COUPLE SETS SALE ON THE WINGS OF THE 'PHOENIX'

The 31-foot sailboat, "Phoenix," has been home to a German couple for more than three years. Pete and Ute Claussen plan to spend a total of seven years sailing around the globe. The deck was loaded Thursday with cruising gear and the mast stepped for low bridges.

This map of Germany shows where the couple started their cruise more than three years ago.

Ute and Pete Claussen left Germany 3 1/2 years ago in a 31-foot sailboat named the Phoenix. Such places they have seen: Holland, Greece, Turkey, the Canary Islands, Gibraltar, England, Barbados, the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes. For the past week or so, they've been enjoying the view at Honker's Boat Dock. The balky diesel engine that already has had to be rebuilt once on their voyage broke down opposite the dock as the Claussens were dropping down the Mississippi River on their way to intercepting the Ohio River at Cairo, Ill. Mike Hurst, owner of Mike's Marine on Water Street, has sent for the parts and will repair the engine for the Claussens. He and employee Don Gammon have tried to make the couple comfortable during their delay, which is expected to last another week. But the Claussens do just fine aboard the Phoenix.In the past 3 1/2 years, they have come ashore to sleep in a hotel only a few times. They have books and music and each other, and after 15 years of marriage their interplay suggests they enjoy each other's company immensely.Pete served in the German navy for 12 years. Afterward he taught disabled children, which also is Ute's occupation. Before leaving on this trip in 1996, their longest previous sailing voyage was from Germany to Ireland. Ute navigated all the way back home. Pete, who is more fluent in English, says his wife is a good and enthusiastic sailor. "Always her question is, 'What's behind the horizon?'"Pete decided to retire from teaching and to set sail for the world after having "a warning," pain doctors viewed as a possible precursor to a heart attack. The couple left Germany telling family members at a bon voyage party they were going to the Mediterranean for awhile and didn't know where the wind might take them. The Claussens spent two years in the Mediterranean Sea alone."There's not really a plan," Pete says. "We just go and keep going."They stay in contact with their family, which includes Pete's four grown children, via the phone and letters.The engine breakdowns -- this is the third major one -- have been a mixed blessing. They've been stranded for weeks at a time, but the circumstances also have enabled them to make friends like Mike and Don."It's like a coin," Pete says. "You have both sides."Though tied up at a remote dock, they've already met many nice people in Cape Girardeau, Pete said. "They're not nosy, just interested."At 31 feet, the Phoenix is less than half the average size of the sailboats that do long-range sailing, but the Claussens said they have never felt what they are doing was dangerous. Nights on their 24-day crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, they alternated four hours of sleeping with four hours of watch. Someone must be awake at all times to avoid the large freighters crossing the ocean. "We are so small it's like nothing," said Pete.They navigate by "eyeball and guesswork," Pete says, although they also use a global positioning system they have named Columbus, a sextant and a radar system they have dubbed Van Gogh "because it makes such pretty pictures."Solar panels on the outside of the boat charge the batteries that heat their water and power their heaters and lights.Some people worried they would be bored sailing across the ocean. It was the opposite, they say. "It's never the same. It's always interesting," Pete said.Sailing around the world also isn't as expensive as it might seem. The Claussens own the sailboat and they don't have a car. About a third of Pete's pension goes to maintain their home in Germany, so the rest they can spend on the trip."You can live on about half what it normally costs," Pete says.After visiting so many exciting ports of call, they say they are on the leg of the voyage that excites them most: the Mississippi River. "Mark Twain," Ute says excitedly. "... Old Man River."America is a special place for Germans, they say. Every German school child reads "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer." And the Claussens themselves love country and western music."The Mississippi is like music anyway," Pete says.The German language has a word for the special kind of learning that occurs only through traveling. Pete says their voyage is providing it."You have to learn to be patient, learn to deal with difficulties," he said. "Now I will be able to understand people in another way." The voyage has changed them in other ways not easily translated into words, they say, especially those of a foreign language."It's a kind of a new education you get to your soul and your heart," Ute said.The Claussens know they must have a dependable engine if they are to continue as planned through the Panama Canal and into the South Pacific. They have confidence in Hurst's expertise. "When I saw him working on the engine, it's beautiful," Pete said. "I thought I knew the engine."When it's ready they will forge on in a voyage Pete calls "our living dream."