Shipyards: Henry Rasmussen - The Wizard of Abeking & Rasmussen

The beginning of a legend

In times when boats and yachts are built on standardised production lines and delivered in series by industrial companies, it is hard to imagine the creativity and craftsmanship that once characterised the sport of sailing. Sailing began as an inexpensive mass sport when new inventions such as GRP replaced wood as a building material in the 1960s. "Frozen snot" is what L. Francis Herreshoff (1890-1972) from the legendary US boatbuilding dynasty contemptuously called the fibreglass products from the mould.

Pioneers of yacht building

There were three men in particular who made an international mark on wooden yacht building. They were not only ingenious designers, boat builders and inventors, but also outstanding sailors who also moved in the world of their customers, who were mostly from big business, like fish in water: Nathanael Greene Herreshoff (1848-1938), "the wizard from Bristol" on the US East Coast; Charles Ernest Nicholson (1868-1954) from Gosport on the English south coast and Henry Rasmussen (1877-1959) in Lemwerder on the Weser. What made "Jimmy" Rasmussen, as he was known, so unique?

Childhood and first experiences

In his memoirs in 1956, he wrote: "I had a beautiful childhood full of romance. My parents' house was just a few steps away from the forest. As far as the eye could see, there was only forest and more sea, with cornfields and farms in between." Henry Rasmussen was born on 15 January 1877 in Svendborg in the Kingdom of Denmark, in one of the most beautiful sailing areas in the world. The large Rasmussen family lived as farmers and boat builders on Svendborgsund, an idyllic strait.

The young Henry Rasmussen grew up with farming and hunting, but he was fascinated by the water. He was not yet at school when he and two friends went on his first sailing trip in a secretly procured fishing dinghy: two masts, two spritsails. On the first cross course, with increasing wind and swell, the main mast threatened to break. They raised the sail. Under mizzen sail, the boat could only be manoeuvred through the wind with the help of the oars when tacking. These were Jimmy's first formative experiences in seamanship with wind and waves and the physics of sail trim.

Training and the path to founding a shipyard

In 1895, Rasmussen began his apprenticeship as a boat builder at his grandfather's shipyard in Svendborg. In fact, he had already learnt so much that he was employed as a fully-fledged boatbuilder from the first day of his apprenticeship. This was followed by further positions at shipyards in Odense, Copenhagen and Tönning. "We sailed every free hour, and we always tried to find someone to dock with," he later wrote.

Rasmussen attended the shipbuilding academy in Copenhagen, from which he graduated as a shipbuilding engineer, before accepting an offer from the Vulkan shipyard in Bremen, founded in 1892, and moving to Bremen-Vegesack. Here on the Lower Weser, the Dane found a new home and later became a citizen.

In the wealthy trading city of Bremen, sailing was the order of the day. Alongside his work at the shipyard, he designed his first boats. He designed the six-sail yacht "Durch", a regatta boat similar to the Starboot, for the shipowner Heinrich Hilken. The new construction was built in 1903 at the shipyard of his friend Friedrich "Fidi" Lürssen. Lürssen later focussed entirely on building motor yachts. Rasmussen knows why: "Uncle Fidi had found a hair in the construction of sailing yachts. As he said, the boats were never finished and the sailors always had something to complain about."

Independence and foundation of Abeking & Rasmussen

As a yacht designer, Rasmussen was soon regarded as a top address. However, before construction number 1 was launched at his own shipyard, he took a trip to nearby Emden. His employer, Vulkan, had sent him there in 1903 as operations manager at the large shipyard Nordseewerke, which was still under construction. Rasmussen founded a shipyard sailing club in Emden, and further orders came from this circle.

The emperor sailed, his subjects followed suit and sailing experienced its first great boom - a good time to set up your own business. "It was in the summer of 1907 when we decided to set up a yacht and boatyard," says the 30-year-old. He found a partner in the mechanical engineer Georg Abeking, a colleague from the Emden shipyard. Abeking & Rasmussen acquired a suitable plot of waterfront land on the rural left bank of the Weser from the Oldenburg government. Construction of the first hall began immediately.

Challenge and expansion

Resistance arose in the municipality of Lemwerder. It sent a delegation to the sovereign Friedrich August, Grand Duke of Oldenburg, to lodge a complaint. This was the wrong address. The Grand Duke was a sailor. He even had a captain's licence and undertook many voyages on board his state yacht "Lensahn" - a 62-metre-long schooner with a 1,000 hp steam engine.

When asked what his countrymen were carrying in their hearts, the following dialogue ensued: "I want to tell you, Mr Grand Duke: We're coming from the Warft!" - "What about the dockyard?" - "It takes away our whole view." - "Then we'll have to build a viewing storm so that we can get out of here," said the sovereign.

The way was clear. Rasmussen immediately set to work. He draws and builds. The order book already totalled 16 boats and yachts in the founding year. Construction number 1 was a five-metre workboat for the shipyard.

The following year, 1909, saw the delivery of construction numbers 17 to 69, including a gaff-rigged five-metre R yacht on his own account, which he christened "Frisia" and launched under the banner of the Weser Yacht Club. The year 1910 ended with the construction number 166.

Quality craftsmanship and innovative strength

Rasmussen's boats were not only characterised by their quality craftsmanship and many technical innovations. He was also a fox at utilising the rules of measurement. He was always attracted to competition in sailing, and nobody could fool him there, neither at the drawing board nor at the tiller.

If an owner was not satisfied with the performance of his new build, the shipyard boss took to the reeds himself and collected silver trophies, not only at the most important regattas in Germany, but also in Denmark.

The "Queen II" and her history

On board the six-metre R-yacht "Aster", he once took part in the Øeresund Week off Copenhagen with the Hamburg merchant von Eicken. Rasmussen: "We sailed the six-metre yacht with three men, one of whom was a bosun. One day it was so rough that our bosun refused to hoist the spinnaker. He was convinced that we were going to sink after all, and why bother setting the spinnaker beforehand?"

The number of newbuildings declined somewhat in the years before the First World War, but the yachts became significantly larger. In 1912, the 22 metre long Yawl "Königin II" left the shipyard as the largest ship to date. The customer was Waldemar Baron von Dazur, a Silesian manor owner and leader of a fighter pilot squadron in the First World War. Later owners of the touring yacht included Benito Mussolini, who kept his mistress Claretta Petacci on board.

Innovation and excellence in regatta sport

The "Königin II" still exists today. She is now called "Fiamma Nera", which translates as "Black Flame", is moored in the Mediterranean and, with 113 years under her keel, is probably Rasmussen's oldest ocean-going yacht that is still sailing.

Rasmussen knew how to win over his customers with charm, but above all with skill and innovation. This helped with the most important source of income, the racing yachts: If you want to sail at the top, you have to position yourself accordingly every time the measurement rules change with a new build, or at least a refit.

Influence of the German Sailing Association

In order to create the conditions for fair regatta sailing, the leading sailing clubs founded the German Sailing Association (DSV) in 1888, which issued the measurement letters. The DSV's Technical Committee was responsible for the rules. Rasmussen worked as a volunteer in this department for 50 years and thus became the midwife of many a new class, which was initially preferably built in Lemwerder.

As a consequence of the increasing internationalisation of sailing, the International Yacht Racing Union (IYRU) was founded in 1907 as a world umbrella organisation, and he also joined its technical department.

The influence of the International Rule

The Germans adopted the International Rule introduced in 1906, which triggered a triumphal march for R yachts, not to A&R's detriment. Their first boat built according to the new rule was the seven-metre R yacht "Albert", construction number 5. At the Weser Yacht Club's first spring regatta, the new build, with Rasmussen at the tiller, beat the competition by ten minutes. Word got around.

While Rasmussen worked on his orders at the drawing board and in the shipyards during the winter months, the summer was reserved for sailing and acquiring new orders.

In order to get to know the "Wizard of the Weser", the German sailing celebrities came to see him. These included the sailing-interested Prince Henrich of Prussia, Grand Admiral and brother of the Kaiser. This friendship lasted until the prince's death in April 1929.

Challenges in the post-war period

In addition to pure sailing yachts, the shipyard soon acquired a foothold in the construction of motorboats and vehicles for the authorities and the navy. This also helped to bridge the difficult war years.

Henry Rasmussen's love, however, remained racing, and it bothered him when the best yachts he built did not also have the best helmsman, i.e. him. At Kiel Week 1914, in the days leading up to the start of the First World War, he watched the botched start of the brand new 12-metre R-yacht "Skeaf", which had recently been delivered to the Schleswig shipowner Henry Horn. He grumbled about the "night watchman" sitting at the tiller.

The night watchman was the owner himself. He invited him to take the helm himself, whereupon Henry Rasmussen made a second start the next day and won a brilliant Kieler Woche victory. Reeder Horn became one of A&R's most loyal customers.

The role of starboats

In the economically difficult post-war years, larger orders initially failed to materialise. In 1919, the shipyard built two simple open keelboats of a standardised class, which had been created in the USA in 1911 as the "Starboat", for the Weser Yacht Club. The "Onkel August" and "Max Tille" from A&R were the first starboats built in Europe.

In Germany, sailors initially had a hard time with these angular boxes. Too ugly, they said. But Rasmussen was lucky enough to have a man at his side whose enthusiasm for sailing almost led to the bankruptcy of his own company. Erich F. Laeisz, owner of the Flying-P-Liner, the last of the large cargo ships, was vehemently in favour of the new class.

Scandinavian solution and new partnerships

Business was rather poor in Germany in the years following the First World War. Rasmussen therefore decided to take a trip to Scandinavia. There he succeeded in acquiring a number of orders for skerry cruisers and thus bridged the difficult period until it was possible to think about sailing again at home.

"I travelled everywhere, as I had to be at all the regatta venues to share in the joys and sorrows," he wrote in his autobiography.

However, his partner Georg Abeking lacked the confidence to bring the shipyard back into the fast lane in these difficult economic times. He left the company in 1925.

In order to pay off Abeking, Rasmussen had to sell the most valuable thing the shipyard had: the timber yard. And he needed a new partner. He found one in the retired Rear Admiral Edmund Schulz. Rasmussen: "The admiral was a hard worker, but not a diplomat. He had the marvellous quality of making himself unpopular with everyone, whether customer or supplier. The partnership cost me 100,000 gold marks, but I was glad to be rid of him in 1931, and everyone in the company breathed a sigh of relief."

New orders from the USA

The shipyard boss used the lack of orders to build his own ship. On 28 June 1924, the steel 26-tonne touring cruiser "AR", rigged as a ketch, was launched. Four days later, Rasmussen was already on his way to the Baltic Sea with his bosun and family, where he first visited his old home at Svendborgsund. It was here that the Danish King Christian X was on board his state yacht "Danebrog". He paid a brief visit to the "AR", which was flying the Danish flag.

In 1936, the shipyard boss built himself another "AR", a 19 metre long 125 seagoing cruiser, larch on steel and oak frames. After a few detours, the yacht ended up in the hands of photographer Tom Nitsch in 1981, who had the yacht overhauled at Svendborgsund. Today, the "AR" with its marvellous lines is one of the best restored classics in Germany.

From 1924, a large number of orders were received from the USA, the result of A&R's good reputation overseas, but also of favourable exchange rates. The boats were paid for in dollars.

The influence of American customers

A syndicate of New York sailors ordered 14 identical 10-metre R yachts designed by star architect Starling Burgess. The hefty US import tax could be avoided if the boats sailed to American harbours on their own keel. Henry Rasmussen shipped all 14 yachts to the Canadian harbour of Halifax. There, a convoy was put together to cover the last 500 nautical miles to Long Island Sound. Among the transfer crews was a 17-year-old sailor named Olin Stephens, who with his design office Sparkmann & Stephens (S&S) was not only to become the most successful designer in the world, but also a major customer of the shipyard.

Rasmussen was passed around the oligarchs of the US East Coast. He was a guest at country estates and on private yachts as big as ocean liners and visited Nat Herreshoff's shipyard in amazement. He wrote: "His yachts are the most beautiful here, I have never seen anything so beautiful."

The trip brought further orders for the shipyard on the Weser. The leading yacht designers at the time, Burgess & Morgan, ordered 61 Atlantic-class boats for the USA alone and travelled to Hamburg on special trains to bring the newbuilds across the Atlantic on a car transporter.

The sudden import duty

Jimmy, who probably got this nickname in the USA, achieved a double coup: the most important regatta class in the USA in the 1920s were the six-metre R yachts, whereas in Germany it was the skerry cruisers. On the account of his friend Erich F. Laiesz, A&R built two six-metre yachts and was right to do so. In 1928, the six-metre yacht became Olympic class, and the new "Pan" from Laeisz was launched off Amsterdam.

Conversely, it was possible to bring a fleet of A&R archipelago cruisers to the US East Coast for comparative regattas with the sixes. The Americans were delighted, and a flood of orders ensured full employment in Lemwerder.

At that time, the shipyard could have lived exclusively from orders from the USA. Unfortunately, the Americans suddenly imposed a stricter import tax of 30 per cent, regardless of whether the boats arrived on their own keel or not.

Henry Rasmussen was furious and even asked the car manufacturer Henry Ford to exert his influence. For nothing. It came as expected: The orders from his friends in America suddenly dried up. Yachts from Germany had become too expensive. Rasmussen therefore planned to set up a branch of the A&R shipyard in New York. The lack of skilled labour thwarted the plan.

Return of the German market

Fortunately, demand from Germany picked up again in the early 1930s.

From 1936, all of the shipyard's newbuildings were fitted with a gold-plated mould. Walter von Hütschler from Hamburg won the world championship in an A&R star boat in 1936 and 1937. The shipyard could barely cope with the demand from all over the world.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, all shipyard capacities had to be made available to the navy. A&R was now primarily occupied with the production of minesweepers. In occupied Denmark, Rasmussen's home country, he had the opportunity to acquire a small yacht shipyard. At times, 100 boat builders worked here. At the end of the war, the shipyard was forcibly expropriated. Given the understandable hatred that existed against all things German as a result of the occupation of Denmark, Rasmussen was lucky that he did not end up in prison. Basically an apolitical person - he was certainly not a party member - the behaviour of his fellow countrymen left him with a deep sense of bitterness.

Reconstruction and renewal

The shipyard in Lemwerder was largely preserved. For the new start, Rasmussen mainly built dinghies, including the covered Hansa dinghy developed by him, which sold well because it did not fall under the sailing ban imposed by the Allies due to its small size.

And again, it was the Americans who helped A&R along. From the 1950s onwards, the favourable exchange rate and A&R's reputation brought the shipyard orders for ever larger yachts, many of which were built to designs by Olin Stephens. The crowning achievement, however, was the construction of 99 Concordia Yawls, a particularly successful 12 metre yacht designed by C. Raymond Hunt. The Concordia Yawls built in A&R quality cemented the legendary reputation of Rasmussen's shipyard in the USA far beyond the death of the shipyard boss.

A new economic miracle

The economic miracle also brought major orders from Germany again. Hans-Otto Schümann, the doyen of German ocean-going sailors, had his first "Rubin" built in 1951, an 11 KR according to the new measurement formula. Alfred Krupp ordered his fourth "Germania", a 13-KR yawl made of steel, cracked by S&S.

The shipyard boss himself sailed his new 8 KR "Hera", "a very beautiful, handy and seaworthy ship", to eastern Sweden in 1951. The very next year, another "Hera" was built, a motor sailer 16.60 metres long, which was launched in 1955. It travelled to Kieler Woche, to Sandhamn for the 125th anniversary of the Royal Swedish Yacht Club, through the Göta Canal to Svendborg and back to Lemwerder. In his autobiography, the master wrote: "The distance travelled was 1,755 nautical miles. The fine weather never let us down for a day. I believe I can say that this journey in 1955 is one of the most beautiful journeys of my life."

Henry Rasmussen died in Bremen on 2 June 1959 as the result of a car accident. His son Hermann Schaedla and his grandson Hans Schaedla preserved his legacy. To this day, Abeking & Rasmussen enjoys an excellent reputation. Even if the ships that are built there today are reminiscent in size of the grand ducal state yacht "Lensahn" - the love of wood has remained. Training at A&R still includes the construction of a wooden dinghy. In the spirit of the shipyard's great namesake.