Salty Podcast: Sailing

Salty Podcast #46 | ⛵Sailing into History: Tania Aebi’s Iconic Circumnavigation at 18 🌍

• Captain Tinsley | Tania Aebi | Maiden Voyage • Season 1 • Episode 46

Share episode

Send us a text

Join me, Capn Tinsley as I chat with Tania Aebi, the trailblazing sailor who, at just 18, embarked on a solo circumnavigation aboard her 26-foot sailboat Varuna in the 1980s—navigating without GPS and changing sailing history forever. Live Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, at 6 PM CST. Podlink: https://tinyurl.com/SaltyPodcast46

Order Tania's books here:
Maiden Voyage:  https://amzn.to/3D7RCLh
I've Been Around:  https://amzn.to/3ZMlaXz

Tania Aebi’s journey, completed between 1985 and 1987, marked her as the first American woman—and one of the youngest individuals ever—to sail around the world alone. Her memoir Maiden Voyage continues to inspire sailors globally, illustrating her incredible story of resilience, self-discovery, and adventure. Details about her groundbreaking voyage and insights into solo sailing will be a must-listen for anyone passionate about the sea.

#SaltyAbandon #SaltyPodcast #Sailing #TaniaAebi #SoloCircumnavigation #SailingLegends

Support the show

SALTY ABANDON: Cap'n Tinsley, Orange Beach, AL:
Oct 2020 to Present - 1998 Island Packet 320;
Nov 2015-Oct 2020; 1988 Island Packet 27
Feb-Oct 2015 - 1982 Catalina 25

SALTY PODCAST is LIVE every Wed at 6pm Central and is all about the love of sailing!
YOUTUBE PLAYLIST: https://tinyurl.com/SaltyPodcastPlaylist

PODCAST TOOLS:
Livestream: Https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5430067749060608
Create AI Clips: https://klap.app/?via=SaltyAbandon

Capn Tinsley:

Welcome back to the Salty Podcast, where it's always a great day to talk about sailing, and this is episode 46. Before we begin, I ask that you please engage by smashing that like button, subscribing, sharing the video following, and please drop a comment below. It really helps the channel and I really enjoy engaging with you Tonight. I'm thrilled to introduce a true legend in the sailing world Tanya Abey and I hope I'm saying that right at just 18 years old, tanya set out on an audacious solo circumnavigation of the globe aboard her 26-foot sailboat Baruna. From 1985 to 1987, she braved the open seas, navigated without GPS and became the youngest American woman to complete such a feat by the time she returned to New York at age 21, she had not only made history, but also inspired generations of sailors with her courage, resilience and determination. Whether you're a seasoned sailor, an adventurer at heart or just someone looking for inspiration, tonight's conversation is sure to leave you in awe. With that, I bring you Tania Aebi. Okay, hang on, everything's moving slow and I'm going to bring her out. I really am. Boom, hey, tanya, hi, how are you? I'm good, well, good. We were having technical difficulties and we're just hoping for the best. Here I'm in the land dinghy, the Salty Abandon Land Dinghy, and the Starlink is not quite working up like I would hope, but we're just going to keep on going. But welcome, I'm so glad to finally talk to you.

Capn Tinsley:

I found where I first ordered your book on Amazon, and it was 2014, and I got my first boat in 2015. So I had read that and was very inspired by it, and I have. I have some questions that I have some things I want to ask you. But, um, where would you like to start? Okay, all right, all right, let's start with that suggestion from your dad that I remember from the book. How did that happen in 1987, 85, where you, you well, I'll go ahead and say it, he gave you a choice, right, you were having a good time, you were partying down 1984.

Tania Aebi:

Even so, how many years ago is that? Now? That's 40 years ago, oh oh my gosh, 1984.

Capn Tinsley:

that was a year. You're a year younger than me. That was a year after I graduated from high school and I was going to community college and your dad says you're going to get your life together, you're going to go to college or you're going to sail around the world. An unbelievable statement.

Tania Aebi:

Kind of yeah, I mean it was a conversation, it was something that we thought it wasn't. It wasn't in one, in one evening that we came up with the plan. It was something that evolved and I kind of it gradually happened. One thing after another worked out. Nothing got in the way of it happening, and then one day I was there out on the water and doing it.

Capn Tinsley:

So it wasn't the.

Tania Aebi:

Atlantic ocean, where we first had the idea when we were in a comp, and then we still crossed the rest of the Atlantic. We spent a lot of time in the Caribbean and then sailed back up to New York. There was a lot of time on the water and thinking about doing something like that, talking about it coming home and taking the first steps toward it. There was a lot of little steps that culminated in leaving New York Harbor and then, once I was on that boat, I had to keep going.

Capn Tinsley:

Did you just not want to go to college? You just always my mom had given me.

Tania Aebi:

That wasn't even. That wasn't. Even that wasn't. That wasn't like, oh, maybe I'll go to college. Oh, maybe I should do the pole. I wasn't, I was. There was no college plan at that point. Okay, school wasn't. I graduated from high school a year earlier an alternative high school to finish up as fast as possible. I wanted to travel, I wanted to get out into the world. I don't, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I didn't want to go to school. Just then, and um, this, this opportunity came up and there was just really no good reason to not do it.

Capn Tinsley:

And you had not captained your own boat, you had assisted him, you had crewed for your dad. Right, I was 18.

Tania Aebi:

How am I going to captain my own boat? I had to. I was going to have to do it the first time sometime, so you know the rationale was might as well make it part of the whole thing, all right, okay, so I might as well make it part of the whole thing, alright, okay, might as well do it while I'm doing it, and I did so.

Capn Tinsley:

I want to show this boat that you had, and when I look at it I'm like wow, went around, that's one of the things I had queued up, and now I do not. It's a 26 foot boat, contessa. It's a 26-foot boat, contessa. It's a small boat.

Tania Aebi:

It is a real small boat. Some 26-foot boats are well, many 26-foot boats are bigger in volume. This was a very small 26-foot boat, but also a very good one, very safe one, very well built one.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah.

Tania Aebi:

It's a beautiful one.

Capn Tinsley:

I looked it up and I don't know anything about that boat, but here it is, alright, that looks like a small boat. And I went back and listened um to the first chapter of your book, because it's been since 10 years since I read your book and and you, you had like huge waves coming across the atlantic, heading back to new york right in that boat with your cat, I don't know.

Tania Aebi:

arguably, it's better to be in big waves with a little boat than with a bigger In that boat With your cat, I don't know. Arguably, it's better to be in big waves With a little boat Than with a bigger boat. Oh yeah, just kind of riding it. I wish it was a little quirk. Things came crashing across the stern and the bow. She was a good boat, though. There was only one time Because I hadn't prepared properly, yeah, so it, it is.

Capn Tinsley:

It is a blue water boat.

Tania Aebi:

Oh yeah, there've been many of these Contessa's that have crossed oceans, gone around the world.

Capn Tinsley:

Wow, and there it is.

Tania Aebi:

Does it not have a mast in this picture? Where's this picture from? That's not when I owned it. That looks like a subsequent owner.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, well, I found it online, so it also there's a picture. Tell me if this is your boat with a different name.

Tania Aebi:

Nocturne. No, it's not my boat. My boat, veruna. My boat Veruna stayed Veruna until do you know what happened to her? No, she went through multiple owners.

Tania Aebi:

The first man I sold her to was fixing her up and wanted to retire and go sailing, and he did. And he got just as shy of the Virgin Islands and decided he would rather go home and be a grandpa. So he did. And he sold the boat to another man who wanted to go around the world too, but he had to sell his house in Detroit and that was right at the time when the Detroit market crashed. So the boat Veruna sat in his yard for a couple of years and his property didn't sell. And then he found a lady friend and had grandchildren and decided he didn't want to leave them either and sold it to another man in Maine who used her. He sailed her down to the Bahamas and back up and I actually met him finally for the first time right two weeks after he had sold her to the next owner and he'd gotten. He developed an illness so he couldn't keep her anymore and he sold her to this man down in Florida who had been in the merchant.

Capn Tinsley:

So what year, by this time is it?

Tania Aebi:

See 2016,. 2017 is maybe when, 2017-ish is when he sold it to the guy down in Florida and then that man planted he was Greek and he was going to take her back to Greece, sail her back to Greece. And one thing after he, he put stuff on her that no 26 foot boats meant to have. I mean, it's just doomed with all the water and the moisture and, um, he abandoned her a couple hundred miles, uh, west of Gibraltar and left her at sea and then what happened?

Tania Aebi:

Gone Gone. Maybe a Moroccan fisherman has her now. I don't know. I never actually maybe scuttled her. I didn't really want to know. I would rather imagine she floated and somebody found her.

Capn Tinsley:

I hope so. So Envy Intrigues says did you have any major mechanical failures while at sea? And what I remember is no engine going across the Pacific. That's what.

Tania Aebi:

I remember One mechanical thing on the boat and that was the engine, and it never worked. So yeah, I had plenty of those Feel really well. Also learned how to troubleshoot a diesel engine, which I did an awful lot of. Every time something broke, I'd have to learn about why it broke and how to troubleshoot a diesel engine, which I did an awful lot of. Every time something broke I'd have to learn about why it broke and how to fix it.

Capn Tinsley:

And well, um, at what point did it start working again?

Tania Aebi:

I can't remember, oh it broke it worked, broke it worked, it broke it worked. Just one thing after the other, I hit yeah it wasn't it wasn't reliable.

Tania Aebi:

And actually the next it wasn't just me, I mean, I was ignorant and I had to learn a bunch of stuff about maintenance and troubleshooting. But the subsequent owners, they had trouble. And then the one that sailed her down to the Bahamas ended up aborting his first attempt to go down there because of the engine, ended up aborting his first attempt to go down there because of the engine, got rid of it and replaced it with, I believe, a yan mark or maybe a beta. Anyway, that engine gave everybody trouble. She just wasn't right for the boat, that engine. Oh well, what was right? It was right so that I could learn about engines, but not right for reliability.

Tania Aebi:

Okay, well, I have to bring up and thanks to that engine I have PTSD with engines. I'm afraid of engines breaking all the time. My ears are always tuned on any boat to that engine sound making it. I don't want to hear it starting to falter or any any difference. I can't relax. It's almost with my car too, a lifelong fear of the engine braking on me Sometimes.

Capn Tinsley:

I just turn the music up when I'm on the boat. I don't want to hear it. So the thing that you were talking about in the book when you were going across the Pacific, that got my attention. I wrote it in the email to you when I asked you to be on the podcast. Do you remember? It was about the being in the moment oh, about the vegetables.

Capn Tinsley:

Cutting vegetables was that it, brushing your hair, making the soup, and I was like, wow, I can't imagine. Just you were just, you were really just because you had no communication, none right. No, just you had no communications prior to gps um, no little in-reach explorers, none of that. And so you had no distractions. So tell me about that, because I just, I just want to experience that once in my life. I, you know, I'm a realtor. I got my phone, I got social media, I got it. What's that like?

Tania Aebi:

Yeah, that was a real privilege to be able to experience that when I did, because in fact the world changed in the nineties. It's like, I mean, one could say one would go to sea. But even those races where they go around like way they did in the Golden Globe race, where they try to replicate that race, they still walk away. Cell phone, phone, whatever, you still have access to that in case of an emergency. No-transcript.

Tania Aebi:

Well, I interviewed Kirsten Newshaper and she told me about she had to pull it out, you know, to go rescue that guy that his boat sunk.

Tania Aebi:

Yeah, I mean, it's an option when you've got it, whether you have it locked away or not, if it's an option, it's an option. So you know that it's not the same Even if you don't take it out, you do get into the zone out there I did it was a zone I called it the void where just you're stripped of everything that you have on land, all the distractions, the sights, the smells, and time becomes weird, and space and everything, and you're really at. And the other thing that is special about being alone out there, without nothing, you are simultaneously and this is not something you can do really anywhere else is to be simultaneously the master of your universe and a speck of nothingness all at once. You can feel the immensity and your, your, your, your insignificance all the time. You're living with that. I was living with that, so sometimes I'd be carried off by the magnificence and my mastery of everything, and other times I'd be like this tiny little trembling thing of nothingness.

Capn Tinsley:

All of a sudden, you'd just be so aware that you're in the middle of this huge ocean.

Tania Aebi:

Yeah, sometimes it's overwhelming and sometimes it's pretty cool. Wow, it's the waves, the emotions, and I was a girl, I had my you know ups and downs, so sometimes I cried a lot and other times I felt pretty good. What made you cry?

Capn Tinsley:

Just feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm out here by myself, why would I cry?

Tania Aebi:

Just feeling like oh my gosh, I'm out here by myself. Why would I cry? Yeah, because yeah, no, because something happened, something broke, frustration, sadness, thinking about something that had made me sad, whatever you know what. I'd cry out of frustration and anger at something breaking why me? Why am I out here? And sadness and anger at something breaking why me? Why am I out here? And then, and sad.

Capn Tinsley:

Now tell me about the first leg that you, when you went from New York to was it Bermuda? Yes, and I, and again I read, I read this 10 years ago. I remember you were, you were trying to figure out the navigation thing of the time and I can't remember what it's called.

Tania Aebi:

The sextant.

Capn Tinsley:

No, I think it was. Was it radio beacon or something? Oh, the radio direction finder.

Tania Aebi:

Yeah, yeah, that was easy. The hard thing was the sextant. The radio direction finder works fine when you're within range to pick up the signal.

Capn Tinsley:

Well, I think you had figured that you were kind of lucky that you got there because you weren't doing it exactly right? Am I remembering that right?

Tania Aebi:

The sextant. I was having trouble with the sextant. The sextant was what I was supposed to be using to figure out my position and the calculations were not working out and I ended up just kind of using dead reckoning and the positions I got from another of the other boats I saw out there, the vhf. I had a vhf so if I came within range of another ship I could call them where am I?

Tania Aebi:

yeah, or a weather report or just a talk, but anyway I got within range of the radio direction signal emitted from Bermuda for 150 miles. So I had to get within 150 miles of it so I could pick it up, and then you just follow it in and it's a Okay, you get a line of position off of it.

Capn Tinsley:

That's a heck of a first leg a new york to bermuda yeah, it is, it can be.

Tania Aebi:

It's you got the gulf stream crossing and that current and the weather that you can get out there. It's. It's been the make it or break it trip for plenty of people who've set off on the voyages of their dreams. They get to Bermuda and they're like, ah, we're done. Then they go back.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, so is this somebody you know? Nice to see you Tanya what are you working on or doing now? Melanie Neal.

Tania Aebi:

Uh-huh, that was what was the name of the boat Sailing Mahina, or was that them? That was what was the name of the boat sailing Mahina, or was that them? No Tom Tom water, maybe I know. I know the name from boat shows and Cruising World.

Capn Tinsley:

I do too. Yeah, oh, it's Melanie. Is that Melanie Sunshine? Sunshine, is that? Oh, I feel stupid now. Anyway, she'll, she'll tell us what I'm working on and doing.

Tania Aebi:

Now I just got back from the library where I volunteer. I live in Vermont and I have two grandchildren now. I still do equal sailing. I still do deliveries. I manage properties. I, up until last year, spent the. Since 2019, no, like 2016. Up until last year, I progressively took more and more care of my dad. Until the last couple years it was pretty full-time. He had um dementia and he lived up the road from me so I was his we went full circle I was taking care of, melanie did the same thing.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, she, she's the boat girl. She wrote the. Did you read that book, the boat girl? No, yes, she grew up on the boat. Um, okay, uh, thank you, tanya, your book changed the course of my life. I'm now preparing my third sailboat to sail to the Bahamas for the first time. Oh, that's nice, all right. So I'm on my third sailboat too, so you inspired me too. I've had three too. Oh really, just three Plenty. Oh, really, just three Plenty. I started in 2000. I took my first lessons in 2011 and got my first boat in 2015. So I was a late starter.

Tania Aebi:

No-transcript no, like my age now. No, um, if I you know it was not the wrong choice, I'll say that, I'll say it was uncomfortable. I often wished I had a slightly bigger boat, but in the end that was the right boat for the job for me, because I was never overpowered by her and obviously she could do it. She was a good little boat.

Capn Tinsley:

Did your dad have something to do with that choice, or was that something you chose?

Tania Aebi:

No, he definitely had it. Yeah, he was my mentor, he was my leader, he was my dad. We went to the boat show and found her together. I mean I liked her too. We went on board and we're like, oh, this is a nice boat, it should be like this. I was comfortable with the idea of being on a small boat.

Capn Tinsley:

It was a new boat.

Tania Aebi:

She was new. She was built in Toronto, the factory up on the lake there.

Capn Tinsley:

And what boat show did you go to? The Annapolis boat show.

Tania Aebi:

That's where we found her. Annapolis, yeah, and then, after they showed her, she was on display at the Toronto boat show that winter, the following winter and then the following spring. In May we brought her down from Toronto to New York, where I got her ready in like two weeks. That's it.

Capn Tinsley:

Cool, okay, all right, the trip with your sons. Is that 2010?

Tania Aebi:

Oh, that was 2007. 2007 and 8. Okay, all right, so 2007 to 08.

Capn Tinsley:

And they were 14 and 17, 16. When?

Tania Aebi:

you started 2007. I could do the math right now, but Nicholas was, I can tell you. He was a junior in high school and Sam was an eighth grader.

Capn Tinsley:

Oh, here's Vanessa. Hey, vanessa, she was just showing me a picture of you. She just had it sitting right there when I brought up your name, vanessa. It's funny.

Tania Aebi:

I just found it, like last week, and I sent a copy of it to Jill. I was like, hey, look what I found. And it's still sitting here on my desk because I haven't put it away.

Capn Tinsley:

Well she has a picture of you and Jill and Tanya Vanessa. That was just wow. Like I said, oh, I know somebody that knows you, and she was like oh, there it is, there's Vanessa on the left there.

Tania Aebi:

With Jill in the middle and me on the whatever the right. I guess your right.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, With Jill in the middle and me on the whatever the right. I guess You're right, Okay, so I'm going to bring up a couple pictures of. Well, first of all, let's just let me flip through these real quick. There's the book and there's the second book. There it is 2005. I've been around. I put links to the books in the description, in Facebook and YouTube, so if you want to order these books, just click on those links. Now, when was this?

Tania Aebi:

That was on my third boat that was in Maine In 2017-ish, 2016, 2017, something like that, really. Mm-hmm and you don't have that boat anymore. I was going to keep her. She was a Contessa 32. She was the boat that I'd been dreaming about. While I was on the 26 for those, I kept thinking I wanted to have a 32, so I got a 32, and I was going to do some stuff with her, and then my dad's stuff happened. That got shelved.

Tania Aebi:

And then if you have a boat and you're not going to use it and live on it and be there all the time and I don't live next to the water, it was a hike to get to the water Are you going to get another?

Capn Tinsley:

boat eventually.

Tania Aebi:

You know, if the window presents itself again. Yeah, I'm not.

Capn Tinsley:

What's the story with the lost at sea?

Tania Aebi:

That's when I got back from, when I arrived back in New York, while I was crossing the Atlantic, the New York Post oh, the cruising world, the magazine I was writing for had given me this Argo satellite transmitter thing. It was this instrument that the solar panel emitted a signal to a station up in France. That then a satellite that sent the signal to a station in France so they knew where I was. It didn't tell me where I was, told them where I was, and so they would give the position to the New York Post and whoever else wanted it. As I was crossing and since it didn't really do anything for me, I didn't pay much attention to it. And there were days where the sail bag covered it or whatever. It just didn't get any sun, didn't send a signal. So the New York Post decided, after a couple of days of no signal, I was lost at sea. Oh my God.

Capn Tinsley:

I forgot about that. That's in the book, isn't it?

Tania Aebi:

I don't know. Is it in the book? I don't think so. The book ends, unless it's in the epilogue. I don't remember.

Capn Tinsley:

But I don't think so. The camera is all messed up. We're not looking at me anyway. Let's see. Is that the end of it? All right, I'm going to go to the newer pictures.

Tania Aebi:

I see the top of your head.

Capn Tinsley:

I know Everything's going wrong with all my stuff, my camera's on fire, so I think it's just hot. Okay, here we go. So here's your son.

Tania Aebi:

Oh, look at you. We found all these pictures Cool.

Capn Tinsley:

So tell us what's going on there. What kind of boat were you on?

Tania Aebi:

That's the boat that I did the trip with the boys in 2007, 2008. It was a De Villiers 36. It was a one-off. It was designed by a naval architect in South Africa who put the hull De Villiers hull it was steel and didn't finish it. It's another one of those three. Then he had a family and kids and didn't finish it and sold it to another guy who finished it and sailed it around East Africa and then let me see, and then he also then got the kids in the family and sold her to a, an American guy, who wanted to go around Cape Horn. So that guy bought the boat and fixed her up to go around Cape Horn and did, and then brought her up to the Caribbean and put her up for sale. And that's when I bought her. But she was a 36 foot steel boat. She was very nice. This is yeah, this is all on the trip shangri-la, shangri-la. I did not see the name. I bought her shangri-la where was this?

Tania Aebi:

looks like tahiti yeah, so this was it was great trip to have with the boys. My big thing was to have a ocean passage. I really wanted to have that experience with them and we did.

Capn Tinsley:

I think it was 32 days between. Panama and the Marquesas, which was really lovely, and see, I was always in the engine in that boat too, and you did half the trip with the boys, and then your husband did the other half. Right.

Tania Aebi:

Well, my ex-husband we took joint custody to see.

Capn Tinsley:

To have half of the school year with them. I had to give them also half, okay, so, and you broke them in. They were seasoned sailors by the time he got on the boat with them, right?

Tania Aebi:

Yeah, not only that, but I had a homeschooling program for them and they had really jammed with it and they were finished by the time Olivier took over. They were done with their year of school, so they started their summer vacation in.

Capn Tinsley:

February Nice, very nice. Now, where did you switch off? What point did you Tahiti? Okay, did they just love it, or what?

Tania Aebi:

Oh, yeah, well, in the beginning Sam the younger one wasn't really into it. He kept saying he would have an equally great adventure if I left him home to take care of the place on his own. When was he 14 or something 14? And then Nicholas loved it right away, from the very beginning. But in the end both of them loved it. They're both because of that trip. They were impacted pretty well. They both became marine systems engineers.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, they both work on ships. Now. That's a good picture right there. That's a good one of you. Oh, he's doing school work there, right? Oh, you're changing out something down there.

Tania Aebi:

That's the boys In the Tuamotus. They got their diving licenses and then we had to change the anode. So they got to borrow from the diving school all the equipment and they went down there and changed the zinc.

Capn Tinsley:

for me that's an old picture, is that from your first trip? Yeah, oh yeah, there you go, okay.

Tania Aebi:

That's with the boys, that's on the boat with them, that's coming back or going to Bermuda or something on one of the trips I do with every May, every June.

Capn Tinsley:

Not.

Tania Aebi:

May, june, and there's you today. A couple years ago and what?

Capn Tinsley:

where do you live? I mean, you live on this. Uh, you said something about going out and doing some farming, or something when you get your email.

Tania Aebi:

What did I say? I was going to go clean my chicken coop.

Capn Tinsley:

That's right.

Tania Aebi:

Yes, they're very happy chickens. Now it's getting gross in there. We live in Vermont, I live in Vermont.

Capn Tinsley:

All right. So, thomas Gutowski, can you describe solo sailing and your sleep routine? Yeah, you kind of sleep with one eye open. That's what you do.

Tania Aebi:

No, I just recently. I just did a delivery in November and we looked at marine traffic. For some reason we were just zooming out on the whole ocean and saw how many boats are out. If that were the case back then and I knew it I would have never slept. But back then, I think, there were fewer boats on the ocean and I kind of operated on the theory that the chances of being in the exact same spot as one of them were slim and there were fewer boats. So the chances were slimmer and I did get hit once but I just slept. I'm not preaching any kind of like seamanship here, but I slept.

Capn Tinsley:

In the cockpit or down below.

Tania Aebi:

Down below and then I could shine up from where I was, sleeping, up at the compass I could check to see if I was on course still from my bunk, and then I'd go outside. I mean, I was so close to the water anyway, I could just sit up in bed and I could see behind the whole horizon. Behind the boat I slept and I'd get up and look around, go back to sleep. The self-steering did it all. And I did get hit by a boot in the Mediterranean, but that was right outside of the Suez Canal and I was awake, wait a minute, what?

Tania Aebi:

did you get hit by A freighter, a boat that was coming in toward the Suez Canal and it was evening and I was awake and I'd gone down below for the time it took to try and boil some water for a cup of coffee and it came out. It was misty, so it came out of the mist pretty quickly and the Mediterranean is pretty.

Capn Tinsley:

The Mediterranean was probably the most crowded with shipping of anywhere that I'd been. So how bad was it? I don't remember that it was.

Tania Aebi:

I mean, it broke the forest day. I was able to replace it and keep going to malta, but um, it scared me is what it did. The boat was fine, veruna was so small, she was glanced alongside the hull of the other ship. It didn't actually make contact with the hull, but um, it scared me. I didn't sleep so well, I was pretty, I was. I made my biggest mistakes and I was the biggest, you know, physical wreck in the Mediterranean, just from not sleeping and not eating properly. And that was tough. The Mediterranean wasn't. Was was the hardest.

Capn Tinsley:

Uh and so, and what was your route from there?

Tania Aebi:

From the Suez canal. Um, it was. I stopped in Crete for a day to get more fuel, and then onto Malta and then stopped in Spain after another knockdown in some weird, awful little Mediterranean storm. I got knocked down and then I made it to Spain.

Capn Tinsley:

And then so you went across the Indian Ocean, up the Suez Canal, is that right? Yes, now, what was it like back then? It's real scary in there now because of the pirates. What was it like back then? Um, it's real scary down in there now, uh, because the pirates. What was it like back then?

Tania Aebi:

back then they still talked about pirates, but you were worried about pirates and little skips. Now they're high-tech pirates with big, fast boats and weapons. But no, now actually Sam on his ship. Last year, on his big container ship, they stopped south of the Red Sea in the Gulf of Aden. There, while the quants were figuring out if they should go around the Cape or continue on up the Red Sea, because of the Houthis that were attacking the ship coming up. And they ended up going up and they were fine, but it was a little. That was kind of stressful To have that kind of thing to worry about.

Capn Tinsley:

I just wasn't sure if it was like that in the 80s, I've never really thought about it. If it was the same way back then, yeah people.

Tania Aebi:

there were pirates, but, like I said, it was like a little Dow that came up to you. It wasn't some high-tech, high-speed boat with big weapons on it. I mean between the 80s and now it's become like a career Right, A business model.

Capn Tinsley:

Do you think it takes the same courage today as it did back then?

Tania Aebi:

sure, or just courage. You know what it's, it's the taking that first step, that and people do that all the time with whatever they're facing any big deal, that they're facing any big decision, any journey, you gotta take that first step and you just can't know what's gonna happen and how much the you know the world or the universe will help you out if you meet it halfway by already starting taking that first step.

Capn Tinsley:

So right, right. Yeah, that's a good point, because you know someone who's 30, 40, 50 and they just drop everything and and sail, sail, that's, that's a scary decision, that's you know, regardless, right.

Tania Aebi:

It's scary to do something. It's scary to do something where you don't know what the outcome is going to be. It's scary. It's scary to leave your comfort zone and it's a big deal. Everybody has to have some kind of courage to do that big deal. Everybody has to have some kind of courage to do that.

Capn Tinsley:

That's a good point. Here's somebody that I met recently. They're here in Key West. They saw the podcast I did with Vanessa and they decided they wanted to get an island packet. I have an island packet and they contacted vanessa and now they have an island packet 349 right here in key west that vanessa helped find. So they're asking what was your experience sailing prior to circumnav navigation?

Tania Aebi:

you have an island packet. That's what you said. Oh nice, what is it? A 32?

Capn Tinsley:

A 320. Now Mike Koontz has a 349. A nice one. He gave me a little tour.

Tania Aebi:

I think island packets are all pretty nice. That's a nice boat, it's a good boat and that's what Vanessa's selling. She's selling island packets.

Capn Tinsley:

Well, not exclusively, but she sold Mike Koontz. I'm sorry I'm. She sold Mike Kuntz. I'm sorry, I'm coughing. Mike Kuntz, a nice island packet.

Tania Aebi:

What was my sailing here? Let me answer this question while you finish coughing. What was your experience sailing? Well, I had the trip with my father on the boat. He bought a 38-foot sailboat in England and we sailed from England to Spain, to Portugal, to Morocco, to the Canary Islands, across the Atlantic, to the Caribbean and then back up to New York. I lived on the boat for a year with him and learned that, among all the other things that you learn about sailing from being on a boat for a year, I also learned that I loved it, and that's what he saw. That's what he tapped into by giving me this offer. He saw that I really took to it.

Tania Aebi:

I loved being on a boat. I got it. I mean, I got it. I got how the wind worked, I got how the boat worked. I got, I got it. And he saw that. And he saw also how much I loved meeting the people, traveling with your whole home to these different exotic locations and it kind of, you know, fed the dream I'd had of traveling. I was like, boy, I can travel with a boat with my whole home yeah, so mike, lots of experience.

Capn Tinsley:

she had lots of experience on the boat with her dad, you know that's what it does.

Tania Aebi:

That's been one of the criticisms. She only had a. She didn't know how to sail. She only had a. I mean, I was 18. I didn't have tons of years to learn how to sail before that either, and sailing dinghies is a lot different from sailing out on the ocean too. Anyway, in the end I didn't know what he was doing you and I didn't know what he was doing.

Capn Tinsley:

You're going to have to continue on to keep on learning Right, right, and these guys haven't sailed this boat yet. They've had it for like a week and it's perfect. It's like a 2022, I believe. Is that right, Mike?

Tania Aebi:

So it's even a new boat, nice, and somebody else worked out all the kinks.

Capn Tinsley:

Right, it's perfection, nice. Oh. He says yes, we have a lot to learn. It'll be fun to learn, you will, and see these guys. They just moved down from Ohio, they sold their house and they called Vanessa and said we saw this boat online. She goes I know that boat, it's right here next to me, and now here they are. That's how it happens, right.

Tania Aebi:

That's still basically a new boat. Nice, right, right.

Capn Tinsley:

Tell me what it was like when you got back. I hear a lot of people say that they just don't even want to see all the people that are greeting them, because it's like overwhelming.

Tania Aebi:

It's like they kind of get used to not seeing people Overwhelming, it's all relative. I mean, I just came across the North Atlantic, so a crowd of people is not going to be overwhelming either.

Capn Tinsley:

I just kept going. That sounded like a harrowing experience with you and the kitty. I didn't know.

Tania Aebi:

I mean, it was just I don't know facing things and taking them, taking them as they came, and that meant coming back home and dealing with that too. What I did have that helped was when I was in gibraltar, um, the editor of cruising world who had been working with, gave me a list of questions that I could expect to be asked and I had time to. The atlantic crossing was 50 days, so I had all that time to practice answering so that when I was faced with all of that craziness, I had answers.

Capn Tinsley:

At least it wasn't like I was like what was your biggest challenge, Right you?

Tania Aebi:

learned and whatever. I don't even remember. What did you discover about yourself? Yeah, stuff like that, and I had to like be introspective. In a paragraph or less you can talk. They want more than one sentence, but they don't want you to talk too much.

Capn Tinsley:

What did you learn about yourself?

Tania Aebi:

What did I learn about myself? I don't know.

Capn Tinsley:

What did I?

Tania Aebi:

think you know what I learned? That I wasn't a quitter. That was the big one. Okay, if I can do this, I can. You know I could take the boys on a trip. That was a big deal. After that, I had to tap back into the person I was as a young girl with my boys. Find that courage or that, that, what's the word. You're like that uh letting god that trust in the universe to just go out perseverance yeah, perseverance or, but it's like a trust thing too.

Tania Aebi:

It's like trust that everything is going to be okay, because there's so many things that you know, especially given the experience I had by then All the things you know that can go wrong. That's probably what helped me leave. When I was younger, I didn't know yet all the things that can go wrong and all the things that I've learned about, and I had that with the kids and I had their safety to worry about and their happiness. I wanted them to like it. I didn't want them to not be into it, I wanted them to like it.

Capn Tinsley:

And 20 years later I mean 20 years later you do this with your kids and, like you said, it's a big responsibility. But you did get a bigger boat though, a 36, was it 36 foot boat? What?

Tania Aebi:

kind was it? It was the devilliers, the, I was telling you, the metal 36-foot boat that was built by the lines up and then it did all these other things and then I bought it in the caribbean okay, all right, sorry, I missed that um yeah, so I had her for a year and then I sold her to another guy in New Caledonia and he kept on sailing her further west.

Tania Aebi:

But I was saying a boat is good when you can live on it or you're nearby it, because otherwise, if you're not using the boat all the time, all you do when you go to it is fix stuff. Right. Boat needs to be used and taken care of regularly.

Capn Tinsley:

Right Needs to be used and taken care of regularly. So when you're the person that you were married to, that you're no longer married to. Apparently, he was a sailor as well. Mm hmm, olivier, olivier. And is this the person that you met on the trip?

Tania Aebi:

Mm hmm I met him in the South Pacific. Oh, wow, trip, mm-hmm. I met him in the South Pacific, wow, and he lives well half the time now. He was Swiss. He is Swiss, so he spends half the year over there and half the year two miles up the road here. And the boys are big now. I'm a grandmother now too, by the way. So they're in their 30s now. Mm-hmm Nicholas is 33. He's got two kids, and Sam's 30.

Capn Tinsley:

Wow, okay, well, is there anything else you want to say, because I am out of questions and I could probably think of some more. But what did we not cover that these people want to hear? Oh my gosh, would you do it again as an 18 year old? Um, probably you did do it again.

Tania Aebi:

That's a silly question I didn't do it again. They only did the pacific with them. I didn't go all the way around, but then somehow my name got permanently attached to the word circumnavigation. So when I did the trip, the boys I kept seeing that I was doing a circumnavigation. But no, I didn't. I only went across the pacific right and I didn't hold like. I went from the Caribbean to Tahiti and then they continued on to New Caledonia. So they didn't even go. They didn't do the full Pacific either. They didn't get to Australia. It was easier to sell the boat. I had them stop the trip in New Caledonia Because it was easier to sell the boat there Than to bring it to Australia or New Zealand Much more complicated.

Capn Tinsley:

You didn't keep it. You only kept it for a year.

Tania Aebi:

Yeah, a little over a year. I had her before the trip began getting her ready. And what I'm doing right now actually tomorrow morning I'm driving down to New Jersey to the man with whom my dad immigrated to the US. Christian is the reason why we got into sailing. He, in 1977, bought the bare hull of a West Sail 32 and started building it, and my dad would go down and read the sailing magazines. We'd see the progress was extremely slow, but it was kind of our intro, our introduction to the sailing world. And now it's what? 47 years later, something like that.

Tania Aebi:

Right From 1977 to now he has been building this boat and it's about 97% there. There's a few little things to do. I took her, I took him out sailing on her. We rigged her for the first time and took her out for the first sail two years ago and then last year when my dad died, we didn't do anything for that summer and then this summer again I was going to take him out and he fell and hurt his foot and I was like, what do we do? He's not going to finish the boat, he's not going to be able to go sailing. He's 86 now. I'm actually trying to help him sell it now, are?

Capn Tinsley:

you a boat broker as well.

Tania Aebi:

I am not except for this.

Capn Tinsley:

For sale by niece.

Tania Aebi:

He's kind of like my uncle, so I'm helping. Did I experience the doldrums in polynesia? Are you talking about the doldrums while I was in the islands or while I was sailing around polynesia? Because the doldrums were actually north it's on either side of the equator so I did go through the doldrums on the way. The doldrum belt was between Panama and the Galapagos and in that area, and then, once I got south enough, you hit the trade winds and then Polynesia doesn't. It's in the trade wind belt, so north of that yeah, I've been through the doldrums.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, in the book I remember you talking about, just, I think, days on end there was no wind, yeah yeah, I had doldrums mentally and in reality.

Tania Aebi:

Alright, roger says what was your scariest moment on verona um, that probably you know, told the story now for all these years. Um, the big one was in the mediterranean, when I had the knockdown, when I came closest to thinking I was sinking. Pretty scary, but that that, when you say scariest moment, that's the key they're moments. The scariest moments are actually moments. Nothing lasts forever. So there's nothing, no scariness, that lasts forever. There's no joy that lasts forever. It's like the peaks and valleys. So I'd be scared and then I'd have to deal with it. And in the process of dealing with whatever was sc was scaring me, fear wasn't the problem anymore. Now it was, like you know, resourcefulness, trying to figure out the, the right solution, whatever it was, or getting it wasn't so scary.

Capn Tinsley:

It didn't last. It was like that's it, I'm done. Yeah, none of that happened no.

Tania Aebi:

I mean, I could say that's it, I'm done. But then in the next moment I was like, well, no, I'm not really done, I still have the same problem, I still have to get back to land. And by the time I get back to land, I've been through so many more things and it's like and I and, like I said, I realized that, short of a disaster, I couldn't quit. I had started what I knew would be the biggest thing I ever did in my life. I'm not gonna not gonna quit.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, all right, mike wants to know did you get hungry on long passages? What did you crave?

Tania Aebi:

cheeseburger in paradise no, my craving was roast chicken and a salad.

Capn Tinsley:

Ha, healthy, that does sound good.

Tania Aebi:

I didn't get hungry because I had food. It just wasn't great. I mean, it was whatever it was. Whatever I cooked for myself, it was canned food, it was rice. There were some meals that were delicious, though, too. I used to make big pots of steamed vegetables and just ground them in butter. I loved that.

Capn Tinsley:

How did you provision you were able to stop and get food and everything Mm-hmm.

Tania Aebi:

It wasn't like I had any kind of list or method. I just filled up the boat with food, With what the food was in.

Capn Tinsley:

it wasn't like everything was a place to go everywhere.

Tania Aebi:

It's like whatever they had that I thought I would like and I could prepare. I just thought I used to tell this story all the time. When I left New York I thought I was going to be super healthy out there and I brought all kinds of beans and grains and things Never touched them.

Capn Tinsley:

That's the easiest thing to fix. What beans? Yeah, it's filling, it's got protein, it's easy.

Tania Aebi:

Yeah, canned beans, I brought dried beans.

Capn Tinsley:

Oh, you had to make them.

Tania Aebi:

Yeah, there were canned beans. Yeah, but whatever, I ate canned food and rice and whatever came out of the dried goods section of the stores.

Capn Tinsley:

Did we have minute rice in the 80s? I can't remember. We didn't have a microwave on your boat either, did you? No? No, I made rice. That's what I have on my boat. I just put the minute rice in there. It's so easy. Yeah, you were roughing it.

Tania Aebi:

I'm not sure. I don't remember that there was like the minute rice was rice in a plastic bag, right? I don't think I had that kind of thing.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, I think you're right In the plastic bag. Right, I don't think I had that kind of thing. Yeah, I think you're right In the plastic bag. Yeah, wow, I forgot about that.

Tania Aebi:

I think that would have weirded me out too, sticking a plastic bag in boiling water. That didn't sound wholesome. I mean, I wanted to eat dried beans. I couldn't go from eating dried beans to rice in a plastic bag. There was a hat.

Capn Tinsley:

If I had to make all dried beans, they probably would have sat there on my boat too.

Tania Aebi:

That would have been too much trouble, oh yeah when I got back to new york it was emptying all those plastic containers.

Capn Tinsley:

I'm not I don't need these anymore. What did you eat when you got back?

Tania Aebi:

The first meal. Maybe a steak? No, you know what. Actually, when I arrived outside of New York Harbor, the Cruising World boat came out to greet me and they threw me bagels and lox.

Capn Tinsley:

Okay, and cream cheese, and cream cheese. You know, melanie Neal, her father was if somebody's watching and knows this, I think he worked for Sailing Magazine, or was it Cruising? What were the magazines back then?

Tania Aebi:

Cruising World and Sail. I think he was with Cruising World so you remember him. I remember the name, yes, and I may have met them also at boat shows, a couple of them. I didn't really like boat shows. I didn't go often. I went when the books came out and then when I was doing my sailing business. I did that a couple times too, but not really.

Capn Tinsley:

What was your sailing business? I take people sailing. It was, oh, okay, a charter with women for sale, how I knew vanessa cruising world.

Tania Aebi:

What was your dad's name? Melanie?

Capn Tinsley:

she just lost her dad right?

Tania Aebi:

I did hear that and I believe he also had dementia. Is that that right? He had the what you know, memory issues.

Capn Tinsley:

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. Melanie has a great book. It's called the Boat Girl, and she spent age zero to 18 on the boat and they would go to Virginia in the summer and they go to the Bahamas every year. She grew up on a boat.

Tania Aebi:

I remember this story and I believe there was music involved too, right, guitar music, melanie, my it's I'm a little dusty and all this, but I think I'm remembering some stuff.

Capn Tinsley:

Well, she's got. She's got great stories, good stories. But I can't remember his name. But apparently he was like everybody waited for that, tom. Everybody waited for the magazine to come out. That was just always. That's the way you got your information back then, I guess.

Tania Aebi:

I know I wonder how many people read the magazines now.

Capn Tinsley:

Well, it's all a bunch of real expensive boats for rich people right, there's our articles, but that would entail I'm so sorry, melanie.

Tania Aebi:

He's still alive, oh perfect and then I'm thinking of somebody else too, then yeah, melanie, I'm so sorry.

Capn Tinsley:

Thank you for letting us know that. All right, Well, it's a small community, this sailing community. Everybody seems to kind of. Six degrees of separation. All right, well, are you going to be making any more trips?

Tania Aebi:

I do my deliveries. I'm going to be bringing the boat back from Bermuda again in June and then probably the delivery from the Mediterranean to the Canaries next fall. Wow, so I like turf and turf.

Capn Tinsley:

You don't do any. Uh, social media, no, you know, you'd have like a million followers.

Tania Aebi:

Yeah, but I'm not going to get tied to the computer or the phone, phone or the phone.

Capn Tinsley:

No, all right, all right, it's. This is what you'd be doing it on.

Tania Aebi:

I have a phone, I use it, and I I was. I was a very I was a late comer to the cell phone too, and then I ended up needing it. Yes, I am still writing for lats and ads. I got my call, and I think the next one might be due soon too.

Capn Tinsley:

I don't know anything about that. I just have to check that out. Thanks, roger, lats and Atts. What is that? Is it a?

Tania Aebi:

website it's a magazine Latitudes and Attitudes.

Capn Tinsley:

Lats and Atts is short Latitudes and Attitudes. Yeah, I figured, I figured I was on to it All right. Well, it's been a pleasure meeting you. I have oh wait, melanie has something else to say.

Tania Aebi:

There we go, 1994, that's when I was down in Atlantic City and baby Sammy was sleeping underneath the table at the booth I was in Cool, yeah, that was a long time ago.

Capn Tinsley:

Yeah, so she's an inspiration. That's so cool, but yeah, you are. You know, you were an inspiration to me Much more recent last 10 years and thank you so much for doing this. I was so happy. You know, I got your email like a few days after my husband died and so it was a bright spot. Believe it or not, your email was a bright spot saying you would come on. So I had sent it and kind of forgot about it and I was so glad to see your reply. So, thank you, I hope we can stay in touch you know what we inspire each other.

Tania Aebi:

Maybe I inspire, but I've definitely drawn plenty of inspiration from the people I've met and their stories. What goes around comes around. I've given stories. I've gotten stories back. I mess up story. Sorry, melanie, but then Her dad already gone.

Capn Tinsley:

I'm so sorry.

Tania Aebi:

Inspiration is give and take. We take it and we give it.

Capn Tinsley:

Well, thank you. Thank you so much for doing this and sorry about all the technical difficulties, but it looks like we made it through.

Tania Aebi:

I'm accustomed to them, thank you.

Capn Tinsley:

All right, and the way I go out is I do Hold on. I say first of all, just like I used to end all my videos on the vote Salty Abandoned out.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Captain Tinsley

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.