tall blonde, is a youthful 60 years old and takes naturally to her role as Kanaloa’s captain, navigator and cook. Wolfgang, tall and movie-star handsome, looks younger than his 70 years and serves with distinction as first officer, rigger, and, perhaps most important, chief engineer. Their dog Zulu, a circumnavigator too, is watchdog and chief morale officer. “I think the cruising is what keeps us young,” said Wolfgang, a twinkle in his eye. “We are both in very good health, and the challenges of cruising and keeping the yacht in good operating condition keep us focused.” German by birth, the Hasses still have property and business interests in Germany but return to Berlin only every six or seven years. “We don’t worry about it on a day-to-day basis,” Wolfgang said. Instead, they are focused on their beloved Kanaloa, their location, the port they’re visiting, and the trip ahead. “Home is where the boat is,” said Heidi, “and life is great!” When they began sailing together on German lakes, Heidi was just 20 and Wolfgang 30. At the time, she worked as a secretary for a large oil company in Berlin and he owned and managed a uniform shop in the same city. Each year they could barely wait for the sailing season to begin, and they cruised the lakes aboard their small wooden centerboard boat for 10 years. Moving up to a 28foot fiberglass sailing yacht named Caprice, they stretched their cruising legs and ventured farther
CIRCUMNAVIGATOR I 2010
afield, crossing the Baltic to cruise in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. Somewhere along the way the cruising bug bit them hard. With their focus on ever more distant cruising, the Hasses moved up again, this time to a solid 38-foot Van Dam steel cruising yacht named Vitte. They departed Germany aboard Vitte in 1982, and their first passages took them across the North Sea to England, the Bay of Biscay to Portugal, on to the Canary Islands, then across the Atlantic—their first ocean crossing—to the Caribbean. After visiting the U.S., Canada, and Venezuela, they transited the Panama Canal and crossed the Pacific to French Polynesia. And they discovered a real taste for warm, tropical climates. Their first circumnavigation took a leisurely 12 years, covering some 45,000 miles. They spent years slowly crisscrossing the Pacific islands—French Polynesia, Tonga, Fiji, the New Hebrides, Vanuatu, the Loyalty Islands—and finally reached Australia, a country where they suddenly felt very much at home. After an eight-month sojourn cruising Down Under, they headed west across the Indian Ocean, around the horn of Africa, and across the Atlantic. By the time they crossed their outbound track, completing their first circumnavigation, it was 1995. By then they had been reading more and more about Nordhavn ocean-crossing powerboats, an idea that fired Wolfgang’s imagination. After investigating Nordhavns further, they sold their steel sailing yacht in Florida and went to California to buy their Nordhavn. The Hasses found the transition from sail to power an easy one. “Sailors feel they should never run the engine,” Wolfgang said. “But I am not in conflict any longer—I enjoy running the engine and so this is the perfect boat for us. And a powerboat like Kanaloa is more stable. In a sailing yacht you’re much less comfortable—you’re exposed most of the time because you have to be outside watching the sails, and to make a fast passage you have to use all the sails. “With a Nordhavn it’s all about comfort and safety,” www.circumnavigatormag.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF KANALOA
c i r c u mna v i g a t o r s