April Fool

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April Fool p1
Ship data
flag United StatesUnited States United States
Commissioning 1968
Ship dimensions and crew
length
1.8 m ( Lüa )
1.78 m ( KWL )
width 1.52 m
Draft Max. 0.48 m
displacement 0.5543 t
Rigging and rigging
Number of masts 1
Number of sails 1

The April Fool ( English : " April Fool's Day" or "April April!") Is an approximately 1.80 meter long sailboat that  crossed an ocean - the Atlantic - in 1968 as the shortest sailing boat to date (the smallest boat measured by boat volume to date, that crossed the Atlantic is the Klepper folding boat by Hannes Lindemann ). The April Fool holds to this day (as of 2006) the record for the fastest ocean crossing of a boat less than three meters in length.

The American Hugo Vihlen (* 1932), a Delta Airlines pilot and Air Force veteran of the Korean War , had the mini yacht with only one sail built by Edwin H. Mairs. Although the US Coast Guard , who thought the boat was too small and unsuitable, tried to dissuade Vihlen, he sailed the April Fool in 1968 non-stop across the Atlantic alone. On March 29th, Vihlen left Casablanca (Morocco) for Florida . The April Fool was equipped with a radio, although the transmission function failed before arrival, and a sextant . Vihlen sighted the Florida coast on June 20 following a grounding on a Cuban reef. He had planned to moor Homestead in his hometown , but an offshore wind and the Gulf Stream drove him off the coast of Delray Beach ( Palm Beach County ). The April Fool was only 22  nautical miles from land when she was towed into port the last stretch of the coast guard, which was concerned, among other things, by the lack of radio traffic. Vihlen later stated that he only allowed this at the urging of the Coast Guard, because he knew his position and the April Fool did not need any help. For the evaluation of the record drive, the towing was irrelevant: Vihlen had already passed the Bahamas and officially crossed the Atlantic alone. It took the April Fool 84 days from Casablanca to Florida. This enabled her to achieve the fastest ocean crossing for a boat under three meters. Most importantly, until 1993, she held the record for the smallest boat that has ever crossed the Atlantic.

In 1993, the record was beaten by British Tom McNally's Verahugh boat , which was just 1.64 m (5  feet 4.5  inches ) long. Shortly thereafter, Vihlen took back the record with an even smaller boat - the 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in) long Father's Day (not to be confused with the 61 foot long motor yacht of the same name that Vihlen later bought) - which he did sailed from St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada to the port of Falmouth , England , where he arrived on September 26, 1993 (described in The Stormy Voyage of Father's Day ). The equipment with a GPS, a water maker , a VHF and an SSB amateur radio and solar panels (which could hardly be used due to the bad weather) was already a lot on Father's Day , which Vihlen presented to the British National Maritime Museum in 2006 more modern than on the April Fool . Both of the more recent Atlantic crossings, however, took longer than the April Fool 's voyage : Father's Day took 105 days, Tom McNally's Verahugh even 113 days. This is how the April Fool's speed record stands to this day: So far, no boat under three meters has managed to cross an ocean faster than Vihlen's mini-yacht.

The April Fool was on the porch of a "coffee shop" between Miami and Key West until 2007 when it was restored and moved to the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia .

Ship data

literature

  • Richard Henderson (1984): Single-handed sailing. Techniques and experiences. Delius Klasing. ISBN 978-3768802550 .
  • Hugo Vihlen (1971): April Fool: Or, How I sailed from Casablanca to Florida in a six-foot boat. Follett. (English)

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b Sarmishta Ramesh (October 27, 2004): Fathom This: Hugo Vihlen broke the world record. The Sun in Sunnyvale, California. printed on community-newspapers.com (accessed February 4, 2007)
  2. ^ William A. Butler: The Indestructable Tom McNally . (accessed February 5, 2007)
  3. ↑ Johannes Erdmann: May 30, 2006 - Miami reached: The Maverick is in the USA! on www.allein-auf-see.de (accessed February 4, 2007)
    , however, a Sun article (2004) reads differently: there is talk of a “mall” in Florida.