Portrait of Kurt Reinke: Self-build for long journeys: the history of Reinke yachts

Kurt Reinke has written a piece of German yacht building history. Over the course of his life, the designer from Bremen drew a good two dozen designs for boats and sailing yachts, even for some motorboats. The speciality: With the help of his construction drawings, books, documents and personal advice, anyone could build a long-term yacht, as Reinke called them.

"Take courage!", he encourages the reader of his information brochure, which interested self-builders can buy from him for 10 Deutschmarks, in a passionate manner. Reinke can be described as the father of the German self-build scene. Hundreds of yachts from seven to 17 metres in length, mainly made of steel or aluminium, have been built by sailors, dreamers, craftsmen and shipyards over the past five decades according to his plans.

Today, two decades after the designer's death, his angular metal ships are particularly popular with blue water sailors. Quite a few crews who wanted to go on a long voyage on a small budget bought one of the cancelled self-build projects for little money and completed the robust hull for their own dream cruise. Other well-known Reinke pioneers among German long-distance sailors are Heide and Erich Wilts with their three yachts named "Freydis" - all Reinkes.

There is corresponding demand on the second-hand market today for finished boats, especially shipyard-built boats with aluminium hulls. New hulls, however, are only occasionally ordered. Almost all hull manufacturers of the former self-build system have ceased operations or turned their backs on Reinke yachts. The number of customers who buy a building licence today is in single figures each year, says Peter Reinke. Kurt Reinke's son still sells the self-build plans that his father developed.

The portrait of Kurt Reinke and his designs appears in the new YACHT 1/2020, which is available in stores and online in the webshop from today and as a digital download here.