A new Flying Dutchman is on the high seas, on a voyage to the source of the wind: built to disappear and reappear, to become a legend, and to pass through many hands. Every part of this unmanned vessel bears instructions for those who will find it: people are asked to repair and improve the ship and put it back on course.
Why should they bother?
They do. Since years. Not for money, not for an unknown expedition leader – but why then? That’s one of the questions of this expedition…
The swarm lives and grows. Again and again the Winged Canoe is spotted – each time in a changed form. And more and more often, coming closer, it turns out to be a new one…! The most incredible vessels - fantastic bamboo constructions built on islands and even on fishing boats, with sails from fish skin instead of epoxy airfoils… some bigger, some smaller, but all on the way to where the wind comes from, steered and driven by wind alone. Some make mysterious music, others glow at night…
Imagine to find such a jewel in the middle of the ocean, no, don’t imagine
- come with us and meet them in person!
Windvinder is a seafaring challenge. A challenge to everything that has always remained the same – the suggestion of a new possibility... And this is exactly what this journey is about: this pull from beyond the horizon.
What makes us move? What drives us to push back our boundaries, further and further, beyond what is necessary or even seems possible? Why do people risk their lives to reach the North Pole, or the moon? Nobody would want to live there.
But what then do we want?
Windvinder does not travel from A to B; he is on a voyage to explore what drives him, towards the source of that invisible power that keeps his wings moving.
A hole in the known world - that’s where the wind comes from.
The expedition On the Track of the Windvinder heads out to wherever the swarm was last seen – a growing family of unmanned and mysterious vessels underway to the origin of the wind. Most sightings are reported from somewhere between Oceania and Alaska… People with adequate sailing experience are welcome to join this expedition; please apply at info@windvinder.com
With a beautiful classic sailing yacht rebuilt into a traveling wind laboratory, we follow a sparkling trail of ideas that known and unknown Windfinders leave behind on the islands. We are NOT trying to retrieve the original ship – the Winged Canoe is underway in the unknown and that’s exactly what it is built for. (It is light as a feather, by the way, don’t worry about meeting it at sea. You can push it away with one hand. Sailcloth filled with wind…)
Following reports of sightings, we sail from island to island, visit construction sites and finders, gather stories, rumors, songs and sketches... fragments of encounters of the growing swarm of Windfinders with the makers of their life journey.
These stories and encounters will be made into a book.
Documentation and reconstruction is one task of our expedition, repairing and improving wrecked members of the swarm another one. Above all we do what most people do who ever see a Windfinder: take that inspiration and do something with it. Turn headwind into propulsion, that’s the challenge… We build new, life-size and seaworthy Windfinders wherever we find the opportunity – together with the people of the islands and the material of their shores and legends.
All kinds of sails, wings and fins, flexible boat hulls that move like a fish - almost everything can be made from bamboo, driftwood, fishing line and skin... The newer generations of Windfinders need no more wind turbines and ship's propellers, no gear box, metal or machines: no shipyards. Driftwood beach instead… All the more imagination and careful observation of nature sits in them. More and more they learn from birds, fishes and marine mammals - and become creatures of the sea themselves.
WILL YOU JOIN US ?
A few weeks, some months, or a couple of years on the classic sailing yacht THOR, on an expedition between the past and the future, to the edge of the known world…
We will travel for years, from one island to the next. We analyze pilot charts, weather forecasts and storm reports to reconstruct the possible route of the swarm – but we have to react flexibly to everything we hear and find. Set course from one rumor to the next, chasing a winged canoe which looks different every time and is sailing where the wind comes from: beyond our horizon. That’s where we want to go!
The expedition On the Track of the Windvinder goes from the North Sea to the North Sea, with a detour around the world.
We have new stays and sails, but don’t worry, we won’t tack around the world against the wind to meet a fleet of unmanned ghost ships. While a Windfinder moves upwind all his life, we just sail downwind! Luckily the world is round… we will meet them on the other side.
For more details, please contact us.
We make this voyage to connect finders, findings and ideas, and work out new ways of how to sail to where the wind comes from. You can learn a lot here, if you want – just as the original Winged Canoe is underway to evolve from a quite mechanical vessel with gearbox and propeller to a creature that’s perfectly adapted to the ocean and the wind.
Driven by headwind means: every wreckage is just the next step in the evolution, giving hints on what should be changed, inviting to try out new solutions.
On our way we develop new means of propulsion, and an experimental way of building boats from what we find on the islands, derived from the traditional boats of where we sail – mainly the canoes of Oceania and kayaks of Alaska – but pointing into the future: where the wind comes from. Fast and flexible constructions, able to learn. A tuna, an albatross, a sea lion… – how do THEY that? Move so easily. We study wings and fins and flexing bodies, in the ocean as well as in the library on board; build boat hulls that move like a fish, wings in the air, changing form all the time.
You can build a strong boat like an icebreaker – or like a sea bird...
Welcome in this crazy laboratory, traveling where wind and water meet.
You don’t have to be an artist, nor a scientist, to join this project. But you should be interested to find out more (or share what you know) about aerodynamics, hydrodynamics and biomechanics of swimming and flying, about traditional Pacific boatbuilding and oceanography.
We need creative, enthusiastic and seaworthy people, curious and keen to experiment, happy to explore the most remote islands.
Please don't forget: a real ocean is a real ocean...
What you need is real (offshore) sailing experience – and what WE need are MEMBERS OF THE TEAM, no passengers.
Everybody participates in everything here: sailing the ship across the oceans, analyzing pilot charts, making contact with natives, doing research and experiments. A lot of diving, watching nature, cooking great meals and telling stories by the fire…
Do you still want to come?
Then write now, and find out where and when you can join. 
contact
If you can't join the expedition, but you think it's a wonderful project and you'd like to support it: All donations are gratefully received! Bank link Expedition to the Origin of the Wind : Wipke Iwersen, IBAN: NL22INGB0008196221 BIC: INGBNL2A |