“The Goddess of opportunity may give us a chance only once
in our lifetime; we couldn’t afford to miss it. With thirty-odd years of age,
the time was right. We (my wife and I) built ourselves a boat – not very big;
20 feet – and off we were on the greatest adventure anyone could hope to
experience.” Hein Zenker
Siggi and Hein Zenker on Thlaloca Dos signed our logbook on February 15, 1976, while Dursmirg was anchored at Boot Key
Harbor, Marathon, Florida.
Without a
doubt, the nicest looking boat to pull in and anchor at Boot Key anchorage was Thlaloca Dos. This precision built sailboat
was sailed by the saltiest sailors of the group, Hein and Siggi Zenker.
However, they were unassuming and immediately very much a part of our dropout
anchorage community. They fit in to it naturally. In no time at all, they
struck up friendships with all of the boaters in the harbor.
Hein Zenker
on Thlaloca Dos and Bubba Schill
aboard his Jaeger hit it off like
life long friends and soon discovered that they both had something in common.
Both served their country during World War II, but ironically they had been on
opposing sides, Bubba in the American Navy and Hein in Germany’s
Merchant Marine. They were each victims of geography and political leaders that
had whipped the world into a monumental state of hate and terror. The chemistry
that Bubba and Hein felt for each other was one that I am sure could only have
been conveyed by the indelible scars left on their youthful souls and then
carried throughout their lives.
Hein and
Siggi could look at the world and especially this little collection of social
outcasts that made up the Boot Key anchorage with empathy because they had both
survived World War II Germany from within and gone on to fulfill a dream that
took more determination, dedication, and forceful self-motivation than I had
ever seen.
As a matter
of fact, with only a couple of exceptions, all of the live-aboard boaters that
made up Boot Key anchorage back in the mid 1970s did not come to boating with
financial backing and each carried their own load in life.
Some were
world-class sailors and others couldn’t even tie a nautical knot, but one
common thread bound us together and that was that we all were in this boating
life for the adventure and freedom of sailing over distant horizons.
Oh, by the way!
In the world
of strange coincidences, this next story unfolded:
Back in St. Augustine, Florida,
in the spring of 1973, after Jane and I had just spent our first winter living
aboard Dursmirg, which we anchored
for some time in Matanzas
Bay near the St.
Augustine City Yacht Pier, we met a young man living aboard a small sailboat.
That spring we were the only two boats anchored in Matanzas Bay.
We thought the longhaired hippie looking young man was strange because of his
profession, which we had never heard of before. He was a computer programmer who daily
commuted to Jacksonville
to work, leaving his boat Thlaloca anchored
in the bay.
The thing we
did not realize at the time was the significance of that little boat with its
strange name.
We would
later learn the incredible story of the vessel’s monumental maritime
achievement plus become close friends with the very people that actually built
the boat and then went on to sail it into world history. The builders were Hein
and Siggi Zenker and their historical feat was to sail their 20-foot Thlaloca around the world. It was the
smallest vessel to do so at the time.
Hein and
Siggi started building their little 20-foot sailboat in Iron Bridge, Ontario, Canada, and finished it in California where they
launched it to begin the Australian leg of their round the world cruise. Siggi later told Jane and me that that trip
was 95% misery. When I asked Hein about his navigational skills, he said that
he did not have any at the time, but that he figured he would have plenty of
time to study and besides he also figured that he could not possibly miss
anything as large as the continent of Australia.
June 5, 1986, Hein and Siggi Zenker visit us
at St. Augustine, Florida.
Recommended Reading:
West! Sail West, Man! Aroundthe World in Twenty Feet by Hein Zenker. Reviewed by John M. Grimsrud
This is a
story about people that not only dreamed the impossible dream but also lived it
to the fullest. The husband and wife team of Hein and Siggi Zenker tell their
extraordinary story in riveting first person fashion that will leave the reader
enthralled.
Jane and I
became good friends and neighbors to these real life adventurers that did as we
did and put the work-a-day world behind them, built their own boat, and sailed
away. They did it ten years before we began our voyage of Dursmirg.
We are deeply
impressed by their book and happen to know that the stories of their adventures
within are very true but cannot fully relate the dynamics of their powerful
free spirits.
To us, they
are the kind of people that make the world a better place and knowing them has
forever added to our hope that dreams are there to be lived.
Apathy
scuttles many a dream boat.
Quotes from
the book:
“Far better
it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by
failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer
much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
“Crouched
deep in the cockpit, I remained there for a long time and observed the foaming
seas and listened to the howling gale. And for the x-time, I pondered why
apparently sane people venture into this mess repeatedly.”
“Are we the
only dreamers? Blinded in believing we are at home in an element, which in
reality is out to destroy us, by forces we are unable to control nor
understand. Fortunately “dreamers” are optimists who do not cease believing in
their power to prevail-like the man in the cartoon, floating on a raft in the middle
of the ocean, catching wind in a net.”
I rank this
book with the best of the best sea stories I have ever read, need I say more?
Read more about Hein and Siggi in Sailing the Florida Keys: Travelsof Dursmirg by John M. Grimsrud.
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