"All sailors are dreamers", writes the 33-year-old at the beginning of his book "Raus ins Blaue" (Out into the Blue), which has attracted a lot of attention in the sailing scene. What perhaps most distinguishes Bastian Hauck from other sailors is that he pursues his dreams with great consistency: He pursues his dreams with great consistency. Even his diabetes cannot stop him from his sometimes quite daring endeavours.
Until 2008, Hauck, who studied economics and Middle Eastern studies in Witten/Herdecke and at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, was programme manager for international youth development at the German Council on Foreign Relations. At the beginning of 2008, he set up his own business as a political consultant.
Before embarking on the new task, he first wanted to give himself a break. True to the motto "If not now, then when?", he started the "Tadorna now!" project. He tackled the Baltic Sea with a rather old touring follk boat. He wanted to go round once, single-handed.
In the first summer, he made it across the Baltic States to St. Petersburg, southern Finland and back. In the following summer, he continued his voyage northwards along the Finnish coast to Haparanda and back along the Swedish coast.
In 2010, he swapped life on board his Folke for a berth on the "Walross 4". The yacht belonging to ASV Berlin, with which Hauck is closely associated, was on a long voyage at the time. Hauck sailed a brutally stormy leg from New Zealand through the South Pacific to Tierra del Fuego and later the passage across the Atlantic back to Germany.
At the same time as planning his next sailing adventure, the circumnavigation of Scandinavia - once again with his "Tadorna", of course - he also got another project off the ground: In Schleswig, he recently founded a sailing club together with a friend who is a folkboat sailor. Shipyard operation specialising in wooden yachts and dinghies.
Bastina Hauck has been sailing from an early age. He grew up in Schleswig on the Schlei, and he says about himself: "I've been sailing for longer than I can walk, first on our family boat "Tadaima", and later with my pirate "Ronja", both built in 1959, both once built by Abeking & Rasmussen."
