Sven Yrind (born April 22, in Gothenburg, Sweden as Sven Lundin) is a Swedish sailor, boat builder and writer. He is famous for sailing alone across oceans in tiny boats of his own design.
Yrvind has made several ocean crossings in his tiny boats. In 1980, Yrvind rounded Cape Horn in 'Bris II', a 20'/5.90m boat of his own design, alone and in the middle of winter, a record for smallest boat to round the Cape. This achievement won Yrvind the 1980 Royal Cruising Club medal for seamanship. In the Roaring Forties he alleged collided with a whale.Yrvind designs and builds the boats he sails. The boats lack all forms of electronic communications equipment.
- Yrvind built his first boat 'Bris I' in his mothers basement 1971-1972. The boat's size was determined by the size of the basement: length 6.00 meter, width 1.72m, depth 0.40/0.90m.
- 'Bris II' was built 1976-1978 with the dimensions length 5.90 meter, width 2.40m, depth 1.40m.
- A later boat, 'Yrvind', at an ambitious 4.1m, eventually turned out to be too small and too slow to make major ocean passages in cold waters.
- Sven's 'Yrvind 1/2', is a 4.8 meter design inspired in part by Matt Layden's "Paradox". 'Yrvind 1/2' is built of divinycell, fiberglass, carbon fiber and epoxy. Sven set sail in 'Yrvind 1/2' for Florida on August 11th, 2011.
- Sven is currently involved with building and sailing of yet another very small (under 4 meter) boat....... see his website www.yrvind.com/
[ I think that Sven Yrinds approach proves yet again that you can have fun and adventures by keeping things small and inexpensive ]
Sven Yrinds philosophy of life makes interesting reading:
A SERMON - Sven Yrvind - June 15, 2014 - (From www.yrvind.com/ )
I started searching in earnest for the ideal little cruiser in the autumn of 1962. In May the same year I had bought a 15 feet open working boat typical of the province of Blekinge. I had rigged and built a deck house on her and moved aboard. I now had a home.
I left Sweden as Captain of my own ship. In one of Copenhagen’s canals I had found a safe place for my boat, and it did not cost anything; yachting was at that time not commercialized. I had discovered a way of life that suited me.In those days it was an odd thing to live on a small boat, but I had my reasons. Dyslexia had prevented me from getting a formal education and during my compulsory military service it soon became evident that my bosses and me had different ideas about how war should be conducted. I ended up in a maximum-security prison. I was cocky and did not behave. To punish me they added one more day of imprisonment for each day I misbehaved. “We will break you”, they told me.
I did not crack and finally they gave up, I was told to sign a paper stating that I was psychopath. If you sign this; we will let you out”, they said with a sly smile. I signed – they let me out. It soon became evident that my certificate of psychopathy was useless. I chose to be Captain of my own ship.
The mass of men has historically traded freedom for economical growth and comfort. I do not agree.
True, our comfort has increased beyond imagination – but so has our enchainment. Mankind’s biggest catastrophe was the agricultural revolution. Then came the industrial revolution. Now we live in the consumer society. Shopping has become an entertainment. We now have comfort but comfort is not happiness. Momentarily it’s agreeable, but in the long run it makes you lazy, fat and bored.
Its much better to spend energy, because the only way to get energy is by spending it and energy makes you happy and healthy – even if the effect is not instant.
Inventions have made mans growth fantastic. The earth had only a few million inhabitants at the beginning of the agricultural revolution. When I was born we were two billion, now we are more than seven billion here on the earth. The more people; the more rules and regulations; thousands of them now restrict our freedom. The earths natural resources cannot feed that many. When I was a child I ate real food; now they feed us synthetics and its not healthy.
The kind Jesus said: “Look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. They do not worry.” Before the agriculture revolution that was true. We did not worry because we did not have anything to worry about. We did neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns. Now even young people worry, and rightly so; they worry about jobs, pensions, environment and the earths future.
A realistic alternative to this boring consumerism is to build a small well-conceived cruiser and head out to sea. There out on the big, blue, wet, deep, endless, living ocean, far from land and bureaucrats there is little to worry about; there you can find peace and a life mentally similar to that of our ancestors.
Our gene pool has not changed since then but breeding has selected people that can stand working in mines, factories and offices. The price they pay is an unnatural life stimulated by consumerism, tobacco, alcohol, pornography, violence, gambling, radio, screen watching and other harmful habits. In the process of economical growth thousands of freedom loving people have been killed by alcohol and other means; it has been a brutal history. A few free spirits have found a way to survive this calamity. May be you are one of them?
When an animal is stimulated dopamine is released. That is pleasant. The problem is with the brain full of dopamine the body reduces the size of the receptors in order to restore homeostasis. Consequently more and more stimulants are needed to get that same pleasant feeling. Mankind with few exceptions is trapped in this over stimulated world; detoxing is slow and painful and calls for willpower and character.
Animals are only bored when caged. If they are let lose, nature stimulates them and their harmony will soon be restored. In the same way nature will stimulate small boats sailors. Out there, away from our societies harsh influences – when enough time has passed – adaption cannot be rushed – our senses becomes more sensitive. We begin to hear our inner voices. Phenomena we previously did not notice emerge as important. In short we, like free animals, becomes harmonic and tranquil just like we were meant to be.
I repeat, this is one alternative to a stressful city life. Go build a small, simple, well-conceived boat and sail the oceans. Leave entertainments and communications behind and you are soon ten thousands years back in time and can like the stone age people live a hard but harmonic life.
That’s exactly what I decided to do there in Copenhagen in the fatal autumn of 1962? Then we were on the brink of a nuclear disaster. The world held its breath. The Cuban missile crises were in full swing. I had lost my trust in grown ups that told me to go out to fight wars or waste away my life in a factory. I realized that my boat was good enough for coastal sailing if I watched the weather, but for full fury of the open ocean she was lacking in seaworthiness. I started my search for the ideal little cruiser.
“If you have a problem; go to a library”, my knowledgeable friend – the killer, the dangerous man in the cell next to mine had told me. And the books, he said, “The world’s wisest men have written them.” Copenhagen was full of libraries. Since then I have been reading books, I have been building small good functional boats and I have been sailing the worlds oceans and I have made much progress in the search for knowledge, but due to the complexity of the problem I am still in search of the ideal little cruiser. The search continues…
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