Philosopher of the Sea (2023) - full transcript

It's like you get into eternity

and the sea is endless,
you know.

And if you know the sea,
if that's your element...

I mean on land I feel like a fish
in the woods.

But at sea, it's silence, you know.

And then you can listen
to your inner voice...

like it's a friend...

who's been waiting for me
all this time.

So this is what... it's not really
that I like sailing, you know.

But I like to feel at home.

Many people don't know about
his first sailing trips.



He rebuilt a little rowboat, really,
which he built a deckhouse on

and sailed
from the west coast to England,

which was
a spectacular sailing trip.

A little rowboat with little sails,
sailing to England,

and he experienced storms
and all sorts of things.

He and a friend found
an old steam boat hull

and turned it into a sailboat

with a retractable keel
and sailed to Brazil.

At that time,
nobody knew of Sven Yrvind.

It was when he built Bris

that he started to become well-known
in the world and in Sweden, really.

Sven, what kind of boat have you
built to sail around the world in?

I designed this myself.

It's my own construction
from start to finish.



It's the 1970s,
and it's not at all as common,

among Swedes or others to go out
in global waters in that way.

Sven Lundin launches his new boat,
Bris,

in Gothenburg's
Lilla Bommen harbour.

It took two years to build the boat,
which he designed himself.

One of the smallest boats
to have sailed around the world.

I christen you Bris.

May happiness and good fortune
follow you on the seven seas.

If you've been interested in sailing
and boats your whole life,

Yrvind turns up,
for obvious reasons, one could say.

I've read his books and seen him
on TV and heard him on the radio.

A bohemian, an eclectic,
a strange person,

but he had something important
to say, that's how I saw him.

He had strong opinions.

When he was four or five, he was
talking to his maternal grandmother.

She asked him,
"What will you be when you grow up?"

"I'm going to be famous", he said.

And looked for various ways
to achieve that.

He started wearing tall shoes.

Then everyone in Gothenburg knew
who Sven Lundin was.

"What in God's name is on his feet?"

was printed in capitals
in the paper.

He chose the name, Yrvind.

His name had been Sven Lundin and
there were others with that name.

Lundin and Sven were both common.

One of the world's most recognised
solo sailors and boat builders,

Gothenburger, Sven Lundin,
known now as Yrvind, welcome!

When building a brand,

it's important to have something
that sticks out.

Even anti-capitalists and bohemians
needs to market themselves

if they want their ideas heard.

Hello friends!

My name is Yrvind.

Welcome to Yrvind's Youtube.

It seems quite natural for him to do
things that would get attention,

nationally and internationally.

Sweden's toughest
almost-80-year-old, Sven Yrvind,

is going to sail to New
Zealand completely alone,

in a sailboat he's made himself,

without going ashore once,
and he's starting in Ireland.

Before this project,

I had an idea of building a small
boat and break a world record,

like smallest boat to sail
around the world.

So this was really a much smaller
boat from the beginning.

And then as I worked with this boat,
you know, I got a lot of new ideas.

I kept thinking more and more,
and as time passed, suddenly...

seven years where gone, you know,
since I started the other one.

And now I'm ready to start sailing.

This is an experimental boat,
it's 19 feet long, 5.8 metres.

And here I have a sleeping room
in the middle,

while this part is going to
be filled with food.

And the boat is a low-energy boat,
it makes very little resistance.

The boats they're producing now
are not any good.

So this is why I'm building a boat
a bit different.

One thing is most boats
have too much draft.

But all the textbooks
and all the dogma,

is that ocean-going boat
needs a big deep keel.

Otherwise, it has no stability.

You see this boat only goes
30 centimetres, or one foot.

This deckhouse here
put a lot of rotation

and the centre of gravity
is down here.

So, although this boat draws only
30 centimetres of the water,

it doesn't need a keel.

So there's a need
for this kind of boat.

Exlex means outlaw.

Choosing that name stems from
the EU Leisure Boat Directive,

which says that small boats,
like Yrvind's boats,

cannot legally be marketed
as ocean-going.

That gets Yrvind
more wound up than ever.

He wants to prove that small boats

are better than big boats
in many ways.

They need less energy,
they're safer, much safer.

Then he wants to show
that it's doable.

The authorities think
we should make big boats,

because there's more money
in big boats.

They say small boats are not safe.

But this is just ridiculous because

a smaller boat is safer
than a big one.

And...

people believe what the grown-ups
are telling them, you know, so...

Now, I can show them
this is a good thing.

Exlex doesn't look like a boat.

There's something juvenile about it,
it looks like a child's drawing.

That's partly because Yrvind kept
changing his mind, adding things.

It's yellow
and it's untidily painted.

It's got boxes sticking out,
and antennas.

It simply looks crazy.

He's drawn the name, Exlex,
with some sort of permanent marker.

It's so quickly
and hastily put together,

that it all looks very makeshift.

Up here, I got some windows
I can look out through.

And here is like electricity.

And also here is a safety belt
I can attach myself.

Here's my water.

And well, it's not really
much of a cabin, you know.

Put up my knees, it's just like
one centimeter up here.

And that's for the blanket,
you know.

People react when they see him.

They find out
he's close to 80 years old,

and they wonder if such an old body
will manage this journey.

That's something I've thought about
too, how his body will recover.

On his earlier long trips,

he's had trouble walking
when he's back on land.

But he was younger
and could recover.

Does a body that's close to
80 years old have that ability?

We do have those concerns.

Here's "The young,
the Old and the Sea".

You can sea the route we sailed,
here's the storm.

I've never been so scared
in my life.

Yrvind was my idol.

At Mum and Dad's place
there's always been a poster

of Sven Yrvind and his boats.

A friend and I had a boat together,
we were going to sail the Atlantic.

He thought we needed help,
so we call Sven Yrvind.

I thought, you can't just
call a celebrity like that.

But my friend did call him
and he invited us over,

and he would help us
with what we needed help with.

Time passed,
my friend changed his mind and left.

I thought I'd have to do this
another time, in a year or two.

But then Yrvind got in touch,
asking how it was going.

I told him I've put it off.

He said "No, do it now or it won't
happen, do it yourself."

I told him, "I don't dare
do it myself, I've barely..."

or, "I've never sailed at night."

He said he'd come along
and show me how it's done.

Almost time for departure.

Pretty early in the project,
Sven said,

I'm going to Florida anyway,
can you drop me off there?

-Will you get the fenders, Sven?
-What?

-The fenders.
-Oh, yeah.

Life vests!

-Bye.
-Bye!

Now you can do what you want.

This was, for me,
as if I was into football,

and Zlatan told me he'd come
teach me to play for six months.

Now we've been sailing on
the North Sea for almost 24 hours.

And...

the reports of bad weather
were very accurate.

But the worst part right now
is that we've got a small leak.

But the worst part is that
the boat has started leaking.

Yes, I was just telling them,

it's leaking,
your bunk is almost full of water.

Yeah, that's no good.

And I hate salt water.

As usual,
when you're young and scared,

or maybe it's true for all ages,

you look for comfort from the person
who is closest and your security.

And the only other person near me,
out there on the North Sea,

was Sven Yrvind who was
laying there, reading his book.

There was a storm, I had never
sailed in wind that strong.

How are we doing, Sven?

Well, we're facing some challenges.

-It's gotten a bit windy now, Sven.
-Yeah...

So it has...

The hull is taking a serious
beating, feels like it'll crack.

What should we say
the wind speed is? 18, 20?

Yeah, it has to be
something like that.

This whole table,
I don't know how it's built,

but it's swinging back and forth.

Even though it's properly bolted
to the floor.

So that makes you wonder.

The boat was leaking,
it was the middle of the night,

I had never sailed at night, and...

In a strong effort to keep my voice
steady, which it probably wasn't,

I asked if the boat
was going to break.

And Yrvind calmly answered, "I don't
know," and kept reading his book.

That he answered so calmly,
in what I experienced as a crisis,

I think is an indication that Yrvind
has a very strong faith in himself,

and is very honest.

When we started sailing together,

I had a lot of ideas
about what the world was like,

and confidently told Sven
that this is how it is.

But he always had some anecdote
that opposed it,

and challenged my ideas
in a way no one had before.

Are you finding anything, Sven?

Many long discussions about
what's right and wrong.

Let's see,
should I untie this maybe?

Or can you get that in there anyway?

Because it's helpful there.

I did have the thought, that if
I help Sven with this journey,

and it doesn't go well, that he
has a fatal accident or is injured.

If something serious happens.

How will I cope with that?

But I know how
extremely stubborn Sven is.

He would have gone anyway.

This is just an experiment,
you know.

The next boat will be a bit better.

But we'll have to be thorough.

Because we're going a long way,
a lot of vibrations and things.

Sometimes you have to
raise the bar, right?

You have to...
you know, I think it's very sad,

people like Björn Borg
and Ingemar Johansson,

who were world champions
when they were so young...

Then the rest of your life
is an anti-climax.

Imagine that, 25 years or so,
and then...

Just downhill from there.

-No fun, is it?
-No.

Let's see, unplug things, fridge,
I've taken the rubbish out...

We're gonna drive to Ireland,

and then I've got the whole ocean
in front of me.

People say a small boat
can't go long distances.

There's no place on earth
that is further away than Dunedin.

I mean, if you can sail that far,
you can sail anywhere, you know.

He was a really attractive,
nice looking man.

Yeah. But of course,
we have had a relationship.

But it didn't work well at the end.

We are friends.
I consider him a good friend.

When I was studying,
I often went to a café,

and one day
there was a man sitting there.

He looked a bit strange.
He looked like a foreigner.

Then he told me he was Sven Lundin,
and he was sailing around the world.

I sailed, first the Canary Islands,

and then over to Brazil,
Rio de Janeiro,

and then going south to Argentina.

We wanted to go around Cape Horn
and we got some terrible storms.

In the Roaring Forties
the sea is so high

and the storms are so big
and long and last for days,

that Sven decided
that we could not round Cape Horn,

but that we would
go across the Atlantic Ocean again

and go to Cape Town.

But strangely enough,
there were so many storms,

coming not from behind
how it should be,

but it was coming
from the front side.

So it took so much time
to cross the Atlantic.

So we had to sail for four more
weeks before getting land.

We had only one decilitre a day
to drink,

because we were
running out of water.

And in between were a little group
of islands, just dots.

And then he said, "Well,
we'll try to go there."

That's the only way
we can survive, in a way.

And then at last, one very early
morning, I looked out of the hatch

and I saw a kind of mountain,
but very far away.

But the horizon had changed.

There were 290 people
at that time living on the island.

They were not used to strangers.

Two times a year there was
a boat coming and they got post.

But they could not go
with the boat in the harbour,

so they stayed outside the island.

and most of them were not allowed
to go on the island.

So they were not used to strangers.

Of course,
they were curious about the boat.

And one day Sven invited
three men in the boat

and they just didn't say anything.

They didn't talk with each other.

And sometimes we were invited
because of a birthday party

or at the marriage. There was
a marriage on the island.

And then they were just sitting.

Sometimes one said something

and then it was just silence
for a quarter of an hour or...

It was so strange
to get used to that.

But yeah, it was so special.
It was so...

Yeah, it was wonderful.

Oh, well, those were the days.

-Yeah, you remember that?
-Yeah.

Of course,
he is different from other people.

He had a talk with the King of
Sweden for the Swedish Yacht Club.

He got a letter with, "You have to
dress like this and that,

and you have to do this".
Sven refused.

He said "I just wear my clothes
and the ones I always wear.

That is who I am".

The organisers said, "You can't.
The king is coming with the queen,

and otherwise it's not happening".

And then Sven said,
"Well, okay, then I don't do it".

So, in the end, he had his clothes
on, the blue trousers, the t-shirt.

He was just standing there.

And I think it's so nice.

I have so much respect.

He is what he is.

So that is Sven. He is what he is.

And he doesn't care about rich
or big or, or whatever.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

He has the mind of a very young man.

And although he's nearly 80
years old,

just imagine doing a thing like this
when you are 80 years old.

I hope very much
that I will meet him again.

You just never know.

Are you worried about Sven?

Of course.
Something could happen.

But you don't have to do this.

I mean,
you do it because you enjoy it.

Yeah.

Odd.

So, goodbye again.

Okay, goodbye.

And be careful.

I like to see you again.

Yeah.

Yrvind's idea for this boat
and this trip

was really about his critical
attitude to society's progress

with bigger houses, bigger cars...

He uses the Volkswagen Golf
as an example, when it came out,

it weighed 790kg, and today,
it weighs half a ton more.

He says it should
be the other way around.

People live in houses
that are far too big.

He wants to, by doing this, prove
that you can manage with much less.

Well, first this journey,
it's not trying to set a record.

And it's not a protest.

It's an experiment
to confirm my ideas.

That a small well-designed boat
is superior to a bigger yacht.

He wants to spread his ideas,

that we can manage perfectly fine
with less.

We live too big, our cars are too
big, we use too much energy.

The boats are far too big,

they're not any safer for being big,
quite the opposite.

Life is boring now, you know?

So people need entertainment,
looking at a screen all the time.

They got Facebook and everything,
you know.

And it keeps removing us
from nature.

And already Rousseau,
in the middle of the 1700s,

you know, he said back to nature.

Life will degrade and degrade and we

become another kind of species
in the end, you know.

Everyone knows about this. It's just
that people don't act on it.

If everyone does something small,
you know,

instead of just continuing
getting more and more things.

It's a good thing.

Everyone to his ability.

And this is my field you know,
small boats.

So getting out to sea and, after
a week after a month, you're a back.

You know, like in eternity.

That's really what we're made for,
you know.

Yeah... back to nature.

Here she is, Maja.

She's been mine and Sven's home

for about a month.

The rudder Sven built for Maja.

Yellow.

I'm starting to get very nervous.

Or I don't know what it is,
but I've got butterflies.

I don't really know
what I've signed up for.

Maybe...

Sailing, being alone on this boat.

This little boat.

With...

Mr Sven Yrvind for two months.

But we'll see.

The first thing he did when he set
foot on the boat was to say,

"Thomas, you're the captain
and I'm the deckhand.

And that's the ranking
on this boat."

There's Ireland, disappearing...
in the background.

Yes.

He really never gave his opinion

on how or why I made decisions.

Captain, you have dirty hands.

Yes, we had a minor breakdown.

Minor breakdown?

-All our electricity disappeared.
-Totally?

Totally.

How could that happen?

Did Captain look at it
during the winter?

Yes. I noted that not all the screws

had fully-functioning threads.

Aha.

But I thought
it would probably work anyway.

Oh...

-It'll have to do.
-Aha.

Why hasn't Captain looked
in the hatch?

Because we ordered
10 boxes of fruit,

there's been fruit sitting
on the hatch down to the keelson.

Whose idea was it
to order all the fruit?

It was Sven's.

If you break the problem down,
you could say it's Sven's fault.

-Good evening.
-Good evening, Captain.

What book are you reading?

It's about bacteria.

I'm reading about Churchill.

1000 pages. I've read 266 pages.

Skinner's
"Beyond Freedom and Dignity".

Ah, okay.

-It says "rec" here.
-Yes, rec.

I'm filming Thomas.
He's getting ready to swim.

Yes, in the Atlantic.
How deep is it?

Close to 4000 metres. 3800, I think.

3800.

-So you should swim with...
-The deepest water I've swum in.

...proper swimming strokes.

I thought it would be cool to,
out in the middle of the ocean,

on a day when we had a lull,

to jump in without a lifeline
to the boat, swim around,

in three-kilometre-deep water
next to the boat,

and feel unbelievably free.

Against Yrvind's advice
to jump in without a harness,

because you don't do that on a boat.

Swimming in...

Come back now!

the Atlantic.

And because I'd gone against
his recommendation,

he decided to pull on the sails
a bit and steer away from me.

200 nautical miles that way,
we have Portugal.

-Thomas!
-And 3000 that way,

is America. If you look...

When Yrvind steered the boat away
in the middle of the Atlantic,

I had a number of thoughts
swirling around my head,

that I'm being left out here...

forever, and will never come back.

Definitely a feeling of panic.
That's the best way to describe it.

That we didn't know each other
made it even scarier,

because I didn't know
if it was a joke or for real.

It was panic-inducing, but...

soon after he saw I was panicking,

he turned the boat
toward me instead.

I think at least 50% of succeeding.

So that's very good, I think.

Compared to people trying to get
that gold medal in the Olympics.

It's like, hundreds of people
are doing that,

and it's like one person
who can get it.

-Are you from Sweden?
-Yes.

-You could see from the colours.
-The colours.

We came down to the harbour and,
since the boat is one-of-a-kind,

it naturally drew attention.

The rumour spread
of a strange Swedish man

with a yellow boat
who was going out to sea.

Irish TV came and covered it.

The boat is completely prepared
for one year's voyage.

My goodness, he's a brave gentleman.

What do you make of the skipper?

The skipper? He is a tough man to be
facing this, I tell you this much.

-You're how old, almost 80?
-Seventy-nine.

Almost 80. Okay.

-Eighty next time.
-Eighty next time.

My goodness.
He's an adventurous gentleman.

-Oh, yes.
-Very adventurous.

Good luck to you, sir.

It's a candy.
Candy with syrup in it.

He doesn't eat candy.

-But it was very kind.
-Very kind.

-It's very good.
-I only eat breakfast and lunch.

-Nothing more.
-And nothing more?

That's why you are so slim?

He trains also.

You are a very tough man.

But he is shorter than you are.

Yeah, well,
he's 40 years older than me.

The reactions in Dingle
at the launch were interesting.

"Wow", they said, and covered their
mouths, "How is this going to go?"

I could barely believe
what I was seeing.

You could see when it was
in the water

that this is not a boat originally
designed to be like this.

It was incredibly wobbly.

When I saw him go onboard the first
time, it looked like it would tip.

It goes to one side or the other,
45 degrees.

But it stops there, so there's
underlying stability in the boat,

if it goes upside down, it will turn
back up again, that's no issue.

But this base instability
I saw as a huge issue,

this boat will rock its way across
the sea, from one side to the other.

A constant rolling that could make
anyone inside completely insane.

And he's gonna live in there
for 300 days.

What if he slips, goes over
the side and hurts himself?

You could twist your ankle
before you're even away.

It looked very precarious.

He's intending to sail
to the Southern Ocean,

with the enormous storms
you can get there.

So it was a very strange feeling,

to think about this old man
sailing this wobbly vessel

for so long and so far.

Somehow it felt like the respect
Yrvind had received,

from the people in the area,
they lost some it at that point.

They thought, "This is crazy, a sane
person wouldn't board that boat."

That's about how
I experienced the launch.

The instability is a bit worrisome.

They've got their doubts now.

-When they saw...
-Yeah, all of them.

That guy, who had some respect for
Sven, when he saw this, he grimaced.

It'll be doing this
the whole way to New Zealand.

Completely unstable.

Well, thank you, everyone.

There, my part is done,
now your part is starting.

-Yeah.
-Yes.

-Goodbye, Sven, but we'll...
-And thank you, for everything.

I think he had those feelings too,
that this will be difficult.

That he wasn't happy with this,
but now it's all started.

The ball is rolling, so now
he has to continue this project.

This boat is just...

a lot of solutions are
ad hoc solutions.

So they are not really good.

It's like a draft, but on a boat,
you know.

You can't go back and change
the hull and things like that,

because it's already done.

And also working alone, you know,

takes a long time to do the things,
you know.

So I also need to go out
and do some sailing.

Feel the free life, you know,
on the ocean...

See the stars and...

Get into this endless
feeling of life, you know.

You have to try, you know.

It was a sad and strange feeling,

leaving him there
in this unstable vessel.

On this enormous sea,
and then leaving.

It was a strange feeling I carried
with me the whole way back.

That we had left him out there.

Bye bye.

Are we guilty of something?
Those of us who helped him.

Did we have some
responsibility in this?

Should we maybe not have let him go?
And towed him back instead?

When people say call someone odd,
they often mean weird.

But you can also mean odd,
as in not like everyone else.

But it's more that, as time passes,

you see that
the others do things differently,

in ways I think are weird.

But they think I'm weird.

So there's a conflict there.

I'm born on a small island.

On a house which was just
50 metres from the water.

I'm born in April, and the first
summer I was just a few months old,

I was already swimming in the water.

So water is my element, you know?

And my father and grandfather
were captain of a ship.

Last time I saw my father was
the 15th of January 1940.

I was eight months old.

That time the Second World War
was starting.

And that's how my father got killed,
you know.

I was very curious.

So I when I was seven years old,
I went to the mainland, to a school.

But it was like hell broke out,
you know, because I was dyslexic.

At that time in the 1940s,

beating children
was a good tool for education.

So I got a lot of beatings.

In those days they didn't know as
much about dyslexia as we do today.

Turbulent early years

because it's not in Sven Yrvind's
nature to follow the current.

He wants to find out
the underlying cause for everything.

Which comes from his curiosity.

When he was conscripted, he was very
excited to do military training

and see all their
technological equipment.

But it also meant he had to follow,
to the letter, someone's orders.

Which led to him escaping
military training.

The officers were picking on me all
the time, so I decided to escape.

I escaped
and the police started hunting me.

And after six months I was caught.

At the start, he was put in
a low-security prison,

but they had to work there
and Sven thought,

I'm in prison,
why should I have to work?

So they moved him to a high security
prison here in Gothenburg.

He had to do his time,
for refusing his conscription,

along with
bank robbers and murderers.

And he speaks of this
as a very nice part of his life.

Where he got lots of time
to read books

and he got to know these people

who were in for life,
in this prison.

So, after some time,

a nice man in a white coat came
down with a paper in his hand.

And they said, sign this paper
that you are a psychopath.

Then we'll let you out.

And fantastically, they're
going to give me 250 kronor,

you know, to start a new life or...

So this is what happened.

But then I realised, you know...

I don't really fit into society.

I better build myself
a small boat, you know.

And then I'm captain
on my own boat, you know.

So I got myself a little rowing boat
and converted it to a cruiser.

And left Sweden.

Started sailing the big world.

I didn't believe in this boat.

So I said, if you feel unsure,
that it won't work,

promise me you'll call it off.

And it didn't take more than
a day or two

before we got some
alarming reports.

For one thing,
it was going pretty slowly.

He also had issues
with the electricity cutting out.

After a few more days there
were issues with the steering.

After some more time he realised,

what he told us over text messages,

this won't work,
I'll make port in Madeira instead.

And then...

I could relax.

40 days is quite a long time,
you know.

I came here two days ago, you know,
so I have to walk very slowly.

Getting back into shape.

There was a lot of problem
with the boat.

It was not stable enough
and it was too cramped.

And the rudder system didn't work
very well, it was too heavy.

Maybe I could have made it down
to New Zealand in this boat,

but that would be wrong to go
with an inferior product, you know,

and use a lot of energy and worry,
you know, to make it work.

It's better to redesign it
and make it work better.

He had no doubt
that this would work with this boat.

There is of course some loss of
prestige, giving up like this.

There are so many expectations,
so many people are following him

who are expecting him
to get to New Zealand.

He's been in the media
with that a lot.

They've made TV-shows, there's been
a lot in newspapers about this.

So it could be difficult to build
credibility for the next project.

This boat is not really efficient,
you know.

But if you have an inefficient tool
another way is to sharpen this tool.

And this is what I'm going to do,
I'm going to sharpen this tool.

If you want things done properly,

you need to be focused 100%
on what you're doing now.

On that,
I'm a little critical of him,

because his focus is not
100% on this trip.

He's already far in the future,
planning the next boat.

Exlex on the ocean. Saturday second.

Here is the first one, 7.8 metres.

Now it's down to 5.6 metres.

And here's one first 6.8 metres.
But then it grew to seven metres.

There's a lot of ad hoc with him.
He does a bunch of things,

then he comes up with something new
and does that instead.

So as soon as he's built this boat,

he sees what he could
do better on the next boat.

It'll be even longer and thinner.

An even lower-energy boat.

And the current solution
with the doors isn't great,

you could do it this way instead.

And it's 5.08...

But there is something missing,
you know.

And here's the door, and here
I'm getting really close to this.

Here's 5.6. Fourth of July.

He's sketching the new boat, getting
attached to the new ideas.

Then what happens to
what he's working on now?

It cools off, it kind of fades away.

Then he doesn't have the driving
force needed to follow through.

Yeah, it was kind of evident
from the beginning.

But I wanted to give it a try,
you know.

And then I realised, you know,
this is...

I could get
a much more efficient tool.

And it's kind of not fair
to other people reading about me...

and telling them that to use this
tool, you know, use this tool.

And then when I got in my mind,
you know, I have a better way...

to solve the problem.

The name is really the same.

But if you want
to distinguish them...

I call this Exlex Minor.

Because it's more simple.

It's really four centimetres longer,

and 19 centimetres more beam
and it's also higher.

But it's less weight.

It's lighter, so it's really
a smaller boat, you know.

Although it's longer and wider.

But it's less material in it.
So it's a smaller boat.

I thought he'd feel pretty defeated,
coming back from Madeira.

And I thought
he'd be meditating on this.

But no, he was done pondering,
straight onto the next boat.

He had his ideas ready,

so he started as soon as possible
on the next boat.

I've been doing this
for over 50 years.

I don't know anyone who has been
doing it as long as me, you know.

I don't go out. I work by myself
in my workshop, you know.

At night, I go home, you know,
and stay at home by myself.

I have no social life, really.

I think as you grow, you know,
you realise, you know,

that you don't have the same
interests as most people, you know.

I do a lot of reading, books
on yacht design and a mixture of,

you know, like mathematics,
physics, biology, history,

technological books, you know.

languages and pilot charts and
catalogues and plotting charts...

Yeah all kind of books, you know.

I've got collections of books
from the 1800s, you know.

Very rare books, you know,

about small boats, small ocean-going
boats and things like that.

Sometimes I have to sell all my
books, when going out to sea.

And this is what I got from 1990.

I think maybe it's 10,000.
I don't know.

For small boats...

One of the world's most complete
private collection

of books about nautical
and small boats, you know.

I'd say, yeah.

Nowadays, you know, I'm working.
It just goes...

round and round, you know.

I come here about 8:30
in the morning.

And then I work until noon,
twelve o'clock.

And then I eat and I work...

at least until seven, usually eight,
maybe nine o'clock in the evening.

Sometimes even 11 o'clock,
if it's complicated work, you know.

And then I take it back home,
you know.

Doing something on the Internet, you
know, and then maybe my web page.

And also now I started with the
new books I'm writing a book.

And about midnight I start sleeping.

And then I wake up eight o'clock
next morning.

So I got eight hours of sleep.

Sometimes I got ideas in the middle
of the night, and of course,

then I cannot sleep, you know.

He's a builder,
he loves building things.

He's very happy in his workshop.

When he gets to be creative, think
of new ideas, and realise them.

That can be expressed in the boats
being a bit overworked.

He clutters them with good ideas.

Each, on its own, a very good idea,
but together it gets messy.

That's what we're hoping for
with the new boat, Exlex 2,

that he's been sensible and
muted that urge to over-build.

So that it's a simpler construction.

Kill your darlings, it's called.

After five days I started to
design this boat.

Square one, a blank page, you know.

And it's a little schooner.

A schooner is a boat
that has more than one mast.

Stabiliy is an important issue.

It increases very much with beam.

So this boat has
19 centimetres more beam.

It also has a lower centre
of gravity.

So, yeah, in all respects, this
should be so much better, this boat.

27th of July,
I was back in the workshop.

Not even one year after I came back.

Hopefully it's more stable
but I don't know.

You'll have to test her first,
you know.

-Hey there.
-Hello.

How do you do this? Press it back?

You pull it that way?

-And tomorrow...
-Are you nervous now?

Yeah...

-Tomorrow.
-It's good to be nervous.

Oh yeah, I'm nervous now,
a lot relies on this.

If this doesn't work, it's over.

It'll be exciting to see if it's
stable, compared to the last one.

Yrvind wants to build his boat so
that regardless of how it's sitting,

even if it's fully upside down,
it will right itself.

The vast majority of boats
are not self-righting.

To test his theory,

he tips the boat upside down,
with himself inside,

and sees if it rights itself.

Then he can be completely secure
sailing around the world,

and even if the boat
tips upside down,

he can be sure that it soon
will turn back up.

-Magnus here.
-There's a leak here,

so do it pretty quickly,
and pull it back again.

Bring it to 170 degrees,
and then pull it back quickly.

That was quick.

It went all the way around, right?

It sure did.

It was at 170 degrees,
then it flipped.

Yeah, I went with it.

There was a leak in a spot,
in that vent, you know.

Is that something you can fix?

I have to, it's hard. I'll take it
apart in autumn and fix it.

It's been pretty fascinating
how fast it's moved.

From coming home, with nothing,

to me being there
for the first test launch,

it was about one year
if I remember correctly.

First time I saw it in the water,
I went up and felt it.

It was as Yrvind said,
extremely stable.

Today Exlex and I have been testing
the boat. Stability is excellent.

But there's a problem,
there is some leakage

through the ventilation system.

I'll have to fix during the winter.

But otherwise, it's just much more
stable than the previous boat.

Rudder system works very well.

The boat is much improved.

I've got a boat, a new boat.

-Hey there, Sven.
-Hi.

Yrvind's income is mainly from
his books and his lectures.

I've gone with Yrvind
to three boat conventions,

and I've seen the interest
he draws, people get really curious.

They make a big ring around him,
discussing what they see.

Let's see, will I sit in the same
place I usually sit?

Shall we light this?

Here are the pictures I'm showing,
you know.

-At the lecture?
-Look at the slideshow.

"Ballast keels are ridiculous,
what are they good for?"

That's the lecture.

First I'll show it to the
Ocean Sailor's Club.

They've all got keelboats.

-Yeah.
-You're a brave man.

And big boats.

You're brave.

You have an ambition
with your boats and things,

-to get them to a wider audience.
-Yeah.

And then I submit that it needs
to be packaged in some way,

-for it to be received.
-Yeah, I'm thinking...

I'm thinking of Apple as an example,
with their iPhone.

If it hadn't had the design aspect,
if it had been ugly,

it never would have been
such a success.

There's something about packaging
the leads to better reach.

You care a lot about getting your
idea out there, and you'd benefit...

There's also some speaker called
Bang & Olufsen, if you've seen it?

-Yeah.
-They've also used design.

But I think it's wrong
to use that route.

I would never have bought an iPhone
if you hadn't recommended it.

Just because they make such...

Yeah but that's you,
you're an odd person.

-Yeah I'm an odd person.
-But if you want your ideas

to reach a wider audience,
you're not dealing with odd people.

But normal people who
think in a different way,

who are attracted to design.

I'll go through the functionality.

I think that if I can sail this boat
that only has 20cm draft,

with three unstayed masts,
maybe people start thinking,

and maybe they start thinking, maybe
this is more attractive than...

than a nicely lacquered boat, and...

Once at a boat convention, in '76,
when I got back, there was a guy,

saying, look at this boat,
what do you think?

And he had painted
a yellow stripe on it.

It looked lovely.

But the ocean doesn't give a crap
about a yellow stripe.

It doesn't matter much on the ocean,
but when you're around people.

At the boat convention?

Yeah, and photographers
taking pictures of your boats.

There was a guy, they asked him
why he designed such ugly boats.

They're more beautiful
every time they win, he said.

So, the beauty is something that...

It's learnt.

You learn it, it's in the culture.

I mean, for example, a windmill.

People think they're beautiful.

But imagine,
when the first windmills were built,

I'm sure people
weren't happy about them then.

But now, you know, when you get to
Holland and see an old windmill...

Or an old Ford model T.

Old cars, things like that,
the houses in Old Town...

They're lovely,
it's culture and all that.

In a few hundred years,
and it's beautiful.

It's the same with my boats.

In a few hundred years
they'll be beautiful.

My point is
that you have a lot of great ideas,

I would like to see them
reach the general public.

And that the public buys them.

But I realise that they must be
packaged with design,

and be given a different form.

I am completely convinced
that you are right.

But on the other hand,
I don't want to take that route.

Excuse me,
I just have to say one thing.

This is Yrvind.

Hey, Sven, it's Håkan.

Have you heard,
they cancelled the boat convention.

What?!

They're stopping all gatherings
of more than 500 people.

So I assume they're cancelling
the boat convention.

-Just so you know.
-Right, yeah...

Maybe that was expected.

Not entirely expected...

Oh well, I was meant to be paid
for the two lectures on Saturday.

But I guess it's worse
for the other guys there.

-Who are at the boat convention.
-Yeah.

-We'll see.
-Yeah, we'll see.

So let's focus on your health first.

Yeah, exactly.

-Without that, none of it matters.
-Yeah.

The original idea
was to redo that previous trip.

We planned to leave
in the middle of May.

But then the virus started
getting very urgent in Sweden,

at the beginning of March.

So Sven had to rethink,
and rethink again.

In the end, he decided to drive,
by himself, to Aalesund in Norway.

This current sailing project
really is a copy

of the first one
he was doing with Exlex.

He wants to show
that this will work.

I think he'll get away. And he'll be
making a stop at Madeira.

I don't know if it will be a repeat.
This trip will take a long time.

He might feel panicked,

that he wants to build an even more
perfect low-energy boat.

So he might call it off somewhere,

with the motivation
of building the next boat.

It's a question mark.

Now there's food in the boat for...

Food and water for about 120 days.

So I will just sail around
like a hermit, thinking about life.

And I'm writing on the next boat.

Few people understand that, you see.

Because they see me like a...

comic strip character, you know,
they don't take me seriously.

They think, you know, I'm just
a little funny man, you know,

out in my boat sailing, you know?

But I'm a yacht designer.

Many people like that, for example,
Van Gogh, the Dutch painter,

he was just painting this
strange thing, you know.

People thought he's kind of mad,
you know.

And 100 years later, now, if you
show people a painting of Van Gogh,

they think
that's good and beautiful.

But at that time
they couldn't see it.

And for me, I believe in myself.
I think this is...

I'm onto something new and no one
is doing this kind of small boat.

And it's really good
for the environment

and good for yourself, you know.
And good for everyone.

So that's why
I'm doing this experiment.

It's not just to build a boat,
you know?

It's like a painter, Van Gogh,
when he'd done on a painting,

he started on the next one,

when he'd done that
he started on the next one.

And a designer, an architect
and a writer of books, you know.

When they've written a book,
you know,

they say "Well, now I'm going to
have a next one", you know.

So it's not just me doing this boat
to have a little trip,

it's for humanity.

Well, that's why I'm doing it.

Tomorrow, we'll start travelling
out to Norway.

The border's closed, you know,
for ordinary Swedish people.

But if you work in Norway,
that's okay, you know.

I'm apprehensive because

few strategies survive the first
contact with enemies, you know.

And it's so complex, so there's
so many things that can happen.

I think chances are at least 50/50
that he makes it to Aalesund.

Norwegian citizens who go to Sweden
and then back without quarantining,

they get a
50,000-Norwegian-crown fine.

Hi. An expedition.

Yes...

You can go a bit further on
and in to the left.

Thank you.

-Do you have ID?
-Pardon?

ID?

-I'll stand back a little.
-Yeah, that's good.

Thank you.

-So this is your boat?
-Yeah.

It almost seemed like you were
driving it in for someone else,

when you gave me this,
so I didn't think it was yours.

Yeah it's mine
and it's just transit,

we're going to Aalesund
and then we sail straight out.

I've got all the documentation
on that, if you want to see.

Yes please.

I can take my ID, so I don't forget.

These are the books I've got
in Norwegian, that I've written.

So you write books.

Yes, I'm an author.

Here's a poster for one
of my lectures with Telia.

So I'm a lecturer and here...

I'm doing a lecture
for the king of Sweden.

Right.

And these are maps of traffic
density, how many vessels are out.

Yeah, okay.

And, when you get to Aalesund,
there's a tunnel to the airfield,

-and there's an island called Godøy.
-Yeah.

There's a port there, where
I'm launching, then straight out.

-Well, that's all in order.
-Thank you so much.

-It's all in order.
-What a relief.

It means a lot, and you know,
I can only really go this month,

because July has the best winds,
then in August the gales come back.

-Thank you, take care.
-Have a good trip.

Wait, here's another little book
you can have.

-This is some of my philosophy.
-Look at that! Perfect.

Thank you.

-We'll head off then.
-Go ahead.

Godøy means God's island
in Norwegian.

And it's just outside Aalesund.

Outside here it's deep water.

The weather is excellent now.

The wind is easterly
so couldn't be better.

Tomorrow in the morning calm,
before the breeze, I'll sail out.

Makes me happy
to be the hermit of the sea.

And they say
small boats aren't sea-worthy.

But the Portuguese say "The bigger
the boat, the bigger the storm."

And big boat attracts big forces.

A child can understand that a big
boat is not safer and a smaller one.

It's just that we are brainwashed.

So the whole society is scared into
consumption not to save the planet.

It's not a brainer, you know,
it's just simple logic.

We should
think about sustainability.

Well...

Don't trust the grownups, you know.

Just get a small boat, you know,
and go sail.

That age would be a limiting factor
to what you can and cannot do...

I think Yrvind just...

dismisses that with...

At least I'm old enough now
that no one can tell me what to do.

Morning of day 53.

You've gotten a pet, Sven.

Yeah, a little tweety bird.

He lives above my head.

Now I wonder, you know so much,
what kind of bird is it?

A tweety bird.

Right, one of those.

The main reason
other people think it's dangerous

for an 80-year old man
to sail alone,

might be that
they have little experience

of what it entails, being at sea.

-Good afternoon.
-Good afternoon, Captain.

-Calm on the Atlantic.
-Yeah, it's calm now.

It's afternoon, time for the apple.

It's become a habit that we have an
apple, at sunset, in the cockpit.

Watch the stars come up.

But today it's still.

-We're not crying for that.
-No.

And that he keeps going,
despite being 80 years old,

I think it's fantastic.

And I'm a lot less worried

when he's out on the Atlantic
in one of his homemade boats,

than if I found out he was at home
watching TV seven days a week.

Then I'd be really worried.

Maybe it's more important to live
than it is to survive.

-Good morning.
-Good morning, Captain.

First land we see in 53 days.

How does it feel?

It's great...

But a little bit sad too.

The journey is nearing its end.

And it's been so much fun.

So, yeah...

We've lived in our little world
here, kind of like being in prison.

Most people think it's pretty great,
being let out of prison.

Yes, that's true,
but on the other hand,

it can be scary,
rejoining the world, where...

I mean, where you
have to fend for yourself.

Here, we've got our boat, you know,
and all the dangerous stuff...

Now we...

We're leaving our safe little world,
to enter the big dangerous world.

But we do have
a couple more days at sea.

Yes we do.

I don't think you should
see Yrvind foremost

as a boat builder,
sailor and deep sea captain.

I think he should be seen
as a person who

challenges our view
of modern society.

Many who cross the Atlantic want to
do it as quickly as possible.

But Yrvind thinks differently,

he decides to be at sea
without any time constraints.

He's completely at home
in that element.

He feels no stress
or longing for land.

He's completely content out there.

It's his natural place.

Hello friends...

it is me out on the ocean.

I'm enjoying myself.

It's nice to be able to be out here.

It's not really the victory
that's important, you know,

but the struggle, the endeavour.

This thing with New Zealand,
the boat was to slow for that.

But some things work.
Some things don't work, you know.

I started from Norway.

I was out on the ocean for 150 days,
and that makes me happy.

It gives me satisfaction.

Hello friends,
this is Yrvind inside the boat.

I've been sailing since 1962.

It was the first time I left Sweden
on my own boat.

Now, I'm 83 and a third.

And I still have this idea,
you know, to show the world.

I don't see any limits yet,
you know.

If anything,
I'm getting stronger and better.

Very nice to be out here
in my little boat.

I've got plenty of books, plenty
to think about, about my next boat.

And every day, almost,
I make improvements.

And I'd also like to come back
to my workshop

and start building on the next boat.

But now I'm profiting
from very nice weather here.

And if I die, well...

I will not get disappointed
and think like that.

When I'm dead, I will not say

"Well, that's a pity, you know,
that I died, you know."

But I will think...

all the interesting things
I've done, you know.

In my life, I've been to
so many places, you know.

I met many interesting people and
lived in many different countries.

Been looking into
different cultures, you know.

I've been living up in Greece,
up in high mountains, you know.

Like with shepherds, you know.

Up in the winter and it was snow
and wolves, there, you know.

I had to walk around with a stick
to defend myself against the wolves.

I've lived on the most
isolated islands in the world,

Tristan Da Cunha.

I've lived on the Falkland
Islands and in the Caribbean,

in the United States,
on The Azores, you know.

I've been to so many places
and had so many different jobs too.

Written five books.

Built many boats.

Well, that's my idea, you know,
of a happy life.

A life with satisfaction, you know.

It's like very empty.

It's like, yeah...

on another planet.

Or...

this is where I am.

So, little by little...

Little by little, time passes.

So...

Okay. Thank you very much.