It has been during a delivery from SAN DIEGO California, to HAWAII, when skipper Philip Johnson and his crew experienced some electrical problems. Sea was getting rough and a wave hit the boat and skipper has been hit whilst working in the galley. He experienced serious inner bleeding. Decision has been made to rescue the crew and abandon the boat, due to the fact that the rest of the crew was totally unexperienced.
The yacht however arrived on its own more or less without damage at the beaches of Honolulu just 3 weeks later. The boat will be rescued for her next life at sea.

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BROKEN HEART – LUCKILY NOT

CHICAGO january 1998. Deep winter, minus 25 Grad Celsius, snow white town all over.

I just built up my Windpilot equipment for CHICAGO BOAT SHOW – NAVY PIER – and accepted some icecold days driving back and forth between hotel lobby and the Convention Centre, always aware not to fall into depression.

Compared to Chicago the Boat Shows in Oakland, Ft. Lauderdale or Miami making considerably more fun as tempertures are somewhat better to say the least. Super yachts being exibited in Miami in deep frozen halls to avoiding stress for material and visitors. Cold is cool, at least in America´s Southern part. Continue reading →

Hello Peter,
I have just completed my circumnavigation and am back home again. After my Atlantic circuit (10.000 miles) I sailed 30.000 miles round the world. Only failure on the windpilot was the worm wheel which was replaced in Oman. The windpilot was among the best pieces of equipment on board. kind regards,
Douwe Fokkema HR Monsun 31

The first ARC, in November 1986, attracted a lot of nice people but also some strange ones. Among them was this tall German guy going around the marina dragging behind him a large tool box on wheels and doing maintenance and repair work on selfsteering gears. In those pre-autopilot days, 95 percent of the boats had wind vanes so I could see that this busy man was doing excellent business. He later dropped by the office and introduced himself.
“I’m Peter Förthmann of Windpilot.”
“I noticed you working on all those gear and doing good business too.” I replied.
“Yes, I can hardly cope, especially as I decided to service both my own and any other makes.” Continue reading →

Durban South Africa November / Dezember 1998. Ich war für ein paar Wochen im Land, um die Einhand Reise meines Freundes GEOFFREY HILTON BARBER vorzubereiten – keine einfache Sache, denn Geoff war blind – wollte dennoch einhand mit seiner Yacht nach Australien segeln. Aber, das ist hier nicht die Geschichte, die ich erzählen wollte.
In der PEAK MARINA lag auch ein unscheinbares Schiff aus Deutschland, die SV Glory von Susanne Huber-Curphey, die einhand unterwegs gewesen ist. Allerdings nicht wirklich alleine – denn ihr Mann Tony Curphey – war ebenfalls einhand unterwegs – auf seinem eigenen Schiff – gleich nebenan.
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