The Captain's Gone
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I just found out that my old friend Robert Adair has died from complications of cancer. He lived aboard his trimaran EPICURUS in Bonbonon, Philippines.

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Sometime during the "Wirtschaftswunder" Robert Adair left Germany and started a boatbuilding yard in Canada. He fell in love with multihulls early on but developed a serious ulcer and on his doctor's advice took a break from his business. Said break consisted in Robert building the 36' trimaran TANYA in only 10 months. He then sailed it to the Caribbean and when his money ran out, Robert started doing charter business. Apparently this new life-style suited him, for he never went back to run a business. Instead he crossed the Atlantic numerous times, as he chartered out his TANYA in both the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. He didn't have any electronics, in fact, he had no electricity on board. No engine, either.

When modern times caught up with the Caribbean and tourists started arriving in ever-increasing numbers, Robert and his American wife Jerry went through the Panama Canal into the Pacific to explore new sailing grounds. Enroute they acquired a small seven-horsepower diesel engine - but it took many years until it was finally installed. They were also given an old echo-sounder, which got installed after Robert scraped across a coral reef somewhere.

The next few years were spent sailing the South Seas and finally TANYA arrived in the Kingdom of Tonga, where Robert started designing and building racing canoes for the king. Robert used modern CAD techniques and built the canoes (which hold 42 rowers) with very thin marine plywood and epoxy resin.

In 1987 I showed up in Tonga. I was going to buy a small sloop, but the seller reneged on the deal. Fortunately I ran into Robert, who was going up to Vava'u to see the race and join the birthday celebrations for the old king. At that time he had spent almost 20 years living on boats already. When I stepped aboard TANYA, it was actually the very first time I set foot upon a proper yacht as opposed to a sailing dinghy. I had read everything about sailing I could lay my hands on, had bought a sextant and was eager to try things out for real.

We hadn't even left the harbor when I got violently seasick. It may have had something to do with the exorbitant amounts of beer I had drunk at the farewell party the night before. And as soon as we were out of the harbor, Robert went below to sleep and left me to figure out how to sail a 36-foot trimaran.

When later I peeked into his cabin, I noticed that it was absolutely packed with books on philosophy. That's also when I found out that he was in fact German, for until that moment we had only spoken English.

We had a pleasant sail up to the northern island group of Vava'u and became good friends in the process. I considered having a boat built by him. His quotation was more than reasonable, it would be a state-of-the-art catamaran and it would be where I wanted to sail it, namely the South Pacific. But in the end I opted for a second-hand boat.

It turned out that the king didn't have any money to pay Robert for his efforts, so Robert got an island instead. Pangaimotu is right in front of the capital Nuku'alofa and the Adairs built two houses and a boatyard over there. Very cool, very relaxed and very romantic living. A 15-minute ride with Robert's little motorboat and you were in the middle of town.

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Robert and I stayed in touch and when I was in the Amazon delta with my catamaran DHARMA BUM, I got a postcard from him requesting a parrot, "to complement my image of Long John Silver." Turned out he had lost a leg, grown a beard and a long gray ponytail. It didn't stop him from doing whatever he had in mind, though.

*****

Our trimaran DHARMA BUM II got hit by lightning while we were sailing from Tahiti to Tonga in 1995. We couldn't hear Robert because of the damage to our antenna - it had been turned to melted chunks of orange metal which rained from above - but apparently he could hear us. Thus it happened that when we limped without an engine past the reefs into Nuku'alofa, that Robert was there in a little dinghy to welcome us. I was in a really foul mood as I hadn't slept for days because of the reefs and suffered from a pounding headache. The joys of sailing...

Robert stepped aboard and asked what we were moaning about. He praised the boat and with him there, the whole atmosphere quieted down. His Captain Ahab style wooden leg didn't seem to be a problem at all. Later I found out that the modern ones just couldn't handle all the sand at the beach.

Robert proudly showed off EPICURUS, which he had designed and built all by himself. I actually sailed on the machine, and though there was jut the tiniest breeze, she promptly lifted one of her three hulls out of the water and took off as if a whole swarm of hornets were after her. I was more than impressed. Speechless. While Robert talked of his impending voyage to New Caledonia, Micronesia and Asia aboard that boat, I had my private doubts.

There wasn't only the wooden leg, you see. EPICURUS was equipped with a wing-mast, which operates on the same principle as the wing on an airplane. That's also one reason why she sailed so damn fast -- even without any sails at all on her. And unlike sails, you can't easily take the mast down when you run into really bad weather.

We left Robert and Jerry to sell our boat for us and I was quite surprised when I found out that they had left Tonga. I got one eMail from New Caledonia - so they had made it - and that was that.

*****

Until I surfed the net and saw his boat for sale. Robert only got to be around 55 years old. But I think one can say that he didn't waste much of his time on this planet.

I am still trying to contact his wife, Jerry.

Holg / KrautHolg / Holger Jacobsen http://tinyurl.com/23fww