He is a rare specimen. To date, German sailing has only two handfuls of players who earn their money internationally as professionals. Markus Wieser is one of the beacons in this league, which is particularly limited in this country. With 14 world championship titles in seven boat classes and eight European Championship gold medals, the 59-year-old from Starnberg is unrivalled in terms of quality and versatility. From the dinghy classes Vaurien and FD to open keelboats such as dragons and tempests to the special discipline of match racing and the leading monohull classes TP52, Club Swan 50 and maxi yachts: Wherever the multi-talented Bavarian dynamo strikes, he is usually at the front.
"Markus Wieser is a wind fox. The fact that he learnt to sail on a lake may have been a small piece of the mosaic," says Laser world champion Philipp Buhl. The Olympic sailor trained with Wieser and a German selection for the now postponed SSL Gold Cup. Impressed by Wieser's skills as a player coach, Buhl believes: "Many people say about Markus that he is an intuitive sailor. I think Markus has been thinking about sailing his whole life. When you do things so often, they become almost automatic."
Markus Wieser: World champion in many classes
Markus Wieser has won 14 World Championship titles in seven different boat classes to date. In addition to eight European Championship gold medals, his successes show how versatile the Bavarian tactician and strategist is at the highest level.
- 2006: Dragons (Gold Cup)
- 2010: IMS with "Elena Nova"
- 2011: Dragons (Gold Cup)
- 2013: Kite; 5.5 metre class
- 2014: Dragons (Gold Cup)
- 2017: Maxi 72 with "Momo"
- 2018: Maxi 72 with "Momo"
- 2019: Tempest
- 2020:ClubSwan 50 with "Hatari"
- 2021: ClubSwan 50 with "Hatari"; Tempest
- 2022: Tempest, 6 metre class
- 2023: Participation in the ClubSwan 50, ORC and 6.6 m World Championships planned
Wieser sails off on his own at the age of four
Markus Wieser grew up on Lake Starnberg. The youngest after his brother Franz and sister Georgine, he was just four years old when he started sailing off alone in his father's 20-metre dinghy cruiser. "Only as far as the buoy 70 metres away, because I was afraid of deep water. I sailed alongside the shore without a headsail, went up with three or four tacks and back before the wind," he remembers the childishly curious "looping trips".
Later, father Franz Wieser swapped his dinghy cruiser for a kite and bought his children Vauriens. Recognised as an international standardised class since 1961, the articulated spanker came into fashion as an alternative to the pirate as a youth class at the end of the 1960s. Markus initially joined his brother Franz in the boat as foresailor. In 1976, the Wiesers were runners-up in the youth world championship in Davos. Markus was just twelve years old at the time. But they soon change positions. His brother is taller and heavier, Markus is the better helmsman.
The three children grew up well protected between Munich, where they lived during the week because their father practised as a vet there, and the weekend bliss of freedom and sailing on Lake Starnberg. "My parents made a lot of things possible. In the seventies, we already had the kite, two Vauriens and two Lasers." His father lays out starting lines for his siblings for fun. "Back then, we always sailed against each other in the Laser, but of course we didn't know that it was called a match race," Markus vividly remembers the intuitive regatta training in the area off Ambach.
In the FD for the Olympics?
The younger Markus remained loyal to the Vaurien a little longer than Franz, who switched to the 470 in 1978. After graduating from high school in 1982, Markus chose the then popular Olympic Flying Dutchman (FD) as his new boat. In Germany, four-time world champion Albert "Alba" Batzill, who was twelve years older than Markus, and his crew brothers Jörg and Eckart Diesch, who had won Olympic gold in Kingston, Canada, in 1976, were the benchmark in the FD at the time. The Wiesers stepped on the gas, winning World Championship bronze at the 1987 Worlds in Kiel and World Championship silver in Alassio two years later. Despite the medal, the Kiel FD summit remains one of two low points in Markus Wieser's sailing career that still haunt him today. "We were almost world champions when Otto Schlenzka started a race at 4.30 pm on the final day. And that's when we lost the title. I was still thinking about that for a long time," he muses.
However, as the best German FD team, the Wiesers qualified for the Olympic test regatta in 1987. But Markus doesn't go. He had just become the father of the first of his four daughters, Verena, Valentina, Fabiana and Vanessa, and was in the middle of his business studies exams. "We hadn't really prepared for the 1988 Olympic Games, it didn't fit at the time," he says today.
The brothers' crew then split up and the younger one made a serious attempt at the Olympics - first with Peter Fröschl, who had become world champion with Anton Schwarz in 1982, and then with Werner Koenig. Markus Wieser is a member of the national sailing team's Olympic squad with the dazzling film producer and German Film Prize winner, who died in an avalanche during a filming location visit in the mountains of Verbier in November 2000.
Entry into match racing- How Markus Wieser became a professional sailor
The duo is good, very good. They were clearly on course for the Olympics until Werner Koenig tore his cruciate ligaments in the spring of 1992. Wieser is not allowed to bring a replacement foresailor on board for the national Olympic qualifiers and has to watch as his Olympic dream is dashed. "After that, I swore to myself that I would never do another Olympic campaign," says Wieser. He will also never get into an FD again.
In 1992, at the age of 28, he has been married to Claudia for almost six years. They already have three daughters and are financially independent. Together with his brother and a cousin, Markus Wieser continues to look after the family's property management, but his passion for sailing racing is increasingly becoming a profession.
After becoming disillusioned with the Olympics, Markus Wieser discovered the sport of match racing. Early on, at the 1991 FD World Championships off Tauranga in New Zealand, Wieser and Koenig successfully applied to take part in the legendary Steinlager Cup. "That was the first big match race regatta we ever sailed. Werner pestered the organisers until we were allowed to take part. It was a lot of fun," Wieser still fondly remembers the initial spark.
Jochen Schümann beaten, but Wieser fails at the America's Cup against and with Jesper Bank
He and his crews, which often included Lake Constance ace Eberhard Magg and Hamburg architect Matti Paschen, quickly rose to the top of the world. Wieser competed with international greats of the time such as "Mister America's Cup" Dennis Conner, Peter Gilmour, Ed Baird, Jesper Bank, Bertrand Pacé - and also with Jochen Schümann. Wieser defeats the three-time Olympic champion in 2001 in front of tens of thousands of spectators at Match Race Germany on Lake Constance. Wieser climbs up to second place in the match race world rankings and enjoys the golden decade of duelling sailing.
His successes come at a time of renewed efforts to field a historic first German team in the America's Cup. The great dream of the local regatta elite actually comes true. On 29 April 2005, just a few hours before the deadline, United Internet Team Germany registered a German boat for the first time in the then 154-year history of the Cup. While Jochen Schümann had long since established himself with the Swiss Cup team Alinghi, winning the America's Cup with the Swiss in 2003 and defending it in 2007, his companion and long-time Olympic rival Jesper Bank was chosen to skipper the German Cup campaign. However, Team Germany, whose leadership was at odds with each other, struggled through crises and internal legal disputes. The Bank crew slips to tenth place in the 32nd America's Cup off Valencia out of eleven participating teams.
For Markus Wieser, this German première marks the second trauma of his career. Jesper Bank let the designated German tactician off cold before the first start in the elimination series of the challengers. "He deliberately dumped me. I still don't speak to him today," says Wieser. The Danish double Olympic champion kicked Wieser out of the team after he stood in front of the team in a team meeting, complained about inglorious conditions in the team and demanded the position he had been promised as a tactician. Shortly afterwards, Banks' Soling confidant Henrik Blakskjær told Wieser: "Pack your bags and leave the premises. You're sacked."
At the time, Jesper Bank didn't want a German next to him who could be dangerous."
The German sailors on the team are shocked, but unable to stand up for Wieser. He sues the team and agrees a settlement with syndicate boss Michael Scheren. "I think Jesper Bank didn't want a German next to him who could be dangerous. He always wanted to decide everything himself and preferred to gather people around him who danced to his tune," says Wieser in retrospect. His regret at missing out on the Cup opportunity remains like a scar.
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He then set off for new shores in the Dragon with the Ukrainian team. The Gold Cup victory with Werner Fritz in 2006 was followed by a seven-year engagement under the Ukrainian flag and further World Championship victories in 2013 and 2014. At the same time, he steered Udo Schütz's TP52 "Container" to World Championship silver in 2011 in the new monohull Super League, which had taken off as the MedCup and had long since risen to become the world's most powerful professional series as the 52 Super Series. Wieser also met the passionate sailor Dieter Schön in the Dragon Squadron. After he retired from the Dragon, Wieser convinced the prominent clinic manager to join forces in the mini maxi scene. In 2017 and 2018, the Maxi 72 "Momo" dominated the world championships.
The now seasoned Bavarian knows how to parry the fact that the growing group of New Zealanders on board want to "saw off" Wieser when things aren't going so well. The phenomenon of the lone fighter with a difficult position is nothing new and has also been encountered by other professionals. Wieser fights back, defends himself against criticism of his steering skills, brings sailmaker and Olympic champion Jordi Calafat on board in consultation with Schön and initially has the Spaniard build a new Quantum gennaker. This brought success. A short time later, five Kiwis are out of a job. Wieser confidant Michele Ivaldi takes over the team management. Today, the Italian also has the same role in Marcus Brennecke's ClubSwan 50 team. On his "Hatari", Wieser and his long-serving co-sailors operate with somnambulistic confidence. He makes what is difficult look easy: they will become world champions in 2020 and 2021. Title number three is targeted for this season.
Wieser is a dad of four and grandad of five
Owner and helmsman Marcus Brennecke says: "I've been sailing against and with Markus Wieser for over 20 years. He has become a good friend. Markus is a pure emotional sailor. He sees things on the water that other top sailors don't see. He is a good and empathetic leader who is always able to put together top teams and has no problem accepting other opinions. Thanks to his countless successes in various classes and his vast experience, Markus no longer feels so much pressure, which makes him more relaxed."
Wieser himself, who can also speak openly about his weaknesses, describes it like this: "I used to be more argumentative sometimes, but now I'm more generous." As a proud father of four and grandfather of five, the Bavarian, who lived with his family on Mallorca for many years and now commutes between Berlin, where three of his four daughters live, and his birthplace of Starnberg, rarely lets himself be disturbed.
Away from the major professional leagues, where Wieser also successfully raced for several years on Harm Müller-Spreer's "Platoon" in the 52 Super League, he has always sought out additional challenges. These can be fun summits such as his earlier participation in the YACHT Championship of Champions in the 2010s. Ulrike Schümann, fourth at the 2008 Olympics, has fond memories of winning together with Markus Wieser and Matti Paschen in 2012, saying: "Sailing with Markus is incredibly fascinating. I don't know anyone who has such a good 'time and distance' feeling! No matter which boat: he sits on it, feels and simply sails fast."
Matti Paschen, who has sailed with and for Wieser as a trimmer for decades and has known him since the AeroSail sailing promotion campaign in the 1990s, agrees: "Markus has it in his blood. If you can talk about talent, then he was born with it." The Wieser shorthand comes from Eberhard Magg: "Markus has it in his arse."
FD nostalgia: Markus Wieser is a three-time Tempest World Champion
Because his natural talent has now been joined by a unique wealth of experience, Wieser finds it easy to re-enter the Tempest class, which he decided to do in a fit of nostalgia at the 2019 World Championships on Lake Tegernsee: The Tempest reminds him of the FD he once mastered so brilliantly. To his own surprise, the Bavarian falls in love with the sophisticated Ian Proctor design from 1965, which was even used at the 1972 Olympic Games. "The boat is completely undervalued and deserves much more attention," he says, promoting the class. He doesn't leave it at training sessions before the World Championship take-off, but builds a Tempest in the noble Mader manufactory and calls the boat "Wo samma?" ("Where are we?") with Bavarian humour. ("Where are we?") to give the answer on the water itself. Wieser wins his first Tempest World Championship together with local hero Thomas Auracher, laughs and says: "First samma!" The now three-time Tempest champion is still loyal to the class when he finds the time.
Could he make a living from his sport if he had to? "Yes, I could do that very well," says Wieser. But he also has a warning for the next generation: it's not an easy job. As a professional, in addition to sporting, technical and strategic tasks, you also have to adapt to a wide variety of owners.
Markus Wieser has built up his strong position in professional sailing over decades. He has no hesitation in admitting that his financial independence has not paved the way for him in every respect, but has also blocked some paths: "Perhaps I didn't have to fight my way through everywhere that others would have had to. And so perhaps I didn't get everywhere I could have been." This has never diminished his passion for the sport in wind and waves.
You can increase your talent and ability the more variably you sail. The new generation needs to think outside the box."
Today, challenges such as projects in construction classes also make him happy. He already won world championship gold in the 5.5 metre class with Dieter Schön in 2013. With Schön's new Judel/Vrolijk six and Wieser's experienced core crew - Victor Manuel Marino, Ross Halcrow, Dirk de Ridder and coach Frithjof Kleen - it will be enough to win the world championship crown in 2022 at the first attempt. "I think six-man sailing is totally cool," says Wieser. His team-mates from the America's Cup would feel the same way. They are all around 50 and have amassed an enormous amount of knowledge in their careers. This is now being channelled into the six. Wieser says: "Unlike in the ClubSwan 50 or the fully developed TPs, you can optimise so much in the sixes. That's fun for us. The sixes are reminiscent of the Version 5 boats in the America's Cup ..."
Markus Wieser's current sailing mix is ideal for him: "I could never sail just one boat. Tempest sailing is fun and a balance, I do it for myself. Then there are the projects with Dieter Schön and Marcus Brennecke and the occasional superyacht - that's just right for me." Wieser also feels at home on giants such as the 33-metre superyacht "Pattoo", built at the Dutch Vitters shipyard.
Wieser believes that material, time in combination with hard work and talent are the main keys to success in sailing: "If the three factors fit together, then it works. If you don't have any talent, you'll never achieve 100 per cent. If you don't have the material or the time, even a lot of talent won't be enough. You can increase your talent or ability the more variably you sail. That's why I'm convinced that the new generation needs to think outside the box."
He doesn't want to sail overnight- "Not a chance!"
Wieser is committed to young talent and builds cross-class bridges when he can. However, Wieser struggles with the international rules for top regattas, as do the owners of successful racing yachts, who would bring in Olympic talent if only the regulations allowed it. In the ClubSwan 50, for example, only five professionals are allowed. "You have to fill these positions with experienced people if you want to be at the front. It's a shame that Olympians - even without any big boat experience - are categorised as professionals here. That blocks their chances."
"Not a chance!" says Wieser to himself when it comes to sailing overnight. The old fear from his childhood remains. A storm in which he capsized with his brother on Lake Starnberg also contributed to this. After luckily righting themselves, they discovered a deserted, half-sunken Dyas. It later became known that a family had drowned. "We were teenagers and that was terrible for us," recalls Wieser. His consequence to this day: "I wouldn't sail a Sydney-Hobart race for 100,000 euros. What's more, it's held at Christmas. For us, it's a celebration for the family. We eat duck and don't sail."
With "Outsider" to the ORC World Championship in Kiel
Wieser's next commitment after the Cop del Rey is the upcoming ORC World Championship in Kiel. The forces will be pooled on Tilmar Hansen's TP52 "Outsider", which is one of the favourites: Markus Wieser comes on board as tactician with Victor Marino, Gerd Habermüller and Michi Müller. The Judel/Vrolijk design will be steered as usual by Bo Teichmann. With navigator Robin Zinkmann, Holger Lehning, Stefan Matschuk and other original "outsiders" as well as owner Tilmar Hansen, the 15-strong crew is complete.
A look at the ORC King Class A, which is now well-filled with 15 boats, also shows the top favourite "Beau Geste" of Karl Kwok, which is competing with US helmsman Gavin Brady and a professional crew from the America's Cup and other professional leagues. Michael Berghorn's Mills 45 Custom "Halbtrocken 4.5" is also likely to be in the fight for the podium places. The fact that Holger Streckenbach's "Imagine" and Carl-Peter Forster's "Red Bandit" will be joining "Outsider" and "Beau Geste", two other TP52 yachts, increases the fun factor for everyone involved.
In Class B, there will be a reunion with the international "half" of the Ocean Race Team Guyot: Robert Stanjek, Phillip Kasüske and Annie Lush will be chasing world championship points in the modified Landmark 43 "Intermezzo". Team manager Jens Kuphal is the owner and helmsman. In Class C, the Italia 9.98 "Immac Fram" with the crew led by Kai Mares is a title contender.
Around 115 boats from 13 countries come to Kiel
A total of around 115 boats from 13 countries will make the world championship in the Kiel area the ORC summit of the year. The head of organisation is Eckhard von der Mosel. Eckart Reinke directs the races as Principal Race Officer. President Bruno Finzi represents the rights-granting Offshore Racing Congress (ORC).
Additional prizes are planned for amateur and women's teams. An offshore race as well as up & downs and longer coastal races are planned. The winners' party will take place on the evening of 12 August. The heart of the ORC Worlds is the Kiel-Schilksee Olympic Centre.
All information under: www.orcworlds2023.com
