About

Tonga was launched in 1960, Longkeeler, Centrecockpit, Ketch (Wishbone-Rigg in the old days), Composite – Larch planks on Oak frames, Plywood-strips diagonal and Fiberglass on the outside from the beginning, Mercedes OM352 with 120 HP, 22 Tons, 14.52 m (before I re-built the stern section that is) by 3.45 m beam and 2.20 m draft.

We’ve done quite some sailing together and after taking care of me for so many years it’s now time for me to take care of her. What started as a “simple” repair turned into a complete re-build. It’s still a long way to go and as I’m doing that mainly on my own it takes even longer. Plus: I’m not a shipwright nor a naval architect. There is a lot of learning involved, manual skills I never needed and developed in my former life, and a lot of research (e.g. I’ve got 8 books on wooden boatbuilding by now and read them all). I’m super-lucky to have found the Wooden Boat Forum with people from all over the world restoring, building and repairing wooden boats and helping each other (http://forum.woodenboat.com/). And I have friends with whom I can exchange ideas or just ask about a technique or whatever. We will get there, I know. And we will sail the oceans together again to continue our voyage. But it’s not gonna happen tomorrow, nor the day after. 2 more years for sure!

On the third day it was raining. Pretty heavy actually. I was on my way up the ladder (Tonga on the Boatyard) and he was sitting on my mizzen-mast wet to the bones. We looked at each other and I thought no, you deserve better! Down the ladder, took him in my arms and carried him upstairs. Needless to say: within less than a minute I had a loudly purring Tiger in miniature-format in my bed, dripping wet of course!

Apart from being great company he turned out to be a pretty clever little lad. No problem with the nearly 4 m long Aluminium-ladder, whenever something escapes my notice he makes sure it doesn’t, whatever is going on outside when I’m asleep he wakes me up to find out if it’s okay, he plays the Building-Inspector with stuff I’m working at, he cheers me up when things go wrong … and yes, sometimes he’s got to remind me that it’s long past bedtime :-D!

He’s now Tonga’s first mate and super-proud when I put him in charge of the ship. In the boatyard that is.

I’ve got a sister and 3 nephews, both parents in their mid 80s.

And the sailing-bit? The whole lot started on a remote Island in Thailand not far from the border to Vietnam in ’87. I didn’t want to go back but managed to convince myself with the promise of leaving my job early and from then on only go traveling at my own leisure without any time-pressure or commitments, stay when I want to stay and leave when I want to leave. 3 months later I was back in Thailand, this time on the west-coast. Tiny place, one could only get there through the underground-garage of a huge hotel (the King’s Yacht-Club). I had a little hut on stilts on the hillside between Palmtrees, overlooking part of the beach and the reef. The place was kind of a homebase for travelers. They would come from India, leave part of their luggage there and go to Indonesia, come back and head for Papua New Guinea, Tonga, the Philippines or wherever.

Two sailingboats were anchored in the bay, one American who had lost a leg in a Motorbike-accident, the other one British, both singlehanders (for non-sailors: that’s people who sail on their own). Whoa, that is the way to do it! I’ll have my own roof over my head, my bed, a cooker and space for some stuff. I don’t need to carry anything around with me and I even can be close to the sea!!! I instantly started to make a plan, stopped all birthday-presents which would not be eat- or drinkable, got serious about saving money for a ship, and started reading whatever I could get my hands on concerning sailing and living on a boat. Mainly to prepare myself for the skills I might need and understand the difficulties I would have to face. Coz, the beautiful beaches etc. I already knew where to find them :-D!

2 years later my neighbor asked if I would like to join them, he had chartered a boat for 2 weeks in the Baltic. Of course I wanted to! It was my first time on a sailing-boat. She turned out to be a replica of a fishing-boat from Hamburg/Germany, 25 m with bowsprit, gaff-rigged, woodburning-stove for heating etc. (I just checked, she still exists, Maria Af Van Hoff, but I lost all my pictures from before 2006). We would anchor close to small islands and row over to collect firewood, the weather was crap and ugly nearly all the time, my hips and ribs were black from the tiller kicking back, but I absolutely loved it! What, this is sailing? Why has no-one ever told me about it?

Guess you can imagine that from then on ships and sailing kind of took over my life, ending up chartering boats in Turkey and elsewhere, and short after my 34th birthday I bought Tonga. By this time I could have sailed any boat to the end of the world, but I didn’t have a clue about maintenance. It doesn’t work like this, you’ve got to be able to fix whatever comes along – and more. Learning never stops, which is beautiful!

Years later I found out that my Great Great Great Grandfather or so owned a fleet of 5 ships trading with China, has been to Fiji (my mum still has music-instruments and lots of stuff he brought back from his trips) and many other places. He and his ships were lost at sea and from that moment on the sea was off topic in my family. Seems they managed to keep it that way for generations till I came along. Well, never mind. I’m Dody by the way.

One more thing for those who had the patience to get this far down the page: This website is about stories, all of them true. Although the subject is somewhat different it’s still for fun, entertainment, whatever – like in medieval times when the storyteller came along, found a house where people would welcome him, the whole village would come over in the dark and cold winter-evening, a fire burning, and he would start talking. Talking of what happened in other parts of the country, stories of old times and and and. In these days there were no newspapers, no television and no smartphones either. People were just happy to listen. These storytellers had no such thing as a schedule, and the same is true for me. I will only write the moment I enjoy it.

I have no commercial interests whatsoever, so just relax and enjoy to hear (read) of something different from a 24/7 lifestyle. Although I will try, by accident I might use terms unknown to you. In this case please, don’t hesitate to ask, and, even better, to ask in a comment directly next to the article so other readers with the same problem can see the answer straight away. We’ve got to stick together with these things!