Project: Tobias Michelsen brings people with disabilities onto the water with "Sail United"
YACHT-Redaktion
· 23.09.2025
Text by Uli Hauser
Call it a perfect day. The wind is blowing from the west, mild and warm, the sun is vertical in the sky and cormorants are flying in formation in the distance. The Baltic Sea lies peacefully below. Suddenly, a woman floats over the water. She is sitting on a surfboard, feet forward, skilfully balancing herself in the air. She sets the direction with the slightest of body movements, sometimes slapping down onto the water, only to immediately take off again.
It's Kirsten Bruhn, one of Germany's most successful athletes and two-time Olympic swimming champion at the Paralympics. She is visibly enjoying herself, thrilled by what she is experiencing; forgetting for a moment that she is dependent on a wheelchair. And that she can no longer do so much on her own.
That is also interesting:
A few metres next to her, on a sports boat accompanying the wild ride, a man stands at the helm and smiles beatifically. He is once again in his element. Tobias Michelsen has organised this trip. He has invited Kirsten Bruhn to try out a ride on a foil board, the latest leisure activity on the water. It lifts itself completely out of the water; hydrofoils and a turbine connected to an electric motor generate buoyancy.
"That looks great, keep it up!" shouts Michelsen against the wind. "Move forwards a bit, then it'll be even better!" He turns the wheel and picks up speed because Bruhn has zoomed away from him. She is fast, the six-time world champion and eight-time European champion.
"That was really cool!" she says later about her ride. And then has to be carried back into her wheelchair afterwards. How she hates it; but there's no other way, she's been disabled for 34 years after a motorbike accident. A drama that still resonates today because her rescuers made serious mistakes and, with the right treatment, a disability could have been avoided. To this day, memories come up again and again, it is still difficult many years later, she says.
Sailing school overcomes barriers
It was also an accident that changed Michelsen's life. He was trying to show the girls on the beach how to ride the wave when he slipped on a sun cream-smeared board in the wind and fell headfirst into shallow water at full speed. A crack and a thought: that's it. At 25, his neck vertebrae were broken. Michelsen narrowly escaped paraplegia, but has suffered from pain every day since. He is not allowed to lift weights or move his head too much. He has had several operations over the years, as well as other accidents and near-death experiences. Michelsen doesn't talk much about it, doesn't want to make a fuss about it. It is not quite clear whether he wants to protect himself in this way or whether he has really come to terms with what has happened. At some point, he made the defiant decision to come to terms with what happened.
Having got away with it gives him the strength to use his energy for others who have not been so lucky. He founded a sailing school for people with disabilities. In Großenbrode on the Baltic Sea, just off Fehmarn, where the water is shallow and warm and conditions are ideal for beginners. A large table in front of the house, around which his guests gather, a makeshift shower, almost always fresh coffee and good humour. The view sweeps into the distance.
Its guests come from all over the world to experience a bit of fun in a place that can confidently be described as barrier-free: the sea. Here you can learn to sail and surf, kite and paddle on a board. Children come with their parents, teachers with their pupils. Some with, some without disabilities. They are all equal on the water.
For some people, this is such an amazing experience that they are drawn here again and again. Life here can be wonderfully uncomplicated. Just like the conversations around the table. Where you can talk about what disability does to you without being shy. What it's like not to be able to see or to only have one leg. This is also a kind of school of life - about dealing with loss and grief, hope and certainty.
Finding strength in weakness
The people who gather here have incredible fates and an even greater will. War invalids come here, men and women with post-traumatic disorders or diseases such as Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis. Tobias Michelsen often has to swallow because it's hard to bear what others have to endure.
How this girl, nine years old, after three chemotherapy sessions and without hair, wanted to go to the sea one last time before she died months later. And she could laugh so beautifully. Michelsen and his volunteers gave the terminally ill girl an unforgettable day.
It is experiences like these that make this sailing school so unique, a place of longing for people who find strength in weakness. In a time when everything is supposed to be perfect. That condemns illness and categorises people. Tobias Michelsen, on the other hand, refuses to think in categories. In disability. In autism. Scoliosis. Trisomy. Physically disabled. Mentally disabled. Worth living. Or not.
He is admirably self-assured in his dealings with those who are considered disabled. Gratitude is the energy that drives the trained cameraman. Being content with what still exists. Michelsen wants to pass on this feeling. That's why he lets blind people fly kites, lifts paralysed people onto catamarans and patiently takes all the time in the world to put a boy's wetsuit on. The joy of the others stirs him up.
Sail United" association with prominent support
Because none of this is possible without the help of supporters, Michelsen has gathered top athletes around him in his non-profit organisation Sail United. Sailing legends such as downwind specialist Alexander Hagen, for example, or other world champions like Kirsten Bruhn. Not so much to brag about their successes, but rather so that their stories can encourage people to embark on adventures and transformations. To beautiful new things. Big things.
They come to Großenbrode and can then encourage others from their own experience to dare to do things that they might not think possible. All too often, disabled people experience what is not possible. Here, however, almost anything is possible.
"I've been sailing for years on boats that actually require two hands," says Sail United Chairman Heiko Kröger. "When I come ashore, people are amazed because they see that I only do everything with my right hand." Kröger, who became "World Champion Over All" in 2001 and 2023 on a regatta course where disabled and non-disabled people competed against each other, has had to cope without his left forearm since birth.
"There is so much that can be done," he says, "that hardly anyone realises works." After several trips, Kröger is convinced that blind people, for example, learn to sail much faster. "They feel the boat better and sense even the slightest wind movement earlier than sighted people."
Disability can be an asset
This kind of amazement and the fine togetherness are also an incentive for friends, parents and siblings to deal with impairments more naturally. To dare more and complain less: if you like, this is the mission of the water sports enthusiasts united here - sail united. To counter all those who only ever voice their worries and fears. And this terrible sentence about not overestimating yourself. It's about being stronger on the inside than your outer self would have you believe.
"A disability can also be an asset," says Stephan Engelhardt. He sits at the tiller and beams. The lawyer spent a long time looking for a place where he could go on holiday on the water with his disability without too much effort. Blind since birth, he came to Großenbrode. He was familiar with jogging with a friend or skiing with a student who drives up with a loudspeaker on his back and gives him commands and directions. But not this crazy feeling of standing on a board and floating above the water.
He can try it out here on the Baltic Sea. It's so exciting to see from the boat how someone like him finds his way in the constant darkness. First in a sitting position, then upright. He holds on to a long pole attached to the boat with his hands and after just a few attempts, Engelhardt roars off. He glides fearlessly across the open sea, travelling faster and faster over the waves. If the water has no barriers, then it is here.
Of course, Tobias Michelsen in the support boat has to make sure that his speed surfer doesn't accidentally crash into a sailing ship bobbing in the glittering water. Or come dangerously close to himself and the boat. But Engelhardt overcomes the challenge with flying colours and is later delighted to have finally been out and about without any obstacles. No bollards, no bicycles, no people on the pavement, which he often runs into and then always apologises for; instead, almost limitless space and the feeling of freedom. Space in all directions and the feeling that he can decide for himself how fast he goes where.
"That's independence!" says Engelhardt, which he sometimes misses on land. There, he always has to find training partners who can keep up with his pace. Not easy at all; he was once European runner-up in the 100 metre butterfly and runs the half marathon in under 1 hour 40. "With Tobias, it's not a question of whether something works, but how," he sums it up. "There's no such thing as can't for him."
"Sail United" to be expanded
Here by the sea, Tobias Michelsen forgets his own pain, the pain in his joints, simultaneously and constantly, polyarthritis. Starting with the two spinal fractures that he has survived so far without having to rely on a wheelchair.
One wish drives him all the more: He wants to give wheelchair users more experiences, big trips on the high seas. Setting off on new adventures and building Germany's first ocean-going catamaran to plough the seas. That would be something. With easy access to all decks and the option of taking the helm while seated in a wheelchair.
Michelsen is already raising money and looking for sponsors. Encouraged by what he has already achieved so far, he wants to push the boundaries further. And make his dream the benchmark for his actions: Trying the impossible to achieve the possible.
More about the "Sail United" project
The multi-award-winning organisation welcomes donations and additional volunteers. The work and recreational fun with disabled people requires a lot of resources. Tobias Michelsen and his fellow campaigners deserve all the support they can get. Donation account: Sail United e. V., IBAN DE94 2305 0101 0160 3468 96 at the Sparkasse zu Lübeck.
