CREW LIFE
Time Out for
Tall Ships
Traditional sailing proves an addictive pastime for one hard-working chief officer. Story and photos by Birgit Kaspar
I
grew up in a small village in South Germany, far from the sea. Yet, to the bafflement of my parents, I became fascinated with big sailing ships at an early age. After high school, I had the chance to crew one of these magnificent vessels and spent six weeks sailing the Baltic Sea. That’s where I caught the “tall ships bug,” an unshakeable affliction that pervades the soul. It is hard to describe to people who have never been on such a ship. It’s the uplifting feeling when the ship gains speed, propelled only by the power of the wind, and the peaceful silence when no engine or generator is running. It’s the tight-knit camaraderie of working together in the yards, despite the weather or time of day, the stories you tell each other during night watch, and the amazing sunrises you enjoy in the early hours of the morning with your first coffee of the day.
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I crewed a number of such vessels over the years, eventually sticking with two that became my favorites: the brig Roald Amundsen and the ketch Jonas von Friedrichstadt. Roald Amundsen, a 164-foot (50m) seagoing vessel, has crossed the Atlantic numerous times, traveling as far as the Cape Verde Islands, Brazil, the Great Lakes, and Iceland. We sail her day and night, following the traditional watch system. Jonas, on the other hand, is a 98-foot (30m) one-season ship that spends summers in the Baltic and some weeks in the tidal flats of the North Sea. With her size and shallow draft, she is great for small harbors, anchoring close to shore, or tying up to just a rock in the Baltic archipelagoes. All these traditional ships are run by nonprofit organizations and all crew are volunteers — a crazy group of people who spend all their time off working on these vessels, whether maintaining them
