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 On
a recent visit to Bequia in the Grenadines, one of the islands in the
southern Caribbean, we took a buoy next to a handsome Colin Archer, the
S/S Frøken and made the acquaintance of her
owner/skipper, Utz Müller-Treu, a lean 68-year-old German who has
circumnavigated no less than four times!
Never seen without one of his
several hats, a straw hat given to him six years ago by a young lady in
Trinidad, in which he keeps a few feathers, and that now includes a couple of
Bella's (MarineZine sub-editor) tail feathers, a canvas hat with a rope
trim and a band of tiny Polynesian shells, with a story
attached to it, and a felt hat with a string of natural pearls around it, tiny
fresh-water ones and larger sea pearls which his mother combined to
form a most elegant hatband for him twenty years ago as a welcome-home
gift after one of his voyages.
Around his neck he wears
three sea-lion
teeth, one for each single-handed circumnavigation he has completed. He
had one from his fourth circumnavigation but as he was accompanied on half
the voyage he felt it didn't count so he gave it to Dwight Taylor when he
became the first Bequian to compete successfully in the Round Bequia Race
single-handing a Swan 57. There is another seal's tooth with a scrimshaw
portrait of Utz on it at The Sports Café in Horta, in the Azores.
On his
various circumnavigations, Utz has left a trail of friends and admirers
across the world. When he turned up in Cape Town on the second time round,
he made everyone laugh when he walked back into the Yacht Club with one of
their beer tankards and said, "I just dropped in to give this back, I
accidentally took it with me last time I left here, five years ago!"
Utz always remembers how kind people were to him in South Africa, one kind
fellow taking him to Johannesburg for a fourteen day break while the Yacht
Club secretary kept an eye on his boat for him, others giving him food and
drink for the continuation of his journey. He surprised the locals by
dipping his sails in the harbour instead of using fresh water, which he
avoids because of its potential to rot the stitching.
 He
laughs as he remembers his slowest ever passage, ten miles in two days,
trying to get into a harbour in New Guinea, tacking endlessly and
wondering if he'd ever get there!
His first three circumnavigations were also on a double-ender, a Norwegian
fishing boat, 33 feet long, with the same name as his current boat which
was built ten years ago, to the exact
specifications in a design 115 years old.
The latest 'Frøken' is 42 feet long,
with 1½" planking. Her best speed is around ten knots but Utz
doesn't press her, so he usually gets a six or seven knot average, which
he is quite happy with. He says she's not necessarily everyone's ideal boat to
circumnavigate in but she's done him nicely.
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