Ocean race Bermuda-Cuxhaven 1936

The Bermuda-Cuxhaven Ocean Race was a transatlantic regatta for sailing yachts that led from the Bermuda Islands to Germany in the year of the 1936 Summer Olympics .

run

The regatta started on July 5, 1936 at 12 noon local time (= Atlantic time: UTC-4 h) in front of St. David's Head on Bermuda, so as a "preliminary program" for the summer games that opened on August 1 in Berlin and Kiel. After losing World War I, Germany did not return to the International Yacht Racing Union until 1928 and was thus re-accepted into the international sports community. With the transatlantic regatta, which has been part of the tradition of regatta events since 1866, hopes were linked to corresponding external perceptions and for the German Reich this ocean sport event is regarded as the most important event of its kind between the world wars. A larger international participation, apart from a participating yacht from the Netherlands, did not materialize. The internationality of the 1935 transatlantic regatta from Newport (Rhode Island) to Bergen (Norway) was not achieved, but the course of the race in 1936 was less tragic than in 1935. The sensational race in 1935 and the first participation of a German yacht under skipper Ludwig Schlimbach but led to the strong German field in 1936, which had been awakened by the renewed enthusiasm for ocean racing of this kind. The following yachts took part in 1936:

The old Peter von Danzig (1936), today: Peter von Seestermühe

• the later victorious Yawl Roland von Bremen I of the sailing companionship "The coat of arms of Bremen" under her skipper Franz Perlia (designer: Henry Gruber )
• the Yawl Brema
• the Yawl Aschanti II of the shipyard owner Ernst Burmester in Bremen with the well-known sailors Age Nissen and Wolfgang Frank as crew members
• the Yawl Hamburg IV of the Hamburg Maritime Association under skipper Ludwig Schlimbach
• the Yawl Peter von Danzig of the Academic Sailing Association (ASV) zu Danzig , built in Danzig in 1936 for this race (designer: Henry Gruber)
• the Dutch yawl Zeearend
• the ketch Susewind
• the ketch arcturus
• the Ketsch Ettsi IV built in 1923 at the Rostock Neptun shipyard after a crack by Gerhard Barg , and thus the oldest ship in the regatta field, under the stand of the water sports association of old corps students in Berlin

The finish line was at the lightship Elbe 1 off Cuxhaven in the Elbe estuary. The winner was the Roland von Bremen , which took first place after 21 days and 3 hours and 3400 nautical miles. The last ship was the Ettsi IV , which was the only ship in the field that had chosen the course north around Scotland through the Pentland Firth and fell into the doldrums on this course. All other yachts had rounded Ireland south and crossed the English Channel . The northern route across the Atlantic, however, helped the sea ​​bream to victory in the 1931 transatlantic regatta . The Ettsi IV took 28 days and 17 hours to go it alone.

literature

• Ludwig Dinklage: Ocean races, 70 years of transatlantic regattas, 1866 - 1936. Bremen 1936.
• Wolfgang Frank: The hunt across the pond. Olympic Atlantic Regatta 1936. Hamburg 1937.
• Heinz Lange, Lothar Kühne: The famous Neptune ketch "Ettsi IV" ex "Thalatta" in: Das Nordlicht , Mitteilungen der Schiffahrtsgeschichtliche Gesellschaft OSTSEE eV , Rostock, issue 57 (15th year) December 2007, pp. 14-19

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In 1935 there were tragic deaths of three crew members of the participating yacht Hamrah .