A sailing legend
Just finished reading the book Taboo, and then stumbled over this video from this year. So Wolfgang Hausner is still alive and kicking strong in the waters around Cebu on his self-built catamaran Taboo III. The video is a typical tourists video done by some charger guests, but has some nice impressions of Taboo III. Wolfgang sailed around the world three times, on Taboo (in which he built in Australia and got shipwrecked on an uncharted reef and had to row 30km in his dingi to safety) and on Taboo III, built in the Philippines. Taboo II got destroyed by a storm while also being built in the Philippines. He is considered as one of the, if not the singlehanded multihull cruising expert(s) in the world. What I found interesting when watching the video:
- Still minimum electronics, just the barely neccessary (he navigated using a sextant plus “Koppeln” during storms and times with bad view of astronomic objects).
- The totally mechanical self steering device made from a surfboard sail (he developed that on Taboo using a small storm gib and has maintained it on Taboo III). He has an electric self steering too though, for courses running with the wind.
- Very open deck with lots of space, no center cabin, reminded me somewhat of a large wharram, but with less Krimskrams than some of those have. The low profile makes it weather storms more easily, for sun shade he uses a large canvass like a roof, but open to all four sides.
- Anchoring by hand, even with a boat of this size. See also the float attached to the anchor chain to keep the rope from getting cut by corrals / rocks (see his book for details).
Even if it is kind of old, I strongly recommend for bluewater sailers to read “Taboo, one man’s freedom” (unfortunately only available in German). There are lots of stories about what can unexpectedly happen on such cruises and also reports of others in the book, e.g. from Bobby Schenk, who was caught in the pacific islands by a huge hurricane and managed to save his boat and survive.
Some years back I contacted Wolfgang to inquire how much a charter costs, I thought it might be interesting to meet such a sailing legend while he is still alive, but then his prices were quite steep, and we already had Magayon II, so sailing in the Philippines we could do with our own boat. K & B saw him in the 1990s in the Philippines, R was also in contact with him at some point.
Another good source for all sort of insider info is the website of Bobby Schenk, who also circumvented the world, but on the Monohull and has the International Ocean Award. The site also includes the most recent Orca News.