Sebastian, did you skip school for the Silverrudder?
No, I was given time off to take part in the Silverrudder. A fascinating regatta. The course, the other participants and the spirit are just great. I wish there was another Silverrudder next week. Of course, it's annoying that I ran aground on a sand hill near Middelfart. When I got free again with the help of a motorboat, I sailed to the end of the race out of competition and was practically at the finish line after almost 40 hours. It was mega.
Why are you a single-handed sailor?
Well, that's simply because it's extremely difficult to find young people who can and want to invest as much time in sailing as I do. In the beginning, I had a pretty steady sailing partner who also helped me a lot. But it all got a bit too much for him now. Now I just take friends from school with me who I trust to steer the boat. But of course the demands are different at regattas. I want to be fast there.
And where did you get your ship?
My parents bought this before the season from Next Generation Boating, the company run by Melwin Fink and Lennart Burke. It's not a luxury item, but a piece of sports equipment. My parents are not sailors at all, but they support me wherever and however they can. I'm glad that Melwin and Lennart also support me. This year I helped with the refit of their Class 40, so my boat can now stay with them. And I can learn a lot there, both from them and from their master boat builder Markus Mehlen.
Sailing didn't run in your family, how did you get into it in the first place?
I've sailed with a friend of my father's boat before. He has a nice, fast Faurby that he can sail quite well. I learnt a bit from that. In 2022, a friend of mine was given a boat as a present at a fish market. We then had a boat, but we couldn't sail it. So we got a sailing licence in Berlin on the Wannsee. After that, I bought a small dinghy on eBay and spent the whole winter restoring it. That was really hard work.
What happened next?
I then sailed the dinghy in the 2023 season. I sailed it a lot and tried all sorts of nonsense to make the boat faster. That season, I then had the opportunity to buy the Pogo 2 "732 Gerda" from Melwin and Lennart, which I'm very happy with.
What are your goals for the coming years?
That's difficult to say. I definitely want to continue to pursue sailing enthusiastically and perhaps even intensify my efforts. I've been on the boat almost every weekend this year. Most recently, I even spent ten weekends in a row sailing, six of them in Denmark. That's a lot of time, I'm happy to be able to do that despite school. Now I want to make the boat really, really fast and pretty. Next year I want to sail a few bigger regattas if I can find a good sailing partner, for example the Baltic 500.
