Planning to Sail Around the World Solo

Three years. A longer preparation phase than the planned duration of the actual plan: Sailing around the world. Over roughly the last three years I’ve prepared myself and the boat to sail solo around the world, taking the long and rough route around Cape Horn and through the wilderness of Patagonia. Below I want to give an overview of how I approached this from scratch.

Chapter 1: The Dream

I’ve been sailing since my childhood. My dad also sailed since his childhood, and that fascination transferred to me in my early years. I got my first sailing experience on a lake in Austria where the sport of sailing is common. That was on a Zugvogel, a dinghy mainly built to learn sailing. Soon I began discovering books about offshore sailing and especially sailing around the world. That was when the dream of doing something like this myself one day entered my mind and didn’t leave.

About three years ago, at the age of 15, I began taking this dream seriously and working on expanding my knowledge of sailing. To be honest, I didn’t have much clue about anything back then. I specifically remember, when my family and I were on vacation in the Italian Dolomites (surprise, as an Austrian I grew up in the mountains) and I had a book about a solo circumnavigation with me which I read every time it was possible. One night, looking up at a nearby summit, I made the final decision to dedicate my life to that dream. Over the next three years, I aimed everything towards it. Spent way too much time studying all different kinds of books, calculating navigational exercises until my head began to smoke, and especially looking for a boat that was capable of something like this.

Chapter 2: Preparing for a Journey Around the World

it took me the next three years to acquire the necessary knowledge, get the licenses, and turn that dream I had years ago into a solid plan. One thing I learned during that time, which wasn’t easy, is that you have to believe in your dreams and manipulate yourself into actually thinking you can make it. There will always come something in your way which will make you lose hope. There were many moments or whole weeks where I just wanted to screw up that dream because it seemed impossible. But that is exactly the point of it. It’s just like in a video game. When you meet opponents you know that you are on the right way to finish the game. Real life isn’t much different. When it gets hard it’s a sign that you make progress.

Chapter 3: Finding a Route

The original thought was to follow the standard route along the equator, through the Caribbean, crossing the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean. Then I started reading about the legendary Cape Horn and the vast wilderness of Patagonia. Soon the plan changed to taking a more remote route. Rounding Cape Horn and sailing through the wild fjords of Patagonia before returning to the classic route along the equator in the Pacific Ocean. Then visiting the Pacific Islands before approaching Australia and crossing the Indian Ocean to South Africa. The last leg then leads us back to the Canary Islands where we will cross our original course line again.

Chapter 4: Preparing a 47-Year-Old Boat for 31,000 Nautical Miles

A part of the plan that I underestimated was preparing Wolf, a 47-year-old Dehler Optima 92 to sail around the world. The great thing was, that she already had a solid foundation and is very robust. The other thing that my dad and I soon discovered was the electrics which showed their age. Wolf had three pre-owners and every one of them changed a few things up here and there and added new stuff. This ultimately resulted in absolute chaos and looking back, I’m honestly impressed that most of the electronics worked when we transferred her from her old home port in the Baltic Sea, along the Frisian North Sea coast to Lelystad in the Netherlands, our current homeport.

The following two winter seasons my dad and I ripped out all the old electrics and built a new system from the ground up. The second winter I broke my arm during a ski tour-crash back at home in the Alps and had to work on the boat with a plaster on my arm. That was…a game of nerves. The weather in the Netherlands during the winter months also isn’t anything else than horrible. Cold, lots of rain, just uncomfortable from every perspective.

After two winter seasons, two weeks of work each, it was finally done. Then a refit of the interior followed and small things here and there. But all in all, Wolf now had a perfectly working electrical system and slowly became a boat, on which you could live for a longer period.

Chapter 5: Experiencing the English Channel

In the summer season of 2023, I undertook a solo voyage from the Netherlands down the English Channel to the Channel Islands and back to the Netherlands. Most of it nonstop, around 1,000 nautical miles. Underway I encountered many technical problems and had a chance to get to know Wolf and myself better. One year earlier, at the age of 16, I crossed the North Sea solo from the Netherlands to Lowestoft in Great Britain and back. At night I encountered gale-force winds and got my first taste of solo sailing. But it was great and encouraged me to follow this path.

To be Continued…

This was a summary of the last three years, from 2021 to 2024 of working towards this dream of sailing around the world solo. But the adventure has just begun. I still really can’t believe it and catch myself smiling while writing this, but in a few weeks, we will start our 31,400 nautical-mile journey around the world.

Thank you for reading through all of this and if you want to know more details about the plan, check out the YouTube video I made below.