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Travel Grit is long-form conversations with ramblers, roamers and free spirits — adventurers who have crossed continents on horseback, sailed solo around the world, and traveled thousands of miles by mule. Hosted by Bernie Harberts. For bonus episodes, Q&A sessions, and more from the world of Travel Grit, check out the companion show Gritty Bits.
Autogenerated transcript. May contain errors. Refer to the audio for accuracy.
Index
Building Bris in his mother's basement — (00:00)
Getting the boat out: a door frame and a canal — (01:28)
First sail, meeting Jannike, and heading north — (03:14)
North Atlantic gales and surviving on burned meatballs — (08:21)
Self-steering Bris without autopilot or wind vane — (10:26)
Jannike's seasickness and crossing the Doldrums — (13:04)
The Bris sextant: navigation down to three grams — (19:30)
Tristan da Cunha: teaching math and the compass — (32:52)
The European Boating Directive and the death of small boats — (42:40)
Upcoming 14,000-mile voyage and life philosophy at 86 — (1:08:14)
Sven Yrvind (00:00): The first boat I built in the basement was the first Bris. I started in midsummer 1971 in the evening.
I asked my mother if I couldn't build a boat in the garden in the backyard. But the town planner turned up and asked if I had permission. And I said, well, we live in a free country. You don't need permission to build a boat. And he said, what would happen if everyone built a boat in the backyard?
So I asked him what would happen if everyone was a town planner here in Gothenburg. So he got angry.
Bernie Harberts (00:38): Ha!
Sven Yrvind (01:28): When my mother got home from work, I told her about that man. Then she said, Sven, build a boat in the basement instead. And then in the spring, we dug a canal out into the backyard, and then took it out that way. So I built it cold-molded. And at that time, we didn't have epoxy. The glue was phenolic glue and it was not gap-filling. So it had to be very precise. But I built it and took it out.
Bernie Harberts (02:02): How long was Bris?
Sven Yrvind (02:11): Twenty feet. Like six meters.
Bernie Harberts (02:14): And how wide?
Sven Yrvind (02:17): It was narrow. 1.7 meters. Less than six feet.
Bernie Harberts (02:26): How did you take it out? Did it fit through the door?
Sven Yrvind (02:31): There was the door frame. Had to take down the door frame, and there were steps down to the level, and we had to take the steps out, and then we dragged it out. And then finally, I rigged it and started sailing south to Brazil and Argentina. I thought, this is just Cape Horn and then out into the Pacific.
Bernie Harberts (03:04): Take me back to when you first left. Did you have crew? Were you alone?
Sven Yrvind (03:14): I sailed down through Denmark, Germany, Holland. But there was some problem with the boat because I didn't use epoxy — we didn't have it. I had a centerboard and it started leaking, and it was kind of top heavy too. So I thought, I must do something about it. And when I was in Holland, I met a girl.
Then we kind of decided, and then I went back to Sweden to borrow a car and trailer. And when I was down there in Holland, I looked her up, but she was gone. I asked her friends — no one knew where she was. Well, it was a bummer. So I drove back by myself and I thought that was sad. But then when I came back with the boat and the trailer, I opened the door to my mother's house and there she was.
Bernie Harberts (04:27): She was chasing you and you were chasing her. That's great. What was her name?
Sven Yrvind (04:31): Jannike. She was called Jannike.
Bernie Harberts (04:41): So she's at the house, you're there — she wants to go sailing with you. Then what happens?
Sven Yrvind (04:44): She knew nothing about sailing. She was a strange girl. Just like me, she had to be kind of strange. So we decided to sail up the Swedish west coast to Norway. But just sailing between Sweden and Norway, she got so terribly seasick. I said, this won't work out. So I left her there, and she went back to Holland. And then I sailed out across the North Sea — Orkney and Shetland — out into the Atlantic. North, then down to Madeira.
Bernie Harberts (05:58): Why did you go north to get to Madeira, which is southwest?
Sven Yrvind (06:13): You see, the English Channel is not a good place for sailing. A lot of headwinds, a lot of traffic, expensive harbors. I come from a sailing family and my grandfather sailed on the square riggers. He said, when we sail out, we always sail north of Scotland. When we came back, we sailed through the English Channel. You've got sea room up there. In the English Channel it's narrow, there's a lot of traffic, shallow water, breaking seas, fog. The current is against you and the wind is against you.
Bernie Harberts (06:50): Sven, you sailed north up towards Iceland, really?
Sven Yrvind (07:21): Exactly. And I met a lot of headwinds. So every time I got headwinds, I tacked westward. And I kept going week after week. This was 1973. I was much younger — like 35 or something. The wind and the current were against me, so I had to drive her hard. It was a bit banging. Week after week after week. Kind of tiring. But you just have to do it. Just like a soldier — one hour at a time.
Bernie Harberts (08:21): Sven and his twenty-foot boat were way up in the North Atlantic, just off Iceland. That is a brutally stormy part of the ocean. Every couple of days you could have big gales coming to 35, 40 knots of wind, just blasting Sven and Bris as they tried to get to Madeira. Here's how Sven dealt with those big North Atlantic gales in his little twenty-foot, six-foot-wide Bris.
Sven Yrvind (09:03): One day the boat was hit. And when I looked up, the log line had made one full turn around the whole boat.
Bernie Harberts (09:11): The log line was wrapped around the boat. She would have rolled 360 degrees for that to happen.
Sven Yrvind (09:14): Yeah.
Bernie Harberts (09:18): In those gales — 35, 40 knots — where were you? Lying in your berth?
Sven Yrvind (09:26): Always in my bunk reading. Or sleeping. There are two positions: reading or sleeping. And of course a bit of eating and looking out sometimes.
Bernie Harberts (09:41): What did you eat in those gales?
Sven Yrvind (09:44): I had very little money to buy food. And a food shop had caught fire, and they were selling out all these burnt meatball tins. So that's what I had.
Bernie Harberts (10:11): Burned meatballs. For months at sea.
Sven Yrvind (10:22): But I got thinner and thinner. So when I got to Madeira, I was very thin.
Bernie Harberts (10:26): This is the 1970s. No autopilot, no wind vane. How did you get Bris to steer herself?
Sven Yrvind (10:42): Going upwind is kind of easy, but going downwind is very difficult. When the wind comes in, the boat heels over and the center of effort moves outward — the boat moves up into the wind. But you have to balance it, trim the sails so the wind leaves them, and that decreases the pressure. When it's not heeling so much, it falls off. So it's kind of oscillating movements, but the oscillation is smooth. It's like a clock.
Bernie Harberts (11:30): Going downwind — which is very hard to self-steer.
Sven Yrvind (11:34): Yes, that's the more difficult thing. I sheeted the jib flat. Had the mainsail out. You know apparent wind?
Bernie Harberts (11:53): Sure. In sailing, apparent wind is the wind created by the sailboat moving through the water. It's like when you run on a calm day and feel a breeze coming straight at you. That's apparent wind.
Sven Yrvind (12:14): When you go straight downwind, the apparent wind is very little. So the boat starts to go up into the wind and the apparent wind increases, so the speed increases. But as the speed increases, the rudder forces increase — with the square of the speed. So if you balance it very well, it brings it back.
Bernie Harberts (12:47): You left Sweden, went almost up to Iceland, then turned south to Madeira.
Sven Yrvind (12:54): After forty-five days I came to Madeira. But then Jannike came there — came back by airplane.
Bernie Harberts (13:01): Did you know she was coming?
Sven Yrvind (13:04): No, it was going to be a surprise. And then we said, let's try to see. From Madeira to the Canary Islands is not that far — like three days maybe. And if that works, we go for Brazil. And she didn't get seasick, to my surprise. So we were down there in the Canary Islands, stocked up with food and everything, and started sailing.
And then as soon as she got out, she got so seasick. She just had the most iron will to fight it off. She didn't eat anything for one day, two days. She didn't eat for one week. She didn't eat for two weeks. She didn't eat for three weeks. And finally she fainted. I didn't know what to do. I thought she had died.
Bernie Harberts (13:48): At sea. In the middle of the ocean. Three weeks from anywhere.
Sven Yrvind (14:15): She didn't eat. And she fainted. I dragged her into the bunk. But slowly she came around. And slowly she could live a little bit.
Bernie Harberts (14:28): What was your experience like in the Doldrums?
Sven Yrvind (14:37): I'll tell you one interesting thing. I've been four times across the Doldrums. The first time was 1973. I had the trade winds. And then one day the wind was coming from the front — the sails were backing. So I sheeted around, and then I was straight through. There was nothing.
Bernie Harberts (15:10): That was it. Because a lot of times people get stuck in the Doldrums for weeks with no wind. You were lucky.
Sven Yrvind (15:27): Yeah. But the next boat — the aluminum boat — I spent one month in the Doldrums.
Bernie Harberts (15:33): A month in the Doldrums. What was that like? What did you do every day?
Sven Yrvind (15:39): Well, at that time I had a friend with me.
Bernie Harberts (15:45): Can you tell me what you did?
Sven Yrvind (15:47): No.
Bernie Harberts (15:51): GASP.
Sven Yrvind (15:52): But it was very nice and very warm. We swam a lot and ate a lot. I kind of liked it, except that it was very warm. Maybe like you, I'm not in a hurry. I think the Doldrums is a pain for people who are in a hurry.
Bernie Harberts (16:10): I'm not in a hurry, Sven.
Sven Yrvind (16:22): If you're not in a hurry, everything is fine.
Bernie Harberts (16:25): Sven wasn't in a hurry. He and Jannike and Bris crossed the Doldrums and sailed out the other side. Everything, to quote Sven, was fine. But then he noticed a funny feeling in his scalp.
Sven Yrvind (16:41): Well, it started kind of itching here in the head, and I found a little lice. It was itching.
Bernie Harberts (16:49): No!
Sven Yrvind (16:51): Isn't it itching on you? No, she says, nothing. It came more and more. Next day I asked her — no, no, nothing there. And then after a few days, I looked and there were millions of little lice there.
Bernie Harberts (16:58): You guys got lice!
Sven Yrvind (17:18): And they have little eggs. They glue these eggs on the hairs. They don't fall off. That's how they live.
Sven Yrvind (17:31): I think we got it on a bus on the Canary Islands somehow.
Bernie Harberts (17:38): There's a beautiful passage in your book. You wrote: "We had now settled down to life at sea. Land and civilization seemed far, far away. After two weeks, we felt like the dregs of society had settled. Life was concrete and present. The horizon of time was not longer than yesterday and tomorrow. Here in the trade winds, history seemed to have stopped." It's a beautiful passage.
Sven Yrvind (18:10): Yes. I think this is what I like. It takes about one week, and the body gets used to different muscles and things like that. But after a month, the mind is clear. All these things floating around — it's like a filter, it clears. And like I said, it's like yesterday and tomorrow, and you just live between them.
Bernie Harberts (18:40): When you're at sea like that, describe your spirituality.
Sven Yrvind (18:48): I don't think I have any spirituality. I'm very interested in thinking about everything — all kinds of problems. It can be mathematics, physiology, how the body works, how the stars work. It can be my inventions. Did I tell you I invented the smallest sextant?
Bernie Harberts (19:17): Tell me about that. It's like a prism, am I correct?
Sven Yrvind (19:30): It's not bigger than a nail. Very small — just three grams. Sailors usually have the noon sight. But you could also have a fixed angle like one hour before noon and one hour after noon. In that way you get two lines of position, and with two lines of position you get a fix.
Bernie Harberts (20:02): So with a noon sight, you're looking for the highest point the sun reaches. But with your sextant, you're taking two sights — one before noon and one after — and crossing those lines of position.
Sven Yrvind (20:27): You get a fix.
Bernie Harberts (20:30): Two lines to have a fix. With a noon sight you only get one line. I've always wondered how that worked.
Sven Yrvind (20:35): I'll tell you something more. With a very fixed angle sextant, you look through and you see the sun coming up, getting closer and closer to the horizon. Just as it touches the horizon, you time it. Then it passes the highest point and comes back, and you're ready for it. But my sextant — I have three glasses in it. You get double refraction, quadruple reflections. You've got three bright suns and five dim suns. You can take the upper limb of the sun, the lower limb. The same in the morning and the same in the evening. So you've got 48 possibilities.
But the real secret is this. There are three things connected: the height of the sun, the angle, the position, and the time. If you know two, you can calculate the third. So with my sextant, there are no numbers on it — nothing. The first time you use it, you calibrate it. You're in a known position. You know the longitude and latitude and the time. You watch the horizon. Just when the sun touches the horizon, you time it. You know your position and the time. Then you can calculate the angle.
Bernie Harberts (22:39): The lower limb touches the horizon.
Sven Yrvind (22:42): Or upper, or the center. And then you can calculate the angle. The next time you're at sea, you know the angle and the time. Then you can calculate the position.
Bernie Harberts (23:02): Did you get rich on it?
Sven Yrvind (23:03): Maybe I'd get rich on it. But it was too late. I sold a few. Some people were interested. And you know, down in Antarctica there is an island called Yrvind Island.
Bernie Harberts (23:22): Really?
Sven Yrvind (23:15): You can look it up on Wikipedia — Yrvind Island. There was a group of mountains and islands named after navigational instruments. And my sextant is a navigational instrument. So they named it after me.
Bernie Harberts (23:22): That's beautiful, Sven. So how did you get the name Yrvind?
Sven Yrvind (24:01): Lundin is quite a common name in Sweden. I was born Sven Lundin. But you know, with a common name, there are always some bad people with that name. In Sweden there was a man with an oil company who went to Africa and killed the natives to extract oil. I didn't want to associate with that. And another one was a Nazi. So I thought, well, I'll get my own name. If I do something good, I get credit for it. If I do something bad, people can blame me. And on the internet, it's easy to find me. There's no one else with that name.
Bernie Harberts (25:04): Give me a rough idea of how you navigated on Bris day to day. What is a log line?
Sven Yrvind (25:17): It's a little propeller. But after a long time, ghost barnacles started growing on it. After a month I pulled it up and it was very thick with barnacles. So I stopped using it.
Bernie Harberts (25:37): Barnacles growing on the log. I've never heard of that.
Sven Yrvind (25:49): The first time I made an ocean passage — 1969, down to the Canary Islands and then to Brazil — I used the log line. But I found it really easy to estimate the speed. Sometimes it's quicker, sometimes slower. If it's three knots, it's a bit slower, if four knots, it's faster. And when you do the running fix, you multiply the distance from the first sight to the other. I didn't really need the log line.
Bernie Harberts (26:38): You just used your celestial sights, your paper charts, and your dividers to get a fix.
Sven Yrvind (26:43): Yeah. And estimated it. If it goes fast, it's like 110 miles. If it goes slowly, maybe 60 miles. After a few months you know the boat, you know how fast you're going. You don't really need it.
Bernie Harberts (27:07): So you and Jannike get to Brazil. Then what was the plan?
Sven Yrvind (27:20): Around Cape Horn and after that the Pacific. But we stopped in Argentina. Sailed south — 38 degrees south or something like this.
But then one day, a wave hit the boat on the side and capsized us. It was in the daytime. Water was coming in through the ventilators and through the hatches. Jannike had been near a hatch with the tools — tools were thrown, my books went straight up to the roof, insulated with styrofoam, and you could see the mark of each book hitting it. Somehow I got things in order.
But a week later, we got hit by a terrific wind. Very strong. I didn't worry so much because when a wind comes suddenly and hits you hard, it's soon gone. But this wind just kept increasing and increasing — really, really blowing very hard. All the sails came down. I put out a tire as a drogue to slow it down, but then we pitch-poled.
Bernie Harberts (29:11): To slow you down.
Sven Yrvind (29:18): The stern went over back. And in the evening, I was sitting there and saw from behind a really big wave. I thought, here we go again. But this boat Bris — she was a really good, very seaworthy boat. She kind of rode it up.
The same had happened north of Scotland. One night it was very dark and I heard the wind increasing. I thought I must go up and reef. When I was standing in front of the mast, I saw a huge breaking sea coming from behind. I thought, this is going to hurt. So I put my legs around the mast, my arms around the mast and held on. Then the wave hit, and the boat took off like surfing — you could see the rooster tail behind her. But she went straight. No one at the rudder, no self-steering. Just straight. Then the wave was gone and I finished the reef and went back below. When I lay in my bunk, I had pain in my back — so hard had I been holding on with all my might. She was really a good boat.
Bernie Harberts (30:48): She didn't broach sideways to the wave.
Sven Yrvind (30:55): No. Just tracked straight. But after the capsizing, the pitch-poling, and with Jannike — I thought, I must build a new boat. But this was far away from my mother's basement. So I started heading east with the prevailing winds. And there was this little dot on the map — Tristan da Cunha. I heard they had a volcano and some people living there, but I didn't know if there was a harbor or water. Anyway, I headed for it. There were people living there and I was lucky to get there on a good day.
Some people came up and lifted the boat up. They said, are you shipwrecked? No, we're not shipwrecked. We're trying to find out about everything in the world. Well, you've come to the right place, they said.
They don't have a harbor there — just a landing place. They have open boats that they put in the water and then lift back up. And my boat had just three feet of draft — I could get into that landing place. And by chance, they needed a teacher of mathematics.
Bernie Harberts (32:51): They got the right person.
Sven Yrvind (32:52): I was teaching the children mathematics, and they gave me food. It was very interesting to live there because they were so isolated. I was the first sailboat ever to land there.
There is no landing place, no harbor. A ship comes twice a year with supplies. That landing place could only be used sixty days a year on average. It could be very calm, but then there would be breakers — wild, like you see in Hawaii.
Bernie Harberts (33:59): Tell me about the boats they used to go to the outer islands — Ascension and Nightingale. Why did they go there?
Sven Yrvind (34:10): These boats — they found driftwood. It was like a canvas canoe. And they covered the boats with mail bags and painted them waterproof. In the springtime they went to the islands for penguin eggs. They collected the eggs, preserved them — you can preserve them for a long time. They made cakes and everything from those eggs.
Bernie Harberts (34:58): So they sailed to the islands to get penguin eggs.
Sven Yrvind (35:04): Yes. Penguin eggs.
Bernie Harberts (35:07): How did they navigate from Tristan da Cunha?
Sven Yrvind (35:09): They could see the islands. But the British didn't want them to be independent, so they never taught them the compass. But I did teach them that.
Bernie Harberts (35:30): These islanders didn't know how to use a compass? How did you teach them?
Sven Yrvind (35:42): I showed them the compass. And we went out to a field and I put down a peg and said, this is Nightingale. Look here — the compass is pointing that number for that island. And then I put a blanket across their head so they could only see the compass. And I said, now walk in that direction and keep that number lined up. And so they understood the principle.
Bernie Harberts (36:28): So if the bearing from Tristan da Cunha to Ascension was 120 degrees, you'd take them out in the field and say, walk 120 degrees and you'll get to this post.
Sven Yrvind (36:46): Exactly.
Bernie Harberts (36:50): So Sven, you introduced not only navigation but mathematics to Tristan da Cunha.
Sven Yrvind (36:56): And then — at one time one man had forgotten his rifle on the island, so they went back to get it. But then the fog came, and they got lost at sea for five days. They didn't know where they were. But Tristan is 2,000 meters high — you can see it from 90 miles away if you're lucky. Often it's like a cloud around it too.
Bernie Harberts (37:41): So for making landfall with celestial navigation, you just needed to get close and have decent weather to see Tristan.
Sven Yrvind (37:49): If it's decent weather. Sometimes when I went from Rio de Janeiro to Mar del Plata in Argentina on Bris, I knew I was close by the sextant. Every hour I got a new shot of the sun. I plotted — I was just a mile or two away. I couldn't see land. But I could kind of hear cars. And then suddenly, around noon, I could see two big skyscrapers.
Bernie Harberts (38:34): From the boat! From Bris!
Sven Yrvind (38:36): Yes. And then it cleared up more and I could see the cars driving and I could see the beach.
Bernie Harberts (38:59): This has always fascinated me, Sven — the difference between being at sea with GPS versus celestial navigation. How does it feel different to find an island without always knowing exactly where you are?
Sven Yrvind (39:30): In the trade winds it's okay — the sun comes up every day. But when I sailed around Cape Horn, it was in June, the middle of winter. At noon the sun is only eleven degrees above the horizon.
Bernie Harberts (40:01): So if you held your hand up to the horizon, it wouldn't be much higher than the width of a hand.
Sven Yrvind (40:07): Exactly. When you want a fix, you want it to be at a right angle if possible. But when the sun is that low, the lines are nearly parallel. And down near Cape Horn there are strong currents — sometimes up to four knots. And it's cold. It's like 56 degrees south in winter.
Bernie Harberts (40:37): Would you get ice on the boat?
Sven Yrvind (40:38): Not real ice, but snow. You have to stand there with your sextant. You can't wear gloves. You stand there for a long, long time and your hands freeze. And then you can just see the sun coming through the clouds and you have to be very quick. The waves are high. When you're on top of a wave the boat heels over and you have to swing the sextant. That was the most difficult thing. It's a bit romantic, this with sextants. But I like to be safe.
Bernie Harberts (41:22): What are some of the biggest differences between sailing fifty years ago and today?
Sven Yrvind (41:34): It was so much fewer boats around. In 1969 I was in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands — just a handful of cruising boats. And in 1973 when I came to Madeira with Bris, at one time it was just two boats. Just me and another little boat — an Englishman who had built his own boat, also about twenty feet.
Bernie Harberts (42:32): Why are people not sailing small boats as much anymore?
Sven Yrvind (42:40): Money. And because it's forbidden. There's something called the European Boating Directive. It's forbidden to sell ocean-going boats smaller than about nine or ten meters. You're not allowed to sell one unless five years has passed — because they think no one can make a business building a boat, waiting five years, and then selling it. I think this law came in around 1990.
It came about because France is the world's biggest producer of recreational boats. But boats were cheaper in the US, so a lot of people went to the US and bought sailing boats. The Europeans didn't like that. So they said, we must make a law. They didn't say that directly, but that's what they did. And at the same time, they made a law requiring bigger production boats.
One of my good friends was on that committee. The boat builders' union sent lobbyists to Brussels saying these small boats were not safe, they needed a standard. And then I think around 1996 it became a rule. And now they upgrade it every now and then.
Bernie Harberts (45:34): You could go anywhere in those small British boats — the Fishers, the Westerlies — but I don't see them being built now. Is the Directive one of the reasons?
Sven Yrvind (45:39): Yes. And also, I used to write for Cruising World a lot. I became a friend of the owner and editor, Murray Davis. He told me many things. He said more than half the money comes from advertising. One time I saw a boat in the Azores — an old rusty thing that had rotted in, and a man had died in it because he had run out of food. I took a picture and wrote a story and sent it to Cruising World. They wouldn't publish it.
Bernie Harberts (46:30): Why?
Sven Yrvind (46:32): They said it's not good for yachting. It should always be happy — no bad things should ever happen. And a friend of mine who wrote for Sail Magazine — they asked if he had photos. Yes, sure, good photos. Sorry, we cannot use them. Why not? You have no shoes on. Because of the Sperry and Docksider brands. All the photos in the magazines must have shoes on.
Bernie Harberts (47:09): From Tristan da Cunha, Sven sailed to St. Helena, Guadeloupe, and wound up in Newport, Rhode Island. Newport is home to Cruising World, one of the first magazines dedicated to cruising under sail.
Sven Yrvind (47:23): Cruising World was in Newport. So we phoned them. They came down and said, write a story for us. No, I said, I cannot write. I'm dyslexic.
Bernie Harberts (47:38): Being an undiagnosed dyslexic in the 1940s was really hard for a kid, even in Sweden.
Sven Yrvind (47:46): It was hell. Pure hell. Because it was the 1940s and people didn't know about this. First day in school, the teachers started beating me. I didn't understand like the other children. The other children saw the teacher beating me. They said, wow, that's fair game — and they started too. But I was pretty strong. You have to give up or you have to fight back. So I fought back.
My kind of dyslexia — if I hear a thing, it's got long connections, like a tree with long roots. So it takes a long time and a lot of energy to learn a new thing. But once it's there, like a tree with long roots, it's very secure — it draws nourishment from many ways around. That's how my mind works. It takes a long time. People with dyslexia are late blossomers. But once it's there, I can work out problems so quickly, it's incredible.
I think I got this from my father. Different thinking. I never saw my father. He was a seaman. On the 15th of January 1940 he left with his ship and I never saw him again — the English sank the boat in Hong Kong and he died there.
Bernie Harberts (49:52): Eventually Sven graduated high school and joined the Swedish military, which was mandatory at the time.
Sven Yrvind (49:58): But then I had to do the military service. First day I got there, I tried the shoes on and they didn't fit. So I told the man there, these shoes are no good for me. He said, you take what you got. Well, I said, if I'm going to be a good soldier, I need good shoes. Okay, he said, I'll deal with you later. So I came late.
We had to dress and put on the uniforms, but I was not ready. So the sergeant got angry. He started shouting. And then I remembered the first teacher in the first year of school beating me. So I started fighting back.
They had drills — airplanes coming, throw yourself down in the ditch. I did it, but very, very slowly. And he got more and more angry. And then one day we went to rifle practice. We got six bullets. I was interested in weapons — I had an air gun. So I aimed well, relaxed, and fired right in the middle. Next shot, right in the middle. Every one, right in the middle. And of course, they didn't believe me.
Speak louder, he said. I spoke quieter. And he said, do knee bends. I said, my knees are not good. Well, the doctor has to decide that. So they sent me to the doctor. He came out smiling. The doctor said it was something called Morbus Schlatter — a condition with the knee. You have to be careful. But then he said, you have to lie in the sick bed. There's nothing wrong with me. He said, this is an order.
I was there one day, two days. I understood it was a punishment. After a few days I said, this is not in order with the United Nations conditions for human rights. So I decided to leave. When the others went to sleep, I opened the window, crawled out, put on my civilian clothes. One of the boys woke up. I said, go back to sleep. And then I climbed over the fence and hitchhiked up to Stockholm.
Bernie Harberts (53:33): So Sven's enjoying his newfound freedom. Everything's going great. He's cruising around and then he's taken into custody for deserting the Swedish military. He goes to a hearing where the judge tells him he's got to report to jail. Sven says, judge — and I'm paraphrasing — it's really nice, it's summertime. Can you let me serve my time this winter? And the judge says, okay. And turns Sven loose.
So Sven's back on the road. He heads down to Germany. He works as a cook on a boat hauling Russian nuts to England. He gets to England, and then towards the end of the year, when the weather starts getting colder, he decides it's time to head back to Sweden to serve his jail time.
Sven Yrvind (54:27): Came December, so I hitched back to Sweden and went to the police station and said, I'm wanted — you can put me in jail now. They wanted to be kind to me. It's Christmas now, we can do it after Christmas if you behave. No, no, I said. I like to be in there at Christmas because the food is better and everyone is kinder.
Bernie Harberts (54:38): It's winter. Lock me up.
Sven Yrvind (54:59): So I came to this prison — the army one. It was not such a serious crime. It was like a prison without walls — you just had to stay. But they wanted me to work. I said, this is prison — I'm not going to work. And they said it's mutiny.
Bernie Harberts (55:11): You didn't murder anybody. You just didn't do what you were supposed to.
Sven Yrvind (55:26): Now we're going to put you in the high security area, they said. And now you're going to meet the worst criminals in all of Sweden. There are killers. There are dynamiters. There are robbers. You're really making a big mistake. So I came there. They wanted me to work there too. I said, I'm not going to work here. So they put me in an isolation cell.
Bernie Harberts (55:30): No! Jeez!
Sven Yrvind (55:56): I said, that's okay — I'm just sitting there thinking about very interesting things. After a week or two, a nice man came knocking on the door with a white coat and a paper in hand. He said, you've caused us a lot of problems here. You have only one choice. You sign this paper — you're a psychopath — and then we let you out.
Okay, I said. That's a good deal.
Bernie Harberts (56:35): What kind of psychopaths did you meet?
Sven Yrvind (56:39): One was a killer — very interesting, very smart. And he was a Nazi. He'd been in the Hitlerjugend. This was not far after the war — just 1959. He had killed a communist. So it was a political thing. And then there was the bank robber. He didn't like to go to work, but somehow he had to find money. So he decided to rob banks. He was very quick running. He chose a bank on a hill — downhill, you couldn't drive there. He got out of the bank with the money and ran down that hill. No one could catch him. But anyway, he got caught eventually. He was not very practical.
Bernie Harberts (57:34): Nobody could catch him. So what did you learn from a psychopath?
Sven Yrvind (57:45): It was very interesting, especially the Nazi. He was a very smart, very educated man. He taught me many things about books and philosophy.
But at that time I was also thinking about society. Everyone wants to make money and build bigger boats — not only boats, but making money on the stock market. I didn't think it was a good thing. I could never get the education, I realized that.
So I decided to start living on a small boat. I was born on a small island in a house just fifty meters from the water. To do the shopping, I just had to row across to the next island. So I knew how to handle small boats. I got a little boat, made a little house on it, sailed to a town, went to the library, got a little money to live on. And then I sailed south and ended up in Copenhagen.
One day I walked around and saw a Seaman's Library. And I already remembered what that man in the prison — the killer — had said to me: Sven, never do as I did. Never rush a thing. Every time you've got a problem, go to the library, read a book. There are books about everything. The smartest people in the world have written these books. If you want to learn French, there's a book. If you want to build a radio transmitter, there's a book. If you want to know about life after death, there's a book about that too.
So I went to this Seaman's Library — the Danish merchant navy supplied ships with books. And I think the man in charge must have been very interested in books because they had all kinds of very interesting books. I came there every day, sitting there reading. And in the end I realized I must learn more mathematics — because that's what yacht designers need. I needed to know calculus.
Bernie Harberts (1:00:48): So Sven hunkered down at the Seaman's Library and studied mathematics and engineering, then sat in on lectures at a nearby university. Over time, he learned enough about math and sailboats to design his own. At the same time, he spent his summers sailing on very small boats. And then in his early thirties, he built his first sailboat from scratch in his mother's basement.
To jump the story forward — Sven arrives in Newport, Rhode Island on Bris, having just completed this incredible voyage from Sweden to South America to Tristan da Cunha through the Caribbean. And Cruising World says, write us an article. And Sven says, I really don't write well — I'm dyslexic. This really bugged Sven. After this extraordinary experience on Bris — a boat he had designed and built himself — he wasn't able to translate that experience into an article for Cruising World.
Sven Yrvind (1:02:04): I said I can't write anything like that. But then they said, just write a letter to your mother telling what's happening. And at the office, we've got editors. They fix everything. And you get paid. But there must only be 1,500 words — an article has to fit in the magazine.
So I started writing. But I ran past 1,500 words. So I phoned and said, I've run past 1,500. You have to cut, she said. Well, I already cut. No problem, she said. I'll come down and do the cutting.
Bernie Harberts (1:02:44): It was hard.
Sven Yrvind (1:02:57): So she came down and started reading. This is good writing, she said. She read a bit more. She looked at me. I think you've got a future as a writer, she said.
Bernie Harberts (1:03:13): Wow.
Sven Yrvind (1:03:15): What we'll do, she said, is come back to the office in the afternoon and we'll make this into a series — Cruising World comes out every month. So I started writing first, then second, then third. When the third was done, they wanted more. And I kept going. That's how it started.
Bernie Harberts (1:03:38): That's how it started.
Sven Yrvind (1:03:43): They read it in France and wrote to me — they had first North American rights. So I just tore out the page and sent them a letter to France. I got paid once again.
Bernie Harberts (1:03:58): How did the trip end? How did you get home?
Sven Yrvind (1:04:03): There were many parties. And one day I got to a party and there was a man called Dick Newick. Another man there was called Tom Follett.
Bernie Harberts (1:04:13): Dick Newick is a multihull designer. Tom Follett was a sailor who won a race across the Atlantic Ocean in 1968 aboard one of Dick Newick's multihulls.
Sven Yrvind (1:04:26): I had read Dick Newick's book about the boat Cheers. And then later I found out he had said to Dick, you need a man like Sven to help you build boats. So I met Dick at the party and he said, Sven, wouldn't you like to come work for me on Martha's Vineyard? Oh yes — I had read his book, I was very interested. And I'd been a member of the Amateur Yacht Research Society since the 1960s. So I knew about many of those things.
Sven Yrvind (1:05:19): So I came there and worked for nearly one year. And then in March I sailed back to Sweden. From Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, I sailed to Horta in the Azores. From the Azores to England, from England to Sweden. And the North Atlantic can be rough. So the boat capsized once again.
Then I started building the aluminum boat.
At that time I had very little money. I had three dollars when I came to the US. When I got back to Sweden I had about five or ten. But there was a lot of interest because not many had been sailing like that at the time. I had been capsized and pitch-poled. I'd been to Tristan da Cunha. I'd been to the US. So the media was writing about me and I was on TV.
And then the sailmaker who had given me sails for free said, now we're going to have a big party — come and give a talk. So I gave a talk and everyone was happy. Afterwards he gave me 500 kronor. I said, I cannot take money from you — you gave me the sails. No, you take the money, he said. So I took it.
Bernie Harberts (1:06:58): How much would 500 kronor be now?
Sven Yrvind (1:07:01): Like $2,000 or something now. That's a lot of money. Especially if you don't have anything.
Bernie Harberts (1:07:04): To go from five dollars to two thousand is a big jump.
Sven Yrvind (1:07:14): So other people started asking, couldn't you come and give a talk at yacht clubs? Yes. And how much do you want? I said 500 — because that's what he had given me. And then more people came. And I thought, well, I could take a bit more. And then I made a lot of money, for my standard.
Bernie Harberts (1:07:42): Giving presentations about the Bris voyage.
Sven Yrvind (1:07:44): Yes. From 1976 to about 1996 I've been living on that, and also writing six books. But now it's going downhill. When I get to New Zealand, I think it'll get better again.
Bernie Harberts (1:08:08): So tell me about your upcoming voyage. Your new boat — how long is it, the name, what's different?
Sven Yrvind (1:08:14): In fact, this boat I designed thirty-five years ago with the help of a yacht designer in Gothenburg. I sold some drawings — maybe ten or twenty boats were built. They were built very well with divinycell and epoxy and polyester fiber, same as you have in sail cloth.
About a year ago I saw on the internet — Boats for Sale — 2,000 kronor. I thought, I cannot buy this, but at least I can phone and speak to him a bit. 2,000 kronor is very little for such a good boat. So I phoned him. And I thought quickly: I'll send you 10,000 kronor and you come down here with the boat. So I bought it. And that's what I'm working on.
Bernie Harberts (1:09:33): So the boat you have now is a boat of your own design that you're updating for your next voyage.
Sven Yrvind (1:09:42): Yes. The plan is to finish it, put it on a trailer to Dingle in Ireland, sail down to Madeira, and then make a real long voyage. From Madeira it's like 14,000 miles sailing south — south of Africa, south of Australia — to Dunedin in New Zealand. Usually this cannot be done. But I study a lot. I've been reading about nutrition. I'll have almond meal, egg yolk powder, milk powder. And sardines — I'm going to have 500 sardines.
And I'm going to collect rainwater because my booms will be rainwater collectors. When it rains, it falls in the boom, runs down into a jerry can. I've been studying this — about fifteen percent of the time it rains in the Roaring Forties. I'll have about seventy liters of water. I drink about one liter a day — so seventy liters keeps me for about two months.
Bernie Harberts (1:11:17): Water is heavy. It would be too heavy to carry that much in a boat that size.
Sven Yrvind (1:11:23): Yes. And I've got 150 kilos of ballast.
Bernie Harberts (1:11:54): Lead ballast keel?
Sven Yrvind (1:11:55): Bronze.
Bernie Harberts (1:11:58): Bronze ballast keel. Why Dunedin, New Zealand specifically?
Sven Yrvind (1:12:04): When I get to New Zealand, I will write a letter to the EU in Brussels and say they have to change the law — decriminalize small boats. It's not unsafe. And it's as far as you can get from Sweden.
Bernie Harberts (1:12:12): That's lovely, Sven. So what do you believe now that you didn't believe when you were young?
Sven Yrvind (1:12:33): Well, it's about the same. I've always thought I could do anything. I've always been very positive. But of course I've learned more facts. I know how to use skills — I can work with epoxy and all these things. I've got a lot of practical knowledge and a lot of theoretical knowledge. I can speak English, German, French, a little bit of Spanish. I've learned a lot. And I can write now.
Bernie Harberts (1:13:14): How old are you now, Sven?
Sven Yrvind (1:13:15): Eighty-six.
Bernie Harberts (1:13:17): How do you stay in such good shape?
Sven Yrvind (1:13:20): I've never been drinking, never been smoking. I have a positive mental attitude to everything. I eat healthy — I eat once a day. And about four times a year I do a long fast — three or four days, maybe two weeks.
Bernie Harberts (1:13:44): How do those long fasts help you?
Sven Yrvind (1:13:48): You know, insulin is very dangerous. You get Alzheimer's and things. Have you heard about autophagy?
Bernie Harberts (1:13:58): No.
Sven Yrvind (1:13:59): When you're fasting, the body runs out of sugar and carbohydrates. It starts burning fat. But it needs more things. It's like in a workshop — when you run out of good wood, there are two pieces there. Maybe I can put them together and make a longer piece. There are a lot of small proteins in the body, like in skin and things. The body takes them and puts them together to make new proteins. Have you heard about mitochondria?
Bernie Harberts (1:14:42): Yes. But explain it again.
Sven Yrvind (1:14:45): It's what makes ATP — the energy currency in the body. But when they do that, they use oxygen, and oxygen kind of destroys them. But when you're fasting, the body makes new ones and cleans out the cells. This fasting — it's been around for thousands of years. People always knew it cleans out the body and makes health. But now, I think in 2016, a Japanese professor got the Nobel Prize for his work on autophagy. So now there's a scientific basis for it too.
And also exercise. I run half an hour every day. I do chin-ups and rings and exercises. And I bike one hour every day — to the workshop, back at lunchtime. I run, I eat, I do exercises, I bike back, I work in the evening.
But the most important thing is to have an aim. To have something you really want to do.
Bernie Harberts (1:16:16): On these really long passages, what do you do to keep your muscles from atrophying?
Sven Yrvind (1:16:26): The boat keeps moving constantly. The body is very adaptable. The upper body gets stronger, the legs get weaker. But I'll do a little bit of exercise.
Bernie Harberts (1:16:41): What does land feel like when you've been out for sixty or seventy days?
Sven Yrvind (1:16:47): Nowadays I use a stick for the first week.
Bernie Harberts (1:16:53): Why?
Sven Yrvind (1:16:55): My legs are weak after seventy-eight days not using them. But the body is wonderful — it rebuilds. If you don't use it, you lose it. And that's how it should be.
Bernie Harberts (1:17:16): Why do you prefer a rope to hold up your pants instead of a belt?
Sven Yrvind (1:17:21): It's very simple. Rope is all around you. And you don't need holes in it — it stretches as much as you like.
Bernie Harberts (1:17:32): Is there anything else you wanted to add?
Sven Yrvind (1:17:38): I think the important thing is to have something to live for in life. To have something to live for — that's the important thing. That keeps you healthy. That keeps your brain working. Every day I work on the boat. I have all these little problems and I solve them. In the evening I look at it and say, well, that's a good thing. And when I'm out running, I think, how to do this, how to do that. You're occupied all the time. And if you're not — you rot away. You have to have a purpose. That's the thing.
For more stories of long riders, sailors, ramblers, adventurers, and dreamers finding their way, visit TravelGrit.com.