The couple from Austria now reports on a decade on the cruise in a new series of lectures, which begins on Saturday, January 15th in southern Germany.
Their sailing career begins with a near-catastrophe: at the age of about 20, Claudia and Jürgen Kirchberger get caught in a storm off the North American coast, lose their first boat and barely escape with their lives.
But they gather new courage and put everything on one card: they convert a neglected steel yacht into their personal expedition yacht, rent out their house and devote themselves entirely to life at sea. Little did they know at the time that the journey would take a total of ten years.
Instead of touring along the barefoot route and enjoying the sweet long-distance life under the palm trees, the Kirchbergers fell in love with the cold areas in high northern and later southern latitudes. They experience the loneliest winter of their lives in Greenland, frozen in the ice. It follows the Northwest Passage en route to Alaska, where they spend another winter. It continues across the Pacific and through the South Seas. But palm islands and dream beaches are still not as appealing to the two extreme sailors as the cold, remote areas.
So, after a year in New Zealand, they set course for the roaring forties and the stormy road to South America. It will be one of the most challenging but also most beautiful ocean crossings of their entire journey. Eventually they leave Cape Horn in their wake and sail to Antarctica via the Drake Passage. There, after almost ten years, the decision follows to set course for home again.
When they cross the Atlantic from south to north on their way to Europe, the circle closes: they have sailed around the entire American continent. The Kirchbergers report on this journey of their lives in their multimedia lecture “To the End of the World”. Most of the events take place in Switzerland.
For one evening they report how they went from beginners to ocean sailors, how they dared to go to sea again and again despite seasickness, enormous physical exertion and fear of storms and how they put their desire for a self-determined life and great freedom into practice .
The adventures after returning home did not last long. In a long interview, which will appear in YACHT 3/2023, Claudia and Jürgen Kirchberger report on their most recent trip to Greenland, on which two off-road motorcycles were on board, and on their experiences on ten years of long-distance travel.