History: ‘Germania’ and ‘Meteor’ – racing schooners in the service of the Kaiser and Krupp
Svante Domizlaff
· 18.06.2026
Perhaps the moment was really as mundane as the naval painter Willy Stöwer later depicted it in his painting *The Emperor at a Beer Evening in Borby*. The painting depicts Wilhelm II, the German Emperor and King of Prussia, sitting amongst his yacht’s crew in the Borby district of Eckernförde. On that summer’s evening in 1908, over cigars and beer, His Majesty was, as always, planning great things. And great things came to pass.
You might also be interested in:
With the construction of his fourth ‘Meteor’ racing yacht, the monarch – who had a passion for the sea – drew level with the ‘Germania’ of his sailing rival Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, thereby setting the stage for a contest between two racing schooners on a scale never before or since seen in the history of sailing.
‘Meteor’ and ‘Germania’: racing schooners of the highest calibre
With an overall length of 47.14 metres and a sail area of up to 4,500 square metres on the two masts, standing 50 and 30 metres high respectively, these yachts were designed for regattas in coastal waters. Each carried 19 sails made of Egyptian cotton which, as can be seen in historical photographs, hung so smoothly that they appeared as though modern synthetic fibres had been woven into them. No engine was fitted. Consequently, the ‘Meteor’ and ‘Germania’ had to be towed to the regatta course or the mooring buoys in unfavourable wind conditions. In Germany, the ‘Meteor’ was at the disposal of the tender SMS ‘Sleipner’, a 63-metre-long former torpedo boat destroyer of the Imperial German Navy with a crew of 50.
In the decade leading up to the outbreak of the First World War, the major sailing nations – the USA, Great Britain and, by then, Germany too – experienced a period of economic prosperity at its peak. The industrial age had given rise to a bourgeois elite that stood on an equal footing with the ruling aristocracy. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the steel baron from the Ruhr region, and his supreme commander, the Kaiser, were the driving force behind a glorious future for the empire, which was still in its infancy. They needed one another: the German Emperor needed Krupp’s cannons, and Krupp needed a client to finance his industrial empire. In sailing, the two found a peaceful outlet for the time being. As rivals on the regatta course, they stood united against the overwhelming competition from England and the USA.
The Sailing Emperor
Wilhelm II (1859–1941) went on his first sailing trip at the age of 14 on the North Sea, whilst on summer holiday in Wyk auf Föhr. And that single day at sea sparked a lifelong passion for sailing in the Crown Prince. Although his left arm had been crippled from birth, which significantly restricted his activities at sea, it is said that he never felt happier in his life than when on board his yachts. The monarch became the greatest patron of German water sports. However, his ‘Marine-Meise’ referred not only to sailing, but also to the construction of a massive battle fleet – with dire consequences, as we know today.
Wilhelm II sailed a total of five yachts named ‘Meteor’, with varying degrees of success. The third ‘Meteor’, built in New York and christened there by Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of the American President, in his presence, unfortunately proved to be a perpetual slowpoke despite all its sailing splendour. This saddened the ambitious monarch on that gentlemen’s evening in Eckernförde, and all the more so because a German rival, the ‘Germania’ owned by Mr Krupp of Essen, had suddenly taken the lead. It had been built in 1908 at his own Fried. Krupp Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel. Yet Krupp was no great sailor himself, but rather the sort of owner who preferred to let others do the sailing rather than take the helm.
The Birth of ‘Germania’
The debut of the ‘Germania’ is regarded as a landmark event in the history of sailing. With this yacht, Germany entered the prestigious competition being contested by the leading maritime nations – foremost among them England and the USA – on the regatta courses, but crucially in design offices and shipyards. No one doubted the superiority of the English and Americans. It seemed that only they possessed the enthusiasm, the money and the technical expertise to build the largest yachts, such as those competing in Class A.
In today’s terms, this would correspond to the Supermaxi-class yachts that compete annually in the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup, the world championship held in Porto Cervo, Sardinia, including the historic J-Class yachts: 41-metre single-masted yachts which, in the 1930s, represented the pinnacle of competitive sailing.
From the 1908 season onwards, the world’s A-class elite took up the challenge posed by the ‘Germania’ – the first yacht in the top performance class to have been designed by a German architect, built at a German shipyard and entered into the race with a German crew. She took to the start line in England as a yacht that was ‘German from keel to flag-head’. She was not, of course, entirely German. The timber required for the masts – flawless logs suitable for yachts of this size – could only be sourced from Oregon pine, which had been imported from the USA. Krupp chose Charles Loveless as skipper, and he was from England.
It was surprising that a German firm was able to cut cotton cloth to such an enormous size, and that the sails, once trimmed, stood virtually wrinkle-free in the wind – a skill over which Ratsey & Lapthorn in England had, as it were, a monopoly. The sails for the ‘Germania’, on the other hand, were made in the workshop of master sailmaker Wilhelm Mählitz in Pichelsdorf on Lake Tegel near Berlin.
Oertz wins the contract and delivers
Back to the beer evening in Borby, which took a turn for the better for the Emperor. Among the guests was the yacht designer Max Oertz (1871–1929). He was responsible for the design of the marvel known as the ‘Germania’ and promised the Emperor that he would draw up plans for a sister ship that was virtually identical in construction.
Oertz was awarded the contract, and he kept his word. The new ‘Meteor IV’ and the very similarly constructed ‘Germania’ were completed after less than a year of construction and dominated the A-class until 1914. They made history not only through their stunning visual impact, but also thanks to their outstanding sailing performance. Everything was made in Germany.
Wilhelm II’s love of the sea was well known. Through his grandmother, Queen Victoria, English blood ran through his veins. He knew a thing or two about sailing yachts. But to whom did the ‘Germania’ project owe its existence? There was a woman behind it all. In 1902, Bertha Krupp had become the sole heiress to the Krupp Works, making her the richest woman in Germany. It was on the yacht ‘Kommodore’, owned by her father, Friedrich Alfred Krupp – who was interested in marine research – that she became acquainted with the sea and the sport of sailing. In 1906, she married the diplomat Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach, who, with special permission from the Emperor, was henceforth allowed to bear the surname Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.
Bertha Krupp: The woman behind the ‘Germania’
It was his wife Bertha who suggested the construction of the ‘Germania’ at the family-owned Fried. Krupp Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel. Formally speaking, she was and remained the owner of the racing schooner. Bertha Krupp’s first name was the subject of ridicule on two separate occasions. ‘Big Bertha’ was the name given to the ‘Germania’s’ huge, spinnaker-like headsail. Less amusing: a 42-cm mortar gun built by Krupp, also known as ‘Big Bertha’, was used as a bunker-buster during the First World War.
The Krupp shipyard was designed for the construction of large warships for the Imperial Navy and was therefore at the cutting edge of technology when it came to working with modern materials. A special steel was used for the smoothly riveted hull of the ‘Germania’, whilst all other structural components were made of so-called river-forged iron, which was characterised by its particularly high strength. The stem and stern were made of Krupp steel. The lead ballast keel was forged in six pieces, weighing a total of 87 tonnes. The deck was planked with white pine planks eight to ten metres long.
The interior décor, designed for the owners and their guests, reflected the opulent tastes of the time, albeit in a very understated form. Although it was a racing yacht, a piano was a must. As planned, the crew consisted of the English captain, Loveless, the second captain, Peter Hansen, three helmsmen, six cooks and stewards, and 22 deckhands.
Court life at sea
The number of crew members was doubled for regatta duty. During Kiel Week, fishermen from Eckernförde provided the extra hands, whilst in Cowes, Scottish fishermen were on hand. To hoist the 471-square-metre mainsail on the 27-metre-long main boom, it was ‘all hands on deck’, including the cooks and stewards.
The Krupp family did not live on board, but they did hold court there from time to time. Krupp was never seen at the helm; he was not a sailor. The Kaiser, however, was a different matter. For his court and his long summer voyages, he owned the state yacht ‘Hohenzollern’, which had a crew of 325. During regattas, he was happy to take the ‘helm’ from time to time, though he tended not to steer himself due to his crippled left arm. In photographs, he is usually seen sitting on a bench by the aft skylight.
The “Germania” made its debut off the coast of Kiel during Kiel Week in 1908. In Class A, for yachts over 27 metres in length, there were only two competitors in Germany: the racing schooner ‘Hamburg’, formerly the ‘Rainbow’, operated by a consortium of Hamburg merchants to train young sailors, and the Emperor’s ‘Meteor III’.
‘Germania’ defeats the Anglo-Saxon elite
As his new ‘Meteor IV’ was not yet ready in time for Kiel Week, he sailed as a guest aboard the ‘Germania’, which quickly proved to be the top dog, not only in German waters but also at Cowes Week. The Kaiser had endowed a ‘Kaiser Prize’ for the large racing schooners.
Gustav Krupp, who was on holiday in Mittenwald, Bavaria, at the height of the sailing season, received a telegram on 5 August 1908 from the naval attaché at the Imperial Embassy in London: “From Cowes: the Emperor’s Prize brilliantly won after a hard-fought race. My warmest congratulations.” In a 35-nautical-mile regatta, the “Germania” was faster than five Anglo-Saxon yachts and won on corrected time despite time allowances of up to 40 minutes. With an average speed of 13.1 knots, she broke the record in Cowes set by the ‘Meteor III’ in 1902.
By now, at the very latest, it must have become clear to Krupp’s sailing companion Wilhelm – or Willy, as they called him in England – that the evening in Borby had been a stroke of good fortune. His ‘Meteor IV’, delivered in 1909 by the Germania shipyard in Kiel, formed a duo with the ‘Germania’ that reinforced Germany’s maritime prestige through sporting achievements. Just a few years later, what had been a game turned into a deadly serious affair. Instead of racing yachts, battlecruisers were now pitted against one another.
End the imperial racing era
His Majesty recruited his skippers from the ranks of the Imperial Navy. The first of these was Alfred Begas – later to become Vice-Admiral and Chairman of the Imperial Yacht Club – known as ‘Uncle Alo’. Every now and then, he managed to bring the 266-tonne, motorless yacht to a halt under full mainsail, like a dinghy, using a mooring line to tie it to the buoy in Kiel’s inner fjord.
But if there was one man whose name is forever linked to these two extraordinary racing schooners, it was Max Oertz, born in 1871 on the Baltic Sea, who grew up in Berlin and worked in Hamburg. With his racing schooners ‘Germania’ and ‘Meteor IV’, he joined the ranks of the leading international designers from England, Scotland and the USA.
Emperor Wilhelm entrusted his friend Oertz with the construction of the fifth, slightly larger ‘Meteor V’, 47.60 metres long, with a sail area of 1,410 square metres. It was to be His Majesty’s last yacht. At the end of June 1914, the yacht set sail for the Cowes Regatta. Due to bad weather, it never reached its destination. The glorious era of the imperial racing schooners came to an end a month later with the outbreak of the First World War. After that, there was no longer an emperor.
The Krupp legacy under Sailing
The Krupps, however, held out longer. The last of them died in July 1967. After a sailing trip on the Baltic Sea, he had collapsed on board his ‘Germania VI’; he had only a few days left to live. Just in time, Alfried Krupp had stipulated that the ‘Germania VI’ – which had been built from aluminium using the highly advanced Krupp welding technique – should be transferred to a trust after his death and preserved for the sport of sailing.
When she was launched in 1963, the “Germania VI” , at 22 metres in length and with 220 square metres of sail area when sailing close-hauled, one of the largest and fastest ocean-going racing yachts in the world – and yet not even nearly as long as the main boom of the first ‘Germania’ to bear that name. Thanks to its foundation, she still sails 15,000 miles a year from her home port of Kiel with hundreds of sailors on board. By contrast, the tradition of operating a state yacht under the name ‘Meteor’ has faded into history. With the end of the German Empire, all of His Majesty’s yachts were lost to the passage of time.
