Profile: How Peer Kunz made a fresh start as a professional skipper after the crisis
Marc Bielefeld
· 25.08.2026
Peer Kunz is standing down by the Landungsbrücken in Hamburg, looking out over the Elbe. An easterly wind is blowing – a breeze that feels just right. The wind is blowing the jet lag out of his bones, as he first needs to find his bearings again. His last job wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. Kunz has just returned from Tahiti. Economy class, a 48-hour flight to Paris, then on to Germany by Flixbus. The assignment was to take a client’s 42-foot yacht from Polynesia to the Caribbean. Almost two months in the Pacific, on a temperamental and ultimately faulty vessel, and all against the easterly winds.
The yacht had already shown signs of trouble whilst still in harbour. Chaos reigned on board; the starter batteries were nowhere to be found. However, after the usual checks and preparations, the two of them set sail: Kunz as the skipper in charge, accompanied by one crew member. They set course for Mangareva and the Gambier Islands. After these first 940 nautical miles, they plan to clear French Polynesia and head across the Pacific towards the Panama Canal.
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They have to sail close to the wind, though the yacht’s turning angle proves rather discouraging. Soon the wind picks up, and the sky sends squalls across the sea. The first swells start to roll in, and the nights grow shorter. The watch duties take their toll; soon no one is getting more than three hours’ sleep at a stretch.
Tahiti, the South Pacific. That’s enough to set your imagination racing. Lagoons, palm trees, tropical nights. “I’ve heard it all before,” says Peer Kunz. “When I tell others about trips like this, I get the same typical reaction straight away. ‘Living the dream,’ they say. As if I were living a dream. Well, the truth is often quite different.” His sailing companion, seasick from the chaotic swell and overwhelmed by the scale of the journey, suddenly announces that he wants to disembark on the Gambier Islands. The yacht is only just managing to make its way across the endless sea in a rough zigzag. The journey is already dragging on and may well take weeks longer than planned.
And the long legs of the journey are still to come. Another 1,400 nautical miles to Easter Island, 2,600 nautical miles to Panama, then through the Caribbean to Grenada. All of this, please, as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. There’s no question of leisurely anchoring by the coral reefs. At each stop, we must immediately stock up on provisions and tend to the boat so we can set sail again as quickly as possible. Transits of this calibre are a real slog.
Repair, improvise, carry on
On their eighth day at sea, they continue to cruise, heading south, then north. Another 300 nautical miles to Rikitea. After a windy night with showers, the anchor has suddenly vanished. The swivel on the chain was apparently not secured. The following night, whilst motoring, the engine cuts out. Contrary to what the owner had confirmed, the two diesel tanks do not operate in parallel, but individually. Skipper Kunz has to bleed the system and activate the second tank. After ten days, they finally sight land; at seven in the morning, the island lies ahead. In his notes, Kunz writes: “No dolphins, no whales, no flying fish. Just a sea of water. Blue, choppy, alive and yet completely empty. And there we are, right in the middle of it, in a 42-foot aluminium tin can.”
Repairs are needed straight away upon arrival; next, the windlass isn’t working. They have to pay out seventy metres of chain by hand and may well have to haul it back in the same way. This is virtually impossible in water over 20 metres deep. Then the outboard engine fails, the fuel pump stops working, and the problems pile up like a series of ominous signs. Kunz, now alone on board, is stranded on the island. The trip has already turned into a troubleshooting mission, even though the owner had assured him that everything was in working order. Improvising, finding a way to limp to the destination. Peer Kunz knows this well; it’s part of his business. But here the distances are vast, the circumstances overwhelming. Soon the electronic wind indicator gives out, and the Windex breaks down. To make matters worse, the boat is taking on water.
After days of waiting and carrying out repairs, the new crew member is finally on board. The two of them are working head-over-heels on the winch’s electrical system and are about to set off eastwards when the engine cuts out again out at sea. Several pipes appear to be blocked. A sleepless night spent by the hot engine, with his arms and hands soon scalded. Kunz crouches in the engine room whilst the boat lurches through the waves. There can only be one decision now: to call it off. Back to Tahiti, where the boat needs servicing.
In the end, the ship is back in Tahiti
In the end, this crossing will come to nothing. In the tough world of professional skippers, this sort of thing happens; even experienced people can only ever gauge to a certain extent what they’re getting themselves into. Now, however, the task is to sail the yacht back to Tahiti over the course of a week. Leaving the yacht at anchor in Rikitea would be irresponsible. Seven days later, with three-metre swells still rolling in, Kunz and his new crew member sail through the reef passage into Marina Taina – not a single nautical mile closer to the Caribbean than they were at the start seven weeks ago. The upshot of this voyage through the sailing paradise of the South Pacific: a constant stream of new problems, new solutions and new setbacks. On top of that, days filled with paperwork, phone calls and complicated communication with Europe. Peer Kunz says that as a skipper, you have to be able to deal with situations like this. “We’re not a road haulage company; at sea, you have to expect the unexpected, especially in distant waters and on unfamiliar ships.”
Technically demanding, often psychologically challenging
Back in Hamburg, Kunz checks his mobile. New jobs are waiting. Perhaps he’ll soon be off to Madeira to repair a yacht. There might also be a trip accompanying a yacht from Mallorca to Wilhelmshaven. Gibraltar, the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula, the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel. For him, it’s now a motorway he’s travelled back and forth on countless times. Another vessel is due to sail from Portugal to Greece, but there’s still some laminating work to be done.
In the age of Starlink and WhatsApp, enquiries now reach him wherever he is. In distant ports, a thousand nautical miles from the nearest land, and yes, even when squalls, six-metre waves and crew members throwing up are keeping him on his toes. Kunz has to reply then. To accept or decline the job. Because that’s his job: taking sailing vessels owned by foreign owners from A to B – across all seven seas, if necessary. A specialised profession. Technically demanding, often psychologically challenging. At the agency Yachtskipper.eu They call him the Odysseus of the team. When others turn down a job, his phone often rings. “Let’s see what comes next,” says Kunz. “There are always ships that need to go somewhere.”
His last voyage across the Pacific, however, was an absolute nightmare; the ship was a Pandora’s box. Yet this experience will not dim his devotion to the wind and the water. For Peer Kunz, sailing is far more than just a job. It is his second life. And more than that: sailing was his salvation – following a disaster that proved far darker than simply losing his way by a few nautical miles on the Pacific Ocean.
‘Second Life’: A fresh start for everyone
Kunz has a tattoo on his forearm: a large anchor with pointed flukes, accompanied by the words ‘Second Life’. It is the name of the sailing ship on which he now lives – and it is the symbol of his own rescue manoeuvre. Kunz has, in fact, gone overboard before. Not at sea, but in the maelstrom of his own life story. “You’re sinking,” he says. “You’re sinking from the inside and you don’t even realise it.”
After a difficult childhood in Husum and on Sylt, the young Kunz moved to Hamburg in the 1990s, became a lieutenant in the Bundeswehr and subsequently began studying business administration. To earn some money on the side, he worked as a doorman on the Reeperbahn. After five semesters, he was headhunted. He was sharp, assertive and had a head for numbers. This led him to the expansion department of one of the world’s largest fast-food chains, where his role was to secure new outlets.
What follows is a meteoric rise. Kunz surveys locations and property prices, analyses the figures of local competitors, estimates potential turnover and enters into negotiations. He looks brilliant; his suit fits perfectly. Kunz is a gifted speaker and wins people over with his energy. He’s having a picture-perfect career. He drives fast cars, wears expensive clothes and jets off to Mallorca or Croatia to go sailing. He returns with a sun-kissed tan, a Rolex on his wrist and a brilliant story to tell. Then he throws himself back into work – a life of 18-hour days during which he barely sees his young family and which, at some point, he can only get through with the help of pills.
“Don’t go back to your job”
His meteoric rise lasts 15 years. A dazzling journey that leads to a large house in Hamburg, with a beautiful wife and two pretty daughters, a well-stocked bank account, and a suicide attempt that Peer Kunz survives only by a stroke of luck.
It is the year 2012. Diagnosis: end-stage burnout, severe depression. He spends ten weeks in a clinic. And he soon realises that therapy alone won’t save him. Back then, Kunz leafs through an old photo album, sees himself as a child and teenager, and remembers where he was always happiest in his life: on the beach, by the water. By the sea. Whilst still in the clinic, he decides to buy a yacht. Not a big one, not an expensive one. More like a smaller boat, one on which he could live and sail alone. Kunz is looking to downsize. In life, on the water. “Go on and do it,” says the doctor. “Do exactly that. Buy yourself a boat and go sailing. Just don’t do one thing: don’t go back to your job.”
After being made redundant, Kunz finds a Comfortina 32 on the Schlei. He refits the boat, working on the hull and the interior during the winter, and familiarises himself with the radio and the autopilot. This is how he gets closer to the sea. He obtains his licences and logs nautical miles on the Baltic Sea. Soon he joins a sailing school. First he takes lessons, then he starts teaching them. Kunz is a quick learner and is good at explaining things.
Next door in Travemünde, there is a coastguard station. When they see that he is living on his boat, they take him on. This is how Kunz learns about engines, damage control, firefighting, first aid and all sorts of things about the wind, the weather and the waves. Over the next few years, he carries out missions on the Baltic Sea as a volunteer sea-rescue worker. Kunz, now sporting a full beard; Kunz with hands roughened by salt water. This, too, is a picture-perfect career – but this time with wind and waves. In his own boat, Kunz sails out onto the North Sea, through the English Channel, as far as Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean. His plan is to be on the move for several years. As long as his savings last.
But then he receives an enquiry asking whether he could envisage stepping in as a professional skipper. Kunz, having now clocked up thousands of nautical miles, completes his Yachtmaster qualification in Southampton. He has to plot courses, interpolate, and prove himself at dead reckoning. The on-water exam lasted two days and one night, without sleep, all in one go. And so his second life took its course: wind, waves, ships – and plenty of them. He’d just managed to turn things round. Last exit: the sea.
Crossings as a profession
Out at sea, thoughts of the past are usually far away, says Kunz. “You have to reef the sails, check the course. You have to keep a log and keep an eye on the wind.” Sometimes, though, at certain moments, those thoughts come very close when you’re at sea. “You’re sitting in the cockpit, the boat is gliding over the waves, with the clouds and the stars above. There’s plenty of space around you, and within you.” Time to reflect. Peer Kunz has now sailed across the Atlantic twelve times, eleven of those from west to east – the less pleasant direction. The owners usually take the southern ‘barefoot’ route, gliding with the trade winds into the Caribbean. Professional skippers like Kunz then bring the yachts back home via the more challenging northern route. The pay is decent. You have to budget carefully, but you manage to make ends meet. It’s only a fraction of what Kunz used to earn. But it’s enough, and that’s fine.
Peer Kunz has been through a lot over the last ten years out at sea. Good times, not-so-good times. He sailed a small boat from Cape Verde to the Azores, with the wind on the bow and no sprayhood. The owners, who were on board themselves, were seasick, and the boat was as wet as a bucket. Then the engine cut out because the owners had filled up with old diesel from Africa. “You’re in the Wild West,” says Kunz. “Lots of risk-takers.”
On the way from the Caribbean to Europe, a couple are on board; one morning, she is sitting at the back of the cockpit, crying. In the questionnaire that everyone has to fill in before a voyage like this, she had failed to mention a lung condition. Now she is unwell. They consult with doctors ashore, and the woman must be taken off the boat. The developing pneumonia could cost her her life. At sea, they radio a cargo ship; after eight hours, it reaches their position. They pull alongside, in considerable swell, whilst the rigging slams against the twenty-metre-high ship’s side. They hoist the woman over via the pilot ladder, then there is nothing but sea again. Kunz and the remaining crew must return to Bermuda to inspect the yacht for damage.
Kunz recounts how he sailed the famous yacht ‘Freydis III’ from Iceland via the Shetland Islands to East Frisia – a twelve-day voyage across the North Atlantic with a fair wind but without any problems. He recounts how the yacht cut through the waves and how, when he reached the Faroe Islands – situated halfway along the route, 700 kilometres off the Norwegian coast – he simply sailed past them, because they still hunt pilot whales and dolphins there to this day. In Leer, he delivered the yacht safely and met its famous owner, Erich Wilts, who was now elderly and, sadly, unwell. They sat on the jetty in the evening and had a barbecue.
There’s no end to the stories
How, for example, he once sailed a French ketch from Guadeloupe to Brest – a marvellous voyage across the Atlantic, the sails billowing in the wind, the sea as blue as the rest of the crew, who were below deck all the way to the Azores. Only one person stuck it out: a fellow sailor in his seventies, with whom he shared the watch from then on.
On another occasion, he came down with dengue fever on board. They still had a thousand miles to go to Portugal when he and his sailing companion suddenly developed red pustules. Then the fever and chills took hold of them. “Probably Caribbean mosquitoes that had sneaked on board in the Caribbean.” There was nothing for it but to grit their teeth and carry on. By the time they went ashore in Europe, they had both lost six kilos. But things like dengue fever are harmless in the end. You can see the effects, after all – the rash, the swollen lymph nodes. But in the frantic chase after a false life, the devils eventually get inside you, invisible, insidious, and if you’re unlucky, it costs you everything. Peer Kunz’s second career felt like a soothing balm in this case. The sea, the wind, a boat. Top speed: six to seven knots.
Book recommendations
Through storm and ice recounts Arved Fuchs’ expeditions aboard the ‘DAGMAR AAEN’ and the challenges of long voyages through extreme seas. The title thus takes the reader straight into a world in which the vessel, crew and skipper must function effectively even under adverse conditions. The experiences of ice, storms and remote waters form a striking contrast to the day-to-day reality of professional yacht transfers.
Wilfried Erdmann – from the outside in explores the life of one of Germany’s most influential cruising sailors through the eyes of 20 of his companions. The focus is on long sea voyages, a self-determined life on the water, and the personality behind the famous voyages. This biographical account explores the question of what keeps people committed to a life at sea in the long term.
How much technical risk can a yacht transfer involve before it crosses the line from adventure to recklessness? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Marc Bielefeld
Freier Autor