Sixty years ago, history was made on the Schlei – even though hardly anyone realised it at the time. A petrol station owner from Fleckeby, a few dozen wooden soapbox boats and a handful of enthusiastic children laid the foundations for what is now the world’s largest youth sailing class. The Fleckeby Water Sports Club (WSF) is celebrating this anniversary with a regatta that deliberately looks back to the past: old wooden Optimists sail side by side with modern fibreglass boats. History sails along with them.
Fleckeby, the Schlei and a milestone anniversary
It is sixty years since the first Optimist regatta in Germany took place in Fleckeby. It was 1966, and the Fleckeby Water Sports Club (WSF) had been founded just three years earlier. The facilities were modest: a clubhouse with a boathouse, built by the members themselves on leased land. Yet the founders had recognised right from the start just how important youth sailing training would become. They were early advocates of a small, square-rigged dinghy that was just about to change everything: the Optimist.
“I’ve discovered that the first Optimist regatta actually took place here in 1966,” says Alexander Prahl. He has been the WSF’s youth representative for a year and has been researching the club’s history in depth over the past few months. What he discovered surprised even him: Fleckeby played a role not only in introducing the boat class to Germany – but also in founding the German class association.
Hans-Harro Redlefsen – a petrol station owner makes history
The key figure in this story is Hans-Harro Redlefsen. The petrol station owner from Fleckeby was a member of the WSF and was commissioned by the German Sailing Association (DSV) to set up a national class association for the Optimist. Barely a year after the first regatta featuring the tiny wooden dinghies had been held at his club, the ‘German Optimist Dinghy Association (DODV)’ was founded in Hamburg on 6 May 1967 – with Redlefsen as its executive chairman.
An article in the 1969 issue of YACHT vividly describes just how great the rush was afterwards: “Every day, Hans-Harro Redlefsen, aged 44, a petrol station owner in Fleckeby near Schleswig and managing director of the Optimist Association, receives between 12 and 15 new enquiries for construction plans, measurement forms and sail numbers.” The construction specifications cost ten Deutschmarks, a measurement form cost six Deutschmarks; the association’s annual membership fee was three Deutschmarks.
The history of the sailing soapbox
The Optimist owes its existence to a simple idea: An American charity club was looking for an affordable alternative to its regular soapbox races; these were labour-intensive and expensive, and roads had to be closed off. Why not hold the whole event on the water? In 1947, boat builder Clark Mills in Florida was commissioned to design a boat that a father and son could build themselves without any technical skills. It was not to cost more than 50 dollars. The result was the Optimist – boxy, flat and practical. It was cut from standard plywood sheets in such a way that three boats could be built from four sheets with minimal waste.
On 3 September 1947, the client’s eleven-year-old son set out on his maiden voyage. Mills earned just five dollars per boat. He never charged any licence fees.
In 1954, the Danish architect Axel Damgaard brought the design to Europe. The Opti found an influential champion in the Olympic champion Paul Elvstrøm and quickly spread throughout Scandinavia and Europe. In Germany, the first Optimists were sailed in Warnemünde in the early 1960s – a gift from Danish regatta visitors. In the west, the Schlei became the cradle of the class.
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The optimist behind the Iron Curtain
A few years before the little dinghy set out on its triumphant journey from the Schlei in West Germany, a remarkably similar story was unfolding on the other side of the Iron Curtain – albeit against a completely different political backdrop. In 1960, Danish sailors from the Sundby Sailing Association in Copenhagen sailed to Warnemünde for the International Baltic Sea Regatta. They had brought with them something that immediately delighted their hosts: Optimist dinghies – complete with drawings and construction plans.
The youth leaders of what was then the Sailing Section dthe BSG Motor Warnowwerft – now once again operating under its original name, the Warnemünde Sailing Club — as it was known even before the GDR era — recognised the potential of this little dinghy straight away. Eight boats were immediately built at the Warnowwerft shipyard. Just one year later, the first Opti regattas took place off Warnemünde. It was from here, as the people of Warnemünde still recount today with a certain pride, that the Optimist began its triumphant march across the globe – as far afield as Vladivostok and Cuba. East and West, divided by politics and barbed wire, had independently discovered the same thing: the perfect children’s dinghy.
The boom in the youngest age group
What began on the Schlei developed within a few years into the largest class of boats in the Federal Republic of Germany. The “shapeless, boxy, a mere 2.32 metres long and weighing just 33 kilograms junior boat”, as YACHT described it in 1969, became the most widely built and best-selling boat of the season: “It promises young sailors peace and freedom at the helm at an age when their parents didn’t even dare to dream of owning a boat of their own.”
In 1966, there were barely more than five dozen Optimists across the whole of Germany – 40 in Schleswig, twelve in Fleckeby and four in Berlin. A year later, the figure had already risen to 100, and by 1969 the association had registered 1,200 boats.
“Germany’s strongest boat class is neither the Korsar, whose sail numbers are approaching the second 1,000, nor the Pirat, now graced with the grey of age,” noted *YACHT*. “Germany’s largest class is that of its smallest sailors: the Optimist dinghy.” This is because, of the older classes, only a fraction of the numbers once issued remained. The 1,200 registered Optimists, on the other hand, were all ready to sail – and on top of that were all those who had not yet applied for a number at all.
Nevertheless, the editorial team answered one important question succinctly and definitively: “No, we will not be testing the Optimist.”
“Children’s sailing – but the game’s over!”
This rapid development saw the Opti make the front page of YACHT – accompanied by the cautionary headline: “Children’s sailing – but the game’s over!”
What had begun as a straightforward children’s project was increasingly overshadowed by parental ambitions, which the author – who remains unnamed – described as ‘growing pains’. Sailmaker Beilken from Bremen once reported on fathers who didn’t just buy one sail for their son’s Optimist dinghy, but three: one for calm conditions, one for moderate winds and one for really rough weather. Rumours emerged from Berlin that a father had been giving his child tactical instructions via walkie-talkie during a regatta. “Instructions from parents’ motorboats such as ‘Tack, you sleepyhead’ or ‘Bring him up to windward’ foster the instincts that a person simply needs for life as a sailor.”
You could see fathers walking towards one another at a measured pace and congratulating one another – after finishes that had taken place far out on the water and which had been completely invisible from the shore. In Kiel, where the ‘Golden Optimist’ regatta was held every year, the local press reported at the time that the parents who had stayed ashore were often even more nervous than their children out on the water.
Berlin came up with a particularly elegant solution: at larger events, parents were simply ferried over onto a passenger boat. There, as *YACHT* noted, they could “spend more time with their neighbours and their drinks than with their children in a truly pleasant atmosphere”. It was suggested that the skipper should be instructed not to get too close to the regatta course.
The DODV responded to the parents’ ambition with a series of measures. From then on, protests were only considered if they had been raised by the children themselves as they crossed the finish line. Challenge cups and individual prizes worth more than 20 marks were abolished, and coxswain’s prizes were replaced by team prizes.
Young and old, wood and plastic on the Schlei
This year’s anniversary regatta, taking place on 22 and 23 August, is expressly open to more than just modern fibreglass Optimists. Historic wooden boats will also be included in the regatta – two old wooden Optimists from Flensburg have already confirmed their participation. Yacht sailors are also welcome, so that young and old can come together for a weekend that bridges the past and present of this unique class of boat.
To coincide with the regatta, a photography exhibition is on display at the club’s premises, which is open to all visitors.
Anyone who fancies joining us on a whim can still sign up until tomorrow, 22 August 2026:
Optimists built using conventional plastic construction methods, as well as self-built and shipyard-built wooden Optimists, are permitted. in a separate classification. The clubs in the area are invited to the regatta by the organisers. The regatta is open to Opti-A, -B and -C classes. The number of participants is limited to a total of 30 boats. There is no limit on the number of 20-minute short races; this is determined by the wind conditions and the time available.
Ursula Meer
Redakteurin Panorama und Reise