North Sea Week: 100 years: dramas and moments of bliss

Part 1: From the foundation to the war

Whitsunday in 1922, the spectacle at Langlütjensand could be the scene of a Wagner opera: The sky is overcast. A strong north-westerly wind drives thick rain clouds before it and ensures that the sun breaks through at some point. A regatta fleet of 30 heavily reefed yachts is bathed in glistening light. Under storm jibs, they are beating hard into the wind through the turbulent Weser estuary towards the North Sea. On the dancing ships, their crews are still struggling with the after-effects of the previous evening's festivities in Bremerhaven's Strandhalle. But now it's wet on the outside. Because the outgoing tide is against the wind, the yachts are regularly washed over by the rising sea. And while only half of the regatta fleet makes it across the heavily shortened course without damage to the rigging, rudder or sails, the next day's competition is calm and the tide pushes some participants past the finish line.

The North Sea Week is born. And the very first edition offered a foretaste of what still regularly takes place at Germany's only high seas regatta series. Since then, it has been the stage for dramas and moments of bliss. It is a mirror of the history of ocean sailing. Above all, however, the North Sea Week is an integral part of the annual programme for many sailors, who enjoy a lively time together between sporting competitions and lavish parties. This has been the case, with interruptions due to war and pandemic, for a hundred years now.

The organisation of a challenging regatta series along the west coast was linked to the hope of countering Kiel Week with something for North Sea sailors and "tightening the bond of sailing between Kiel, Elbe and Weser", wrote YACHT at the time. But the ambitious endeavour was born at a difficult time. The war had only been over for four years, the economy was suffering under the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, the global economic crisis and inflation. And the sailing format was not yet ideal for the purpose.

Sailing takes place over four days: on Whitsun Saturday, a feeder regatta from Oberhammelwarden on the Lower Weser to Bremerhaven for a wet and cheerful welcome evening. On Whit Sunday, the course leads from Bremerhaven to the Hohe Weg lighthouse off Mellum and back. On Monday, the route then continues from Bremerhaven to Cuxhaven and on Tuesday to Brunsbüttelkoog.

A North Sea Week had been under consideration for some time. After all, the initiator is the Weser Yacht Club. However, the bond is still tenuous and the participation of sailors from Hamburg and Kiel is low. The journey to the Weser was too costly for them. The turning point came in 1925, when the Helgoland authorities agreed to clear a protected harbour basin for the participating fleet, making it possible to move the North Sea Week to the offshore island. The Weser Yacht Club, the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein, the Kaiserliche Yachtclub and the Kieler Segelvereinigung are organising the event. The feeder regattas now lead from the Weser and Elbe to the red rock, followed by a race around the island and then back home again in return races.

The lap around the sandstone rock is not for the faint-hearted. The tidal current runs very unconventionally around the sea marks that serve as course markers, and hardly any owner sails the regatta without a pilot. The municipality of Heligoland has awarded the winner the right to fly the original Heligoland flag as the national flag for life. A total of 29 yachts compete for this privilege in 1925. Heinz Harmssen from Bremen wins with his "Aschanti II", built by Ernst Burmester, and is the first to receive the valuable Heligoland island prize as well as the so-called church flag.

Harmssen also won in the following two years and retained the Island Prize in 1927 as a three-time winner. To this day, no one has managed to emulate him, and the second Heligoland Island Prize will be contested until 1962. After Harmssen, three more participants sailed to the church flag, most recently Jürgen F. Schaper from Hamburg with his "Schwalbe" in 1928.

Over time, the regatta programme is extended until the North Sea Week lives up to its name. Whitsunday is the arrival day for feeder regattas, Monday is a rest day, Tuesday is the island race, and it's not until Wednesday that the race heads home again.

The parade on the island also sets standards on land. The award ceremony in the Kurhaus with Heligoland national dances and a 3.50 mark cover regularly culminates in a glittering ball night. Anyone who arrived on Sundays under sail automatically became a member of the "Verein zur Schonung der Betten in der Morgenröte", whose meetings in Lotte Laube's mocha parlour on the Oberland were obligatory for many a member. The sailors party without a care in the world, ignore the police hour and sometimes bring a seal from the North Sea aquarium to join them for an egg toast.

In terms of sailing, it became increasingly demanding until the outbreak of the Second World War. "The North Sea Week was undoubtedly not without influence on the tendency to equalise cruisers and racing classes that emerged after the war and the successful resolutions of the German Sailing Congress in 1927 in this direction," it says in the Weser Yacht Club yearbook in 1929.

The Sailors' Convention had defined the limit dimensions for sport cruisers in the form of cruiser classes. The cruiser racing formula KR developed by Henry Rasmussen was agreed upon for the measurement of classless boats and their remuneration.

Sailing in Germany experiences an enormous boom, and not just because of this development. The 1930s saw an economic upturn. This had reasons that would soon lead to disaster, but initially benefited shipyards and their private clients.

The North Sea Week also becomes bigger during this time. The first regatta around Skagen takes place in 1933. The 510 nautical mile feeder race to Kiel Week sees five yachts at the start. In the same year, the British Ocean Racing Club organises a regatta from Burnham to Heligoland. Five of the eight entrants arrive there. In 1938 there are already 30 yachts. The number of races that are part of the North Sea Week increases from year to year to 14, and the number of participants rises to around 100 yachts. At the end of the 1930s, many of them were nautical cruisers from the air force and navy training fleets. In the classes of 50 and 100-metre cruisers, the military sailed almost among themselves.

But then war breaks out. From then on, sailing is out of the question, even for civilians.

The red rock in the North Sea has been inaccessible since 1939. Construction work is the reason. Submarine and air raid shelters are built. The population is evacuated. When the Royal Air Force drops around 7,000 bombs over the island in April 1945, the remaining soldiers take refuge in the 13-kilometre-long air-raid shelter tunnel system. Two years later, the British attempt to blow up Heligoland completely. But they failed. The rock is too soft and dampens the detonations. The people of Heligoland successfully demand the return of their island. What they find when they arrive on 1 March 1952, however, is a field of rubble.

This article is part of the new YACHT 12/2022, available at newsagents from 1 June or can be ordered digitally.