Segel yachts: the place the spruce rushes over the water | EUROtoday

Jan Bruges is absorbing the Gennaker, the big, mild half wind sail, and the “Woy 26” accelerates to 12.7 knots in seconds. The 7.90 -meter -long regatta yacht is now elegantly rushed to over the loop earlier than Arnis with about 23.5 kilometers per hour, the slim fairway at this level doesn’t enable extra within the gusty wind. The skipper of a heavy motor glider is blissful when he’s overtaken by the raceboat with the flat silhouette and the huge, open rear.

What the sailor doesn’t see: The fuselage, glued with orange movie, doesn’t encompass plastic, corresponding to virtually all new sports activities boats at present, however of spruce and pine. On the highest is a deck manufactured from Oregon Pine. In the night, the “Woy 26” ought to begin on the Wednesday Regatta in Arnis for the primary time, after years of preparation and development time, after many check drives and high quality changes. “It is a great moment to see how the vision becomes a reality,” says Bruges, who constructed the “Woy 26” along with his staff, “and how the development of recent years pays off and the process works in practice and in everyday life.”

Bruges has not solely made a brand new yacht, the 37-year-old desires to revive a complete class of boat constructing. Wood, the dominant materials for ships and boats, has largely disappeared from their manufacturing today. This will not be solely as a result of using noble woods corresponding to mahogany and teak is now thought-about troublesome when constructing yachts for ecological causes. Classic home woods like oak are additionally not often discovered as constructing supplies for brand new boats. “Since the 1960s and 1970s, the material wood has been almost completely displaced from the market,” says Bruges. “In my view, because the technology of the wooden boat building was not developed further. I have made it my job.”

On Brügges shipyard, a former farm in Grödersby close to Arnis, the body construction for the “Woy 26” is manufactured, the outer pores and skin is utilized, the deck laid. After spruce and pine on the first copy, Bruges is at the moment constructing the fuselage of the second Woy (“Wooden Yacht”) overriding from Lerche. For the manufacturing of the veneers, Weiß fir is feasible: “We continue to try out what is possible with which domestic wood when building our boats. Of course we also respond to the wishes of the customers.” However, not solely using native, sustainably forestable wooden, but additionally the modernization of manufacturing: “We managed to apply the vacuum infusion process to the form of form,” he says. “At the beginning of the year we at Knierim in Kiel we had construction forms for ours, Woy 26 ‘milled. In mid -April we made the first fuselage and the first deck on these shapes in our process.”

The Schlei between Schleswig and Schleimünde is likely one of the most lovely crusing areas in Germany. And it’s a biotope of smaller, agile and revolutionary throwing that develop and construct traditional and fashionable crusing, yachts and motor boats, corresponding to Mittelmann’s, Henningsen & Steckmest and Janssen & Renkhoff in Kappeln or Balticat in Arnis.

Bruges offers an instance of the revolutionary energy of those household companies. The improvement and development of the primary “Woy 26” was funded by the “central innovation program Mittelstand” (ZIM) of the Federal Ministry of Economics. In May the “Woy 26” within the German Technology Museum Berlin received two awards on the “German Innovation Award” of the Council for Design (German Design Council). Around 460 submissions had been examined by the juries at this yr’s competitors, and 15 gold awards had been awarded. The Council, initiated in 1953 by the German Bundestag, represents the pursuits of round 300 design -oriented firms as a non -profit basis.

Boats are of nice significance for Schleswig-Holstein, not solely on this planet’s largest crusing sport, the Kiel Week, but additionally with the privately used boats within the Marinas on the North and Baltic Sea “Water sports have a significant share in the Schleswig-Holstein tourism,” says State Minister of Economics Claus Ruhe Madsen (CDU). “Also, seekeepers are an important target group of Schleswig-Holstein. They perceive Marinas as part of the tourist offer and are interested in maritime topics, sailing and boats.”

Politicians even have a watch on the Schlei. “Although the biggest yacht and certainly the best boat builders are certainly located here,” says Madsen. “The Schlei should have the highest density of boat yards and produce the best boat building.

Kappeln’s Mayor Joachim Stoll says: “Nowhere else is there such a community of unbiased however carefully cooperating firms, whose bandwidth ranges from the standard boat and yacht constructing to high-technological manufacturing strategies and which is accomplished by all divisions of the yacht service.” The maritime economy is “an necessary financial issue and employer and on the identical time id -creating for our metropolis. Jan Bruges’ boat yard in Grödersby is likely one of the excellent firms on this division.”

Born in Hamburg, Germany’s best boat building journeyman in 2013, founded his shipyard in 2016. In the meantime, he employs 20 employees, including six trainees, of whom Jonas Müller, in 2024, was awarded the second best boat building journeyman in Germany. The shipyard is profitable, says Bruges, who lives in Grödersby with his wife and two children. In addition to the construction of boats, the basis for this is primarily the business with repairs and refits, the service and the winter camp. As a sub -tenant at Balticat and the Heinrich Eberhardt shipyard in Arnis, Brügges has had its own access to the water since last year, two berths for service and additional indoor capacity.

For the future, the shipyard is increasingly relating to the new building. The second “Woy 26”, which is currently being built in Grödersby, goes to the Wannsee in Berlin. From July, the third boat is to be created for a customer on Lake Constance. The first “Woy 26” currently still belongs to the shipyard. Bruges does not call the price of the boats, but it should be significantly six digits. “We now additionally had worldwide inquiries,” says Bruges, “for the Caribbean, from Porto Cervo in Sardinia, from Lake Garda.” The first “Woy 26” with an electric motor weighs around 1120 kilograms. Mast, bugsprit, rudder leaves, keel fin, engine box and pin are made of the carbon carbon. The shipyard wants to reduce the weight of the yacht constructed by Martin Menzner as part of the small series production.

At the first Wednesday evening regatta in front of Arnis, things were not yet optimal for the “Woy 26”, despite many successful test drives, in which the boat on the Schlei had already reached 18.7 knots. “A failed Gennaker maneuver threw her again correctly,” says Bruges about the experience after the first race. The shipyard team wants to continue training – also for participating in the Kiel Week and at the Aalregatta at Eckernförder Bay this summer.

It has already proven that the shipyard in Grödersby can build a successful regatta boat before “Woy 26”. In 2022, Bruges let a 48-foot racer to water, which was later called “Elida” in Arnis. The boat with a structure made of carbon and a fuselage skin made of Alaska spruce and Mahogany belongs to Daniel Baum, co-owner of the Hamburg Yachtversicherungs Group Pantaenius. Baums Crew is currently sailing the “Elida” at Pentecost on the North Sea Week forward of Helgoland.

From July seventeenth to August 1, Bruges and Baum’s staff desires to start out the primary re-creation of the legendary Admiral’s Cup since 2003. The Royal Ocean Racing Club on the British Channel Island Isle of Wight is organizing the standard regatta once more for its a centesimal anniversary-it is a sort of unofficial world championship for the college crusing. And the wooden class can also be welcome.

Olaf Preuss is the enterprise reporter of the world and world on Sunday for Hamburg and Northern Germany. He usually studies on the maritime economic system and likewise in regards to the development of yachts.