The Düsseldorf native's career as a representative of the Jongert brand was initially a classic coincidence. After starting his first successful career shortly after the Second World War with the sale of radio equipment, calculating machines and his own software for the medical sector, he was looking for a yacht to sail around the world in the 1960s. In Medemblik, he came across the Jongert shipyard, which, according to Dahm, made "good boats but bad marketing". As it happens, a short time later he began his second career as an independent marketing and sales manager for the brand, which gained a reputation like thunder in the decades that followed.
Since then, the family man has repeatedly caused a stir with his ideas and records. For years, Jongert exhibited the largest yacht at boot Düsseldorf - right on Dahm's doorstep. At the turn of the millennium, his idea of carrying a rigged sailing yacht on the flybridge of his 35-metre Benetti "My Way" was considered downright crazy: the mini-Jongert "True Love" designed by Judel/Vrolijk.
Successful regatta sailor
Instead of sailing around the world, the future honorary member of the Düsseldorf Yacht Club, the Real Club Náutico de Palma and the Yacht Club de Monaco was seen on the regatta courses. To this end, the inventor commissioned Ron Holland to develop the perfect maxi yacht. The Jongert 2200s "Inspiration", a yacht building icon, was probably the first pure-bred cruiser-racer in the mid-1980s and packed with pioneering ideas: first and foremost the world's first hydraulic stern hatch with bathing platform and garage, an extendable bow thruster that could be rotated through 360 degrees and a clever stowage system that allowed the furled Genuas to be pulled lengthways in tubes deep into the bilge. Successes such as the long held Newport-Bermuda course record contributed to the creation of legends.
Under the "dahm international" brand, the entrepreneur accompanied the development of the maxi scene for decades and brokered hundreds of yachts, most of them several times. He sold his brokerage and charter business at the end of the 1990s, but later took back parts of it when he was well into retirement so that he could continue to look after his customer base. "My customers are my friends" was one of Dahm's mantras. Until ten years ago, he regularly sailed shipyard regattas in the Mediterranean with these friends.
Multi-entrepreneur
Customer loyalty was one of the multi-entrepreneur's many passions. The founding of a luxury spa in Düsseldorf at the age of around 80 may seem like a side note - but it was actually dedicated to his wife, who was seriously ill at the time. Shortly after opening, the "Momentum Spa" was ranked second among the "best spas in Germany". When Dahm did something, he did it right.
The industry last met him at the opening of boot Düsseldorf 2023, and his absence from this beloved must-attend event in 2024 was already an omen. Herbert Dahm embarked on his last journey at the weekend, just a few weeks before his 95th birthday.
The yachting world loses a legendary tinkerer and driver. Entrepreneur and friend. But above all a sailor.
Jörg Müller-Dünow
