85-Year-Old Twins Invite Everyone to Sail Around the World With Them

Van and Carl Vollmer want to spend the rest of their lives at sea, and they want you to join them. According to an article in Patch, the 85-year-old twins, currently living on a cabin cruiser docked in the Bronx, began posting unlikely recruitment ads around New York City early this August. The signs read, "Brooklyn Sea Captain Seeking Crew," and promised "the adventure of a lifetime."

The Vollmers' plan is simple. They're looking for twelve men and women, with or without sailing experience, to sail around the world with them for two years. Together, they will learn languages, visit the Greek Isles, scuba dive, and search for lost gold. They'll also exercise in the boat's gym and take online-classes together (the boat, of course, will have full internet access).

There's only one problem with the Vollmers' plan: they don't have their boat yet. Van Vollmer has his eye on an 158-foot barque called the Peacemaker, which is currently docked in Georgia, and owned by a religious sect known as the Twelve Tribes. The boat is for sale, but it costs three million dollars—money the Vollmers do not have. But the famously stubborn Van isn't worried. He's busy lining up investors, and is so confident they'll raise the money that he's already enlisted a first mate for the voyage: a 36-year-old "girl magnet" named Steven who he refers to as his protegee.

Until they get their boat, the Vollmers are busy recruiting the rest of their crew. Applicants only need to meet a few basic requirements: they must be willing to perform chores on board the boat, must know a useful trade (Van would like to find "a mechanic, a nutritionist, a cook, a personal trainer and a scientist"), and must agree to bring a minimum of 20 books on board (a quarter of which should be non-fiction). And, eventually, when the Vollmers pass away, it will be the responsibility of the crew to release their bodies into the ocean, so they can "swim with the fishes for eternity."