"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
We received word yesterday that an old friend of ours, Hein Zenker, passed away on October 19, 2019. Our friendship with Hein and his wife Siggi goes back many years. Siggi passed away two years ago. Now they are both gone, but many wonderful memories of our times with them remain. We are honored to have had them as friends. RIP Hein and Siggi.
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 little 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.
Reviewed by John M. Grimsrud
West! Sail West, Man! Around the
World in Twenty Feet
By Hein Zenker
This is a story about real 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.
A couple of 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?
