Portrait: Rainer Holtorff works as a professional skipper in all situations
Marc Bielefeld
· 14.04.2024
Rainer Holtorff sits with a cappuccino in Hamburg's Portuguese quarter and looks out of the window. It is raining. His thoughts are at sea, in the middle of the Atlantic. Four of his crew are ferrying a yacht and are stuck in a doldrums a good hundred nautical miles off Barbados. "We'll be fine," says Holtorff. "They're experienced people, they have enough diesel on board if necessary."
The day after tomorrow, the ship should be at its berth in the Caribbean. The owner is waiting. His wife, his family. Holtorff opens his laptop. He checks the yacht's position, the wind reports for the Lesser Antilles and the sea areas east of Puerto Rico. A good 7,000 kilometres away from chic Hamburg.
Always at sea in your thoughts
Holtorff is always like this. Whether he's sitting in a café, at the cinema or watching the news in the evening. His head is on the sea. Because that's his job: making sure that foreign sailing ships get from A to B safely and on time.
Yacht skipper, professional skipper, sailing logistician. In his profession, Holtorff relies on himself. On his experience, nautical miles and a sophisticated network of colleagues who share his passion. Sailing. The unpredictability of the sea. Wind, weather, storms. In the middle of it all: private owners, shipyards, travel agencies, sailing schools and various other clients who insist on getting their ships from one sea area to another promptly and reliably - even if it means travelling halfway around the world.
Anyone who embarks on this kind of endeavour should be well prepared. The missions are often tricky. The yachts are foreign and sometimes wickedly expensive. The circumstances are sometimes delicate, the whims of the owners exotic.
The customers include normal people. Owners who sail themselves but do not feel confident enough to undertake a long sea voyage alone. Sometimes, however, the clientele also includes eccentrics or billionaires whose handling requires psychological qualities.
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Reaching your goal with improvisation
Holtorff, 55, has been in the business for 24 years. He has now logged over 200,000 nautical miles and takes a sporting approach: "I still love my job, and the rest of it has taught me to improvise to get to my destination in every situation." Holtorff is one of the few specialists in his field. A self-made man who comes into play when there is a need: when no one else can be found to take a ship over long distances on its own keel.
The industry is not particularly large. The jobs are too specialised, too individual. And those who take care of the transfers usually remain in the background.
It's a niche job in the wide world of water sports. Sailing hard and often for weeks on end - without a holiday atmosphere on board, without friends and family, without a shore crew or support boat and usually without much preparation.
Instead, they are up against the clock, various adversities that such journeys have in store, and often also against the wind and weather. After all, yachts are rarely transferred during the most beautiful holiday season, but often when the sea areas show their nastiest side. Accordingly, skippers and crews are the ones who take the helm. Sailing-savvy people who zoom across the seas away from the limelight.
Good organisation is the be-all and end-all
Rainer Holtorff is responsible for around 50 transfers every year. He organises, plans and coordinates. He devises special solutions, puts together crews and is always at the helm himself as skipper. "You need a solid team," says Holtorff. "At the core, we are five people, plus ten skippers who we deploy regularly."
The skippers in charge would have to have the appropriate sailing and nautical qualifications. Technique, seamanship. Knowledge of different sea areas, experience with wind and weather. Another criterion is essential. "Talent in dealing with people," says the professional skipper. "The ability to deal with all kinds of characters."
To find teams and crews when needed, you also need to have a lot of contacts. His most important tool is therefore his address book, says Holtorff. His agency Yachtskipper is networked with around 1,000 people who he can call spontaneously to organise a trip. Because: "Not many people have time to fly to Croatia or Gran Canaria and then spend several weeks at sea."
Challenges during the transfer
What's more, the teams have to fit together and also be able to cope with different types of boats. This is because, in addition to the people, the boats also have their own peculiarities and pitfalls. These include small yachts, large catamarans and full-blown 120-foot yachts, whose operating instructions are not written anywhere and whose owners often don't even know how to start the engine.
Holtorff remembers the transfer of a modern 86-foot cruiser from Newport in the USA to Marseille. "We stood on the jetty and saw the ship for the first time. There was a three-hour briefing, that was it. After that, we had to get to grips with the boat ourselves, including the complex systems." And so it was off to the Atlantic. Including Gibraltar and the journey into the windy Golfe du Lyon.
For someone like Holtorff, this is just one of many adventures. He looks into his laptop to look up the list of his sailing trips since 1997. His sailing biography. It starts innocuously enough. From Stockholm to Hamburg on a Vindö 40, which was still his own boat at the time. This was followed two years later by charter trips as skipper in western Greece, 25 weeks at a time.
From Croatia to Manila in the Philippines
Soon he was ferrying a Gib'Sea 44 from Dubrovnik to Saint-Tropez, working as an instructor in Sardinia and co-sailing from Spain across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. Holtorff then took countless yachts to every conceivable destination. From Croatia to Mallorca, from Marseille to the Canary Islands, around the Cape Verde Islands, from Greifswald to France, from Naples to Nice, from Malta to Tunisia, from Sicily to Istanbul, from Malacca via Singapore through the South China Sea to Manila in the Philippines.
The boats he spends his time on during these years are also a smorgasbord of all classes, sizes and types. They include old Colin Archers, 60-foot schooners, performance cruisers, aluminium racers designed for the Vendée Globe, company yachts, family yachts, luxury yachts, charter yachts and even a normal Moody 34, which he sails from Inverness in Scotland to Heiligenhafen with a Lufthansa A380 pilot.
Holtorff has got to know dozens of sailing areas and travelled to various coasts and capes. "I practically know the Mediterranean up and down," he says. The English Channel, the Bay of Biscay, the coast of Portugal and then through the Orca Valley - many people don't want to do this alone or prefer to have their boat sailed by professionals. Especially in autumn and spring, when it gets stormy on this route."
Trips that the professional skipper remembers
He will never forget one of these trips. In 2017, he and a team colleague were supposed to sail a 35-foot trimaran from Flensburg to Gran Canaria so that the boat and its owner would be at the start in time for the ARC. The problem: it was already mid-October. They had four weeks, but in the depths of autumn, what was bound to happen came in the western Atlantic: a storm.
The crew were caught out north-west of Lisbon. House-high seas slammed into the cockpit, the wind blew from astern and the small ship was almost impossible to steer. Then a sandbank approached ten nautical miles off the coast. "We could only hope that the boat would be able to cope - it was a traumatic experience."
He will also remember the collision with a whale 400 nautical miles west of Portugal. The ship, a 43-foot catamaran, was being taken from the USA to Portimao when it happened. There were five of them on board, they were having dinner and the sun was setting over the sea. Suddenly the cat bucked, its starboard float came up. Then they saw the whale. The consequences of the ramming: heavy water ingress in the engine room, the boat threatened to fill up. It was also blowing at six to seven. Fortunately, they found an electric bilge pump, installed it and sailed on - pumping with all the strength available on board.
"We already had a life raft and grab bags ready and were in contact with the MRCC in Portugal," recalls Holtorff. But although one of the engine rooms was half under water and had to be permanently drained, they made it to Europe without help.
Anecdotes like this are part of every yachtsman's life, because the more trips, the higher the chances of disaster. However, these are by no means always due to the material, the wind, the ship or fate.
The interpersonal level on board must be right
It is often human radio interference that leads to dicey situations. Clashing egos, alpha animals taking command, strange crew members mutinying. "I've experienced a lot," says Holtorff. "There's nothing that doesn't exist in sailing." It can quickly become psychologically challenging: Hierarchical wrangling and controversial decisions can turn the situation on board into hell.
During a storm at anchor, for example, the base manager of a charter fleet once ordered him to move to the other side of the island of Corfu. Holtorff had the power of decision. But the yacht did not belong to him. What to do?
It was his first paid job, the wind was blowing outside, and in the middle of it all was the voice of the base commander on the radio: "Haul out, now!" Back then, Holtorff decided to follow, even though they had to round a cape in the north with many shallows, some of which were not precisely marked. Today, he has an iron rule for himself: "Never let yourself be sent - even if the owner is the King of Spain."
Many years ago, a trip across the English Channel turned into a real case of psychological terror. The owner of a 20-metre yacht had hired a friend as skipper for the crossing to Barcelona. He needed a second man, and that was Rainer Holtorff. Holtorff didn't realise that the designated transfer skipper was a former military man who knew little about sailing and turned out to be a tyrant with a bad temper.
When the Bay of Biscay was approaching after the Channel and a severe wind warning of 10 Beaufort was issued, the situation escalated. The man, who also only spoke broken English, ordered against Holtorff's express advice: "We're going through there, or are you scared?"
Suddenly the radios were locked away and the skipper demanded that Holtorff go below deck during the free watches. A psychological war in addition to sailing madness.
The professional skipper experiences some unwanted adventures
Holtorff can tell many stories of similar situations. Of gawky cooks who suddenly insisted on a different course en route to the Philippines because they had to deliver drugs. Of corrupt customs officers who confiscated him because the yacht was allegedly not registered correctly. Of wealthy owners who suddenly didn't want to pay.
Today, Holtorff knows: "Ships quickly become a legal vacuum, with many interpreting the rules as they see fit." But this should not obscure the many wonderful moments. Nor about the majority of owners and customers, who behave correctly and are extremely friendly.
He recalls an Italian billionaire family whose yacht he skippered in the Mediterranean. "They did the chopping themselves, served the food and lent a hand. Good-hearted people who enjoyed sailing and treated you as equals."
However, there's one thing you shouldn't forget as a skipper: "On some jobs, sailing becomes a minor matter, out of the blue you have to deal with completely different things."
Professional skipper - a dream job?
Nevertheless, many consider working as a professional skipper to be a dream job. When asked how he got into it, Rainer Holtorff has to elaborate. Because there is no classic apprenticeship, no typical career. His career is also a very unique story, which began early on with a love of the wet element.
Holtorff's father was in the German navy and served as a rangefinder on an armoured cruiser. He later told his son exclusively about the good things about seafaring. Camaraderie, travelling across the sea, shore leave.
Born in Flensburg, the son later came into contact with the water in a different way: In the 1980s, he was infected by windsurfing, which was popular at the time. At 15, he was whizzing across the fjord, spending every free minute on the board. After school, Holtorff tried his hand in various fields. Civilian service, film production, art studies. Then he changed subjects. Philosophy and early history, specialising in Vikings. He moved to Hamburg and one day, together with friends, came up with the idea of setting up a business: getting old ships from Sweden and selling them in Germany.
The way to sailing
In 1995, he obtained his sea licence and bought a Vindö 40 with his friends - which they planned to sail from Stockholm to Glückstadt in November 1996. A dress rehearsal that promptly ended in icy showers. They stopped in southern Sweden and didn't continue until the following spring.
But it was a first sailing experience on his own. "Learning by sailing," says Holtorff. At a boat show in Hamburg in 1998, a kind of initial spark finally followed. He saw a sign in front of a tour operator's stand: "Skipper wanted." He got in touch, said: "I can do that!", and got the job.
This turned into a first seasonal assignment: sailing 150 nautical miles around Corfu and to the Ionian Islands. It went well, Holtorff stayed on board. And ended up skippering the yacht through the Mediterranean for 25 weeks in a row, with different guests every week. "I was basically a bus driver who did round trips," Holtorff recalls. "But I learnt a lot in the process."
In other words: Holtorff jumped into the cold water in the warm Mediterranean. And really licked blood in the process. He was just 30 years old. "The learning curve was extremely steep. There were often experienced skippers on board who had booked in. I learnt a lot from them." But in the end, the theory was outweighed by real-life practice: weeks and months of sailing. At a stretch. Plus: a life on board, a life on the water.
Expertise acquired in everyday life on the ships
Inevitably, he had to acquire various skills. Technical, rigging and engine knowledge. This involved crawling through the engine rooms of various boats and climbing the masts of countless ships. Holtorff: "I had no traditional training, no club training. It was all part of everyday life on the ships."
Of course, he didn't get rich from his new job. "The pay was pretty meagre," recalls Holtorff, who eked out a living as a translator and bicycle courier during the winter months. But the ships soon became longer, bigger and heavier. Holtorff had made a name for himself in the scene, a reputation as a reliable skipper. The rest is the story of a North German water man whose path to the water unfolded almost automatically.
Then came the first crossing to France, the first across the Atlantic. The merging with the boat decks, the merging of passion and profession.
The enquiries became more frequent, the engagements more varied. Berth charters, transfers, deliveries. Yacht support in all situations. Over time, practical experience was soon followed by further theoretical expertise. Holtorff obtained all the licences that exist. SBF, SKS, SSS and SHS, the sport offshore licence, which is required for the commercial operation of pleasure craft all over the world.
Rainer Holtorff honoured as "Yachtmaster of the Year
One day in England - a two-year sailing assignment had taken him there - he completed another course. The renowned English "Yachtmaster Offshore". Out of 3,000 candidates, Holtorff then became the first non-British person to receive the "Yachtmaster of the Year" award from the venerable Royal Yachting Association: best graduate.
Princess Anne, wearing a red turtleneck, presented him with the trophy in person after the tough test. A crowning honour that he accepted gladly, but completely unexpectedly. "Me, the windsurfer from Flensburg? Well, I've probably been on sailing boats long enough by now."
Today, another ten years later, he has navigated over a hundred different types of yacht through world history. Many across the pond, dozens through the Mediterranean, up and down the Atlantic coast, through the North and Baltic Seas. When Holtorff's phone rings, all signs point to sailing. A real boat person, even if you wouldn't know it from looking at him in Hamburg's Portuguese quarter. When asked whether he owns his own yacht, his answer is extremely logical. "For heaven's sake!" exclaims Holtorff. "I don't even have my own dinghy!"
