Interview With A Cruiser: Hamaka

Christof, Ursula, and Lion hail from Vienna, Austria.  They are traveling aboard Hamaka, their very shiny 2016 Fountaine Pajot Lucia 40 catamaran, under command of their cat Fixi.

We talked with them aboard Hamaka enjoying Ursula’s homemade apfelstrudel along with homemade zirbenschnapps – it was easy to imagine that we were in a chalet in Austria instead of aboard a catamaran in Chile.

You can learn more about Hamaka and about Ursula’s business.  For a taste of the conversation, just click play on either (or even better, on both)  button below:

How did you decide to go cruising?

Christof:  The idea started when we were on a holiday trip in Thailand.  We found a pretty nice house on the beach and we thought “Shouldn’t we buy a house here?”  We have always looked at houses when we travel, and always in the next place it’s the same story, again and again, “We should buy a house here.”  So we thought that what we should be like a snail – always carrying our house with us.  We had a caravan at home and we traveled around Austria and Europe with the children and had the nicest holiday trips all together in the caravan.  But I think for a worldwide tour we need a very comfortable caravan, and for me the better solution is a boat.  And the compromise between a caravan and a boat is a catamaran.  So this is our snail house.

How did you pick your boat?

Christof: First, we decided that we wanted to build our own boat.  Ursula is an architect, and I had my own boat technology company in Austria, and we had a lot of ideas about how things should be in our own boat.  We went to an exhibition in France only for catamarans, and there we met a journalist who asked us “What do you want to do – do you want to go sailing or do you want to build a boat?”

Ursula: We should have picked the second one!

Christof: For me it was sailing, for you it was boat building!  The journalist also told us the best catamaran he ever had was a 36 footer, a Fountaine Pajot also, because this size was easy for him to handle alone.  In any harbor you can also find a lift to take the boat out of the water if you need to.  At this moment, we have a problem to lift the boat out of the water here in Chile because we are too big.  The original plan was to take the boat out of the water while we travel around South America.

And it’s much easier to handle a smaller boat, and also the running costs are higher for a bigger boat.  It’s a big difference – if the mainsail is 60 or 80 square meters, it’s double price.  And if the sheet is 12mm instead of 10mm, it’s double price.  And it’s the same for every block, and everything.

Ursula: For me as an architect, it’s a good design.  There are no areas where I look at it and say “My god, what have they done?”  In this boat, somebody has thought about how to solve the design problems in a clean and correct way.  There are such a lot of boats where nobody does that.  I get kind of aggressive when I look at such things, because that is my life.  For me, this was the most important thing.

How did you name the boat?

Christof: We just kept the name of the previous owner.

Ursula: In English, it means hammock.

What has your route been?

Ursula: First we brought the boat from Mallorca to Trieste, because that’s the closest port to our house near Vienna.

Christof: And you can get anything you need for a boat.  So we left in the beginning September of 2018 from Trieste, about two years ago.  Our first stop was Venice!

Lion: Then we sailed to Croatia, Montenegro, Albania on our way to Greece.  Then to Sicily and Sardinia.  We left the boat for a couple of months, and then in October the real journey started.

Ursula: I would never tell this story in Europe or on our blog.  We were in a harbor called Olbia in Sardinia, and we were ready to start our world trip.  We left the dock with Christof handling the lines and me on the steering.  There was a buoy marking some rocks – I made a wide turn around it to be sure there was plenty of room, and I ended up scratching some other rocks.  We stuck, and we needed two boats to pull us off.  So 10 meters after starting our world trip, we were stuck!

Lion: We still have the ropes that were used to pull us off the bottom!

We then sailed to the Canary Islands, and from there to the Cape Verde Islands.  And then to Fernando de Noronha in Brazil.

How did you start sailing?

Ursula: I never learned – I can’t do it!  I can’t sail.  I know a lot of things about sailing, but if I’m on the steering alone it’s not a good idea.

Christof: I started windsurfing when I was eight years old or so.  And I started sailing late, when I was about 18 years old.  A friend of mine took me on a Hobie cat, the Hobie 16.  For a regatta, we would have 25 or 30 boats on our lake in Austria.  It was really fun – all young people, a little bit crazy, cold beer and loud music – it was a very fun time.  After that we switched to the Hobie Tiger, and we actually trained with the Austrian national sailing team.

After that I stopped with the catamaran and started monohull sailing.  I sailed Flying Dutchman a long time, and also other boat classes.  And then I started sailing on the sea, but mostly regattas.  I was so busy with my work repairing boats it wasn’t possible for me to go sailing.  Everyone knew me, so when I was sailing everyone would say “Why are you out sailing – my boat is still not ready!”

So I have a lot of experience in a lot of boats – the last was the TransPac 52.

Lion: In the past, we had a 24’ sailboat, a Shark 24, on our lake, but we didn’t really sail a lot.  I grew up on the harbor in a holiday area, so I was always connected to boats and the water, but never really connected to sailing.  I mostly learned on this boat.

What have been your favorite places so far?

Lion: For me, a highlight was Fernando de Noronha.  These three days were really nice because we rented motorbikes to tour the island.  The nature there was really nice, expensive but a really nice place.  In Brazil, the Carnival in Recife was amazing – this is something I would like to do again.  And the neighbor city to Recife is Olinda, and there the Carnival is really original.  Everybody was nice, everybody was in a good mood.  It was something really crazy, the spirit there.

We also rented a car and drove 5000km, all with Fixi, through the north of Argentina.  That was also really nice – the red stone deserts and Iguazu.

And Patagonia, the loneliness was something really nice.   Three months with no internet, no connection at all.  The nature was something I had never seen before.  The glaciers are so quiet and powerful.

Overall, the whole journey has been a highlight.  It hasn’t been what I expected, but it has helped me a lot.  In the middle, I thought maybe it was a bad decision to miss school, but now that I’m at the end I realize it’s helped me so much.  The development I’ve made, especially in the last half year, was a really big step in my life.

Christof: The Brazilians were so amazing, and it’s a pity that we didn’t have more time there.  We were invited in the first seconds to have a beer – they are so friendly and so helpful.

Ursula: Rio de Janeiro – five minutes and I was in love.  One really exciting thing for me was at a glacier in Caleta Eva – there was a glacier hole and we were standing under the glacier looking up through it.  You were surrounded by the glacier, and the blue color made it one of the most exciting parts of our trip.

How has trip been different than expected?

Lion: First of all, we weren’t ready mentally.  We all thought it was going to be like an easy holiday trip, more or less.  We didn’t expect that it is also so much life.  Living on a boat is not a holiday – it’s just life.  It has its ups and downs, and I didn’t expect this would be so hard.  We, especially I, thought it was going to be easier.

I recognize now that sailing isn’t that nice for me.  The sailing part isn’t necessarily the fun part for me.  When the boat is moving really smoothly, it’s really nice, but the sailing part isn’t so special for me.  But seeing the different cultures, the different languages, is unbelievable for me.  I’ve spent one year now in South America, but the people here are so nice.  In Europe, the people aren’t nice and aren’t welcoming.  When you are on holiday you are just another tourist there.  Here, the people are happy to see new people, are interested in you, and are proud to show you their country.

What do you enjoy most about traveling by sailboat?

Lion: I like having fewer disturbances around me, so I can focus on what I want to do.  One year ago, I would have said that I liked living just day-to-day, sleeping long, but now it’s to be on a journey and to see new things every day.  To see different mentalities, it’s really good thing for me.

Christof: I love the quietness – there’s no phone.  No need to hurry up.  I always love sailing at night – this is one of our best experiences.  When we were crossing from Greece to Italy in the Strait of Torrento we had a completely windless calm night, and suddenly the stars were reflecting from the sea and it was like we were floating in the middle of the universe.

From the cruising life, we have a lot of rules when you are leaving and entering a new country or place.  But when you are out there on the ocean, when you are sailing, you are completely out of range.  It’s only you – nobody tells you what to do, where to go, what to have, what to look like.  It might be dangerous, because I can imagine after a time it could be hard to come back to civilization with rules.

What do you miss from living on land?

Lion: The freedom.  This is an unexpected answer, but I miss the freedom to just be able to get off the boat and go to a supermarket at any time.

Ursula: But it’s not even the supermarket for me.  It’s just the freedom to stop.  While cruising, you are always in the situation that you have to first take care of the boat, and the sailing, and the weather, and the sea.  You are not able to say today I don’t want to.

To me, the biggest lie is that sailing around the world is freedom.  It’s not freedom, it’s not.

Lion: For some people, sailing is really freedom.  I don’t feel it as freedom.  It’s something really great, but it’s not freedom.  People say that freedom is having nothing to lose, but when you are on the boat the fears of losing are bigger so it’s not more freedom than in a house on land.

Christof: For me freedom is not being able to go to the supermarket in 10 minutes!  That is a prison for me.  It’s easy to tell you what I like about the sailing life, but it’s more difficult to say what I miss from land.

For sure, some social contact.  Like here in the channels in Patagonia, three or four weeks with no contact or communication, I miss the family.  My children, my parents, and all of my family.

How has it been cruising with a cat?

Lion:  For me, it’ great; I have someone to talk with!  Seriously, he’s really a lifesaver and the friend I don’t have.

Ursula: Easy.  I had a lot of pre-information about rules.  In Brazil you have to have vaccinations, and this and this and this.  In Uruguay you have to a health certificate.  But when we arrived, we found that no one really cares about the cat.  Even here in Chile, the customs officer came onboard with a dog – we told him that we had a cat on board and he just asked that we put the cat away so that he dog could come onboard.  Nobody cared so far in South America, or Canaries, or Italy.  It’s absolutely crazy.

On the other hand, it’s not so easy to travel outside of the boat with a cat. It’s difficult because you can’t leave the boat as easily.

Christof: It’s different when you’re off the boat because he’s a cat, not a dog.  If he walks away, you can’t just ask him to come back – you have to wait until he wants to.  He always comes back, but when?

Ursula:  For the sailing, he doesn’t like it if it’s too loud or too rough.  He sleeps in some deep place on the boat.  But Fixi has always been a cool cat – he has not always been a strong cat or a brave cat, but he is a cool cat.

Is there anything we didn’t ask that you’d like to say?

Lion: Sailing around the world is not like people think.  It’s so much different, and there are so many difficult things included and it’s not as much fun as people are thinking.  I don’t say that sailing or traveling around the world is not nice, but it’s nice in a very different way than most people think.

This is something important for people to know, because we didn’t know.

Ursula:  Lion and I don’t have the sailing virus.  When you don’t have this virus, the experience is completely different because you have no joy while you are sailing.  It’s just a time to go from one place to the other – when you have luck it’s a good time, and when you have bad conditions it’s really s*&% for you.  This is a really, really big part of the trip.

Christof: I’m different.  I’m living on a sailing boat, and sailing at night watching sailing videos on YouTube, learning about how other catamaran sailors are solving problems!  I’m infected, of course.

Ursula: You are not infected, you are dead of the sailing virus!

Lion: Starting a journey like this, you have to be careful.  We planned well enough, we organized everything and haven’t had big problems, but we didn’t think enough about whether we really wanted to do this.  When sailing for you is not the whole world, you have to be careful with the decision.

All photos courtesy of Hamaka