Dear readers,
There is a lot of talk these days about the extent to which terms are still up to date. With some delay, the storm has also reached words or phrases from the sailing cosmos. Some are considered irrefutable in the "Lingua Nautica". As if they had been cast in lead and sunk into the long keel of a cruiser yacht that is stubbornly fighting its way against the tide of change. Unwavering, not unpleasant, always preserving their dignity; spray rolls off the glossy lacquered wooden surface. Tradition always has to do with care.
This is not the place to shed light on the "man overboard" case; a TV documentary about Daniel Küblböck (ARD-Mediathek) has brought the topic and, in my opinion, rightly new spelling into the public eye. No, let's stick to the material. It's about the core, the boat that carries us and moves us along. We say yacht, THE yacht. A word that evokes associations. Of elegance and beauty. There is a reason why the spelling "Jacht" has not found its way into the sailing world - even though it is prescribed by the Duden dictionary and the round initial letter is more suited to the original soft lines of sails. On the one hand, we as a magazine stick to the original; as early as 1904, the title of the first issue was adorned with the logo lettering "Die Yacht" (at that time still with an article).
On the other hand, we stick to the original, borrowed from English, out of habit. Or do we not? On the contrary, the question arises as to whether the feminine article still fits the contemporary cracks at all. The masculine design language has not only found its way into performance and cruiser formats, it has become predominant. Edges, dead-straight deck jumps, perpendicular sterns and outlines so expansive that they are dimensionally stable but look bulky - in the eyes of some onlookers. Perhaps equality should be cited as a reason, as the model names of catamarans are already preceded by the masculine article.
Or you leave Otto Protzenonce the emperor's favourite sportsman at the helm and sheet, provided a reason for the femininity of sailing vessels: "It's easy to remember that boats are female. Because they have to be cleaned forever, because they cost a lot of money, always want to be treated well, often have their moods and are very difficult to get rid of once you have them."
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Berliner dominated the scene for special class yachts, flat-bottomed keelboats for three gentleman sailors on both sides of the Atlantic. He was also a landscape painter, creator of beautiful cracks and author. Protzen's prose reveals him to be a great friend of maritime terminology, which is worth digging up again. His maritime memoirs "40 Years on the Water" are well worth reading, and there is also an exhibition about Prussia's exceptional sailor in his association Seglerhaus am Wannsee (VSaW).
Sören Gehlhaus
YACHT editor
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