About the 6-metre Yacht ‘Hamburg’, her famous first owner, and sailing a fabulous metre class at all. And about sailing as a performing art, whose fleeting pleasure is permanently captured at the right moment.
Have you ever heard of Erich Ferdinand Laeisz? He was a professional and private tall ship sailor. His Hamburg shipping company provided him with the money for his true passion for sailing on the still profitable saltpeter voyage from Chile to Europe. Saltpeter was in demand as fertilizer and as a base for explosives. They were well-equipped, skillfully sailed, and correspondingly fast square-rigged ships. The custom of giving the ships names beginning with the letter ‘P’ gave the shipping company the name ‘Flying P-Liner.’ You can see evidence of this era, such as the ‘Passat’ in Travemünde and the ‘Peking,’ now in Hamburg.
Erich F. Laeisz, his boats, and the 6 mR yacht ‘Hamburg’
Laeisz did the same with his private boats. Laeisz was also a shipowner in his spare time. He had a new boat built by Henry Rasmussen at Abeking & Rasmussen in Bremen practically every year, sometimes even two. After several archipelago cruisers, the ‘Hamburg’ was the first 6 mR yacht to be rigged after the war in 1927. For this boat, he made an exception to his naming fad. Otherwise, the names were short and catchy and were adopted from boat to boat.
The overview shows why Laeisz (1888-1958) is remembered as a promoter of domestic boatbuilding and regatta sailing.
Baujahr
A&R Baunummer
Bootstyp
Bootsname
1924
2090
30er Schärenkreuzer
Pan
1925
2191
30er Schärenkreuzer
Pan
1927
2285
6 mR
Hamburg
1927
2242
30er Schärenkreuzer
Pan
1928
2385
6 mR
Pan
1929
2508
6 mR
Pan
1929
2526
30er Schärenkreuzer
Pasch
1931
2662
Starboot
Paka
Acht Laeisz Boote: Auszug aus dem Baunummernverzeichnis von Abeking & Rasmussen
The reason for the ‘Hamburg’ was a business trip by Henry Rasmussen to the States, the most important market for German boatbuilding at the time. Sixes were sailed on Long Island Sound and Rasmussen was asked when the Germans, after their successes with the 30-metre archipelago cruisers, would get involved in the increasingly popular international 6 mR class.
How the metre yacht ‘Hamburg’ came about
Henry Rasmussen reports in his memoirs: “When I returned from America in autumn 1926, I discussed everything with my friend Laeisz. At my suggestion, Mr Laeisz immediately took the initiative and commissioned a 6-seater. This resulted in the first 6-ship after the war, the ‘Hamburg’. Mr Laeisz was often criticised for his new ideas. Bad people called me the midwife of Erich F. Laeisz,” the designer, sailing functionary and boat builder recalls the prosperous friendship, which was beneficial for the sport of sailing in northern Germany and also for the shipyard.
Unfortunately, the ‘Hamburg’ did not succeed in building on the successes achieved in the 30er Schärenkreuzer. Unlike his Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian colleagues Charles Nicholson and Johan Anker, Rasmussen was not involved in his first six. The ‘Hamburg’ did not take part in the 1928 Olympic regattas in Antwerp.
Deck in der traditionellen “leinenbespannten” Machart – Photo Sören Hese
The finesse of the metre class
The metre class formula essentially calculates the propulsion in the form of the sail area with the length and thus the hull speed. When designing a metre class yacht of any size – they range from 6 to 23 metres – the aim is to find a compromise between light wind sailing characteristics and speed in windy conditions. A lot of sail area comes at the expense of speed. Length comes at the expense of sail area. So you have to think things through carefully and find a clever compromise.
This is what makes the formula, first agreed in 1908 and repeatedly revised, and its products so interesting to this day. Rasmussen had designed a generously sailed light wind ship. The comparatively large width of 2.07 metres made it reasonably stiff, so that the ‘Hamburg’ could withstand all kinds of wind.
In his generalised memoirs, Rasmussen ignores the sad fact that the new boat did not stand a chance against the strong Scandinavian competition in the 1927 sailing season: The boat’s rudder shaft ended below deck, which made the boat difficult to handle in windy conditions. After the Kiel Week debut at the end of June 1927, the boat was fitted with a tiller mounted on deck instead of below deck with a view to the regattas in Scandinavia.
New boat, new luck: the 6-man ‘Pan’
Laeisz solved the problem by ordering a new six according to Anglo-Saxon plans and returning to the tried and tested naming custom. He called it ‘Pan’. The ‘Hamburg’ was sold to Bremen, soon refitted for touring sailing and reappeared as “Ziu” in the booklet ‘Drei Mann an Bord’, which is rarely found today. The club ship of the Akademischer Seglerverein Stettin survived the end of the Second World War, sunk in the Oderhaff. It later travelled in Polish waters as the ‘Swantewitt’.
6er “Hamburg” 1927 bei Wind in der Kieler Förde – Foto aus Henry Rasmussens Memoiren
In the 1990s, Henry Rasmussen’s grandson Andreas Krause, a lover of A&R boats in Gdansk, became aware of the boat. It took some imagination to recognise the lost ‘Hamburg’ in the ‘Duca II’ ex. “Swantewitt” ex. ‘Ziu’, which was disfigured with a bulky cabin superstructure. The boat was restored in the traditional style at the ‘Krause & Wucherpfennig’ shipyard at the time.
With a deck in the conventional nailed and line-covered version. With shrouds that are deflected laterally through the deck to the foot of the mast. With imitation A&R sheet winches from the Australian specialist Hutton. And with an aubergine-coloured painted hull.
An authentic classic restoration worth seeing, which was later refitted at the prestigious Stapelfeld shipyard on the Schlei. Simple, as otherwise only Italians with their unerring sense of stylish pastime can achieve.
Die Essenz des Segelns – Foto Sören Hese
Sailing six is madness
A while ago I had the opportunity to sail the boat in the Kiel Fjord in a gusty wind. The handling was as interesting as casting off and returning to the harbour basin of the Kiel Yacht Club without an engine. Thanks to 60 per cent ballast, it stays in the heeled final position and sails through thick and thin. It’s great fun. You can do this consistently for a few hours. Then you go back home and recover from the sailing trip. It’s remarkable how the six, as a typical metre class, goes through the water unbraked. A filigree skerry cruiser is lighter and, with its stretched bow, much more sensitive in fresh winds.
Why is all this being told here? The articles Crested Grebe Perspective and Split Level Photography are about two variants of sailing photography. Here you can think about whether the effect takes precedence over the subject. The two ‘Hamburg’ photos by Sören Hese show why the genre of classic sailing photography is still appealing. How a particular moment reveals the character of a boat and the fleeting madness of classic sailing.
Nochmal ein Blick auf den auberginefarbenen Sechser in der Kieler Förde – Foto Sören Hese
Literature
Henry Rasmussen: Yachten, Segler und eine Werft: Hans Dulk Verlag Hamburg 1956, p. 161
Svante Domizlaff: Abeking & Rasmussen. Evolution im Yachtbau. Delius Klasing Bielefeld: 1996, antiquarisch, ISBN 3-7688-0953-6, with table of all boats built, p. 137
Ingvard Liewendahl, Harald Alftan, Pekka Barck: Sexornas Jakt Finlands 6 mR-Förbundet Helsingfors: 1992, ISBN: 952-90-3677-9 175 pages
Udo Pini: 125 Jahre NRV (1868–1993), Norddeutscher Regatta Verein Hamburg 1993, 326 pages
Hans Freyse, Hans Karr: Abeking & Rasmussen. Die Kunst des Schiffbaus. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg: 2010, 171 pages. ISBN: 978 3 7822 0996 0, with table of all boats built
Hans Georg Pager: Reederei F. Laeisz. Von den Großseglern zur Containerfracht, Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg: 2004, 251 pages. ISBN: 3 7822 0880 3
