With his long hair, gold-capped tooth and assorted bead necklaces and sunglasses hanging from a grubby piece of string around his neck, Captain Clive Hamman looks like a more authentic Pirate of the Caribbean than Johnny Depp ever will. But there is no trace of menace in his soft spoken, gentle manner and open smile. He is simply a sea gypsy who has chosen to live outside conventional society, embracing the absence of a fixed abode and lack of financial security as part of the adventure.
Captain Clive sailed into Cayman waters last week on Nuthin Wong, an oceangoing Chinese junk that he built in his backyard in Canada. Captain and boat are on an extended round the world voyage, slowly zig zagging their way across the globe. So far the journey has taken 20 years.
Since setting off from Vancouver in 1991 he has visited over 40 countries, crossing the Pacific Ocean to Australia, where he spent nearly two years exploring the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef. Continuing through Asia towards Africa he was forced to seek permission to pull into Diego Garcia island, a military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean, after an eight day storm seriously damaged the boat.
His adventures have taken him around the coast of Africa, across to Brazil, up the Caribbean chain and back over the Atlantic to Europe. Over the course of three years in northern Europe he sailed up the river Seine to Paris, taking down the masts to pass under bridges, and on through the canals of Europe, where he had to leave the masts behind completely to lighten the load and avoid running aground in the shallows.
Earlier this year Nuthin Wong made its third Atlantic crossing, stopping in the Turks and Caicos and Cuba prior to arriving in the Cayman Islands from Cuba. As soon as his engine has been repaired Captain Clive will be setting off once again, this time headed for Honduras and the Bay Islands. Beyond that the plans are vague: he may sell the boat and build a smaller one, or he may take the boat over to China.
This simple, free spirited existence sounds by turns idyllic and terrifying. On the one hand he can exchange a bucket of freshly caught lobsters for a few cold beers, but on the other hand, he has survived pirate attacks, been robbed at knife point, endured fierce storms and run aground on reefs on more than one occasion. He travels where the winds takes him, with no set agenda and over the years has collected enough stories to fill two books. The first, No Fixed Address, was published three years ago. He is working on the second. But selling his book proves to be something of a problem when existing so far outside the mainstream of society. He keeps a few copies on board and promotes the book at every port of call but selling the book online is not an option for him: “For that you need a bank account!” he exclaims, as if I were suggesting he do something far more difficult than build a boat and circumnavigate the globe. But, of course, with ‘no fixed address’ it is no easy task to open a bank account. Or, he admits, to collect an inheritance due to him.
However, no one can live in a completely money-free world, especially when one has a boat to maintain and marina fees to pay, so to make ends meet he takes on crew along the way. He describes it as a “sailing backpacker hostel”. The crew make a contribution towards food and other costs in return for learning to sail and enjoying a once in a lifetime experience. “Some go on to get their own boats and some know they want to become farmers after crossing an ocean,” he chuckles.
Over the years, hundreds of people from all walks of life have spent anything from a week to several months aboard Nuthin Wong. “There was one lady in her seventies who ran an orphanage in Mexico and a young boy of 17 whose mother said he was having problems at school and she was going to cut him loose for six months.” The teenager sailed across the Atlantic with him and then took off alone for the French Riviera to look for work. “I met him again by chance in Gibraltar. He had ten grand in his pocket and was working on a $2.7 million charter yacht heading to the Caribbean.”
It was more than a fanciful whim that made Captain Clive choose the Chinese junk design for his ocean voyage. He lost an earlier boat in a cyclone and so his priority became to build a boat that would be strong and sturdy enough to endure a few knocks. He became intrigued by junks whose design has barely changed in over 2,000 years, and were undertaking ocean voyages centuries before Columbus set out to sail around the world. “There are no drawings, no plans for junks. It was handed down from father to son through the generations,” he explains, describing how the hull shape is inspired by a duck’s body while the sails resemble an open eagle’s wing, designed to catch as much wind as possible.
It’s not a trip for the faint hearted. Nuthin Wong is no luxury yacht. For Captain Clive it’s all about keeping it simple. His navigation equipment amounts to one hand-held GPS and a lead line he drops over the side to measure the depth. The galley consists of a sink and two gas-burning rings and the chart table doubles as a work surface. There is no oven so they bake bread in the pressure cooker – except they recently ran out of propane and then spent six weeks cooking on deck on the barbecue. There is no refrigerator – just a cooler – no air conditioning and no heating. Once he weighs anchor, he is out of touch until he reaches land again, relying on his wits to make it to the next destination.
It’s a lifestyle Captain Clive has chosen. He has no plans to give up life on the ocean waves and head home, because he says, indicating the boat, “This is home already.”
Related Videos
