TELL TALES
IMAGES CB ARCHIVESEnd of an era for British sailing at Kiel
This year will be the last for the British Kiel Yacht Club
near Hamburg, as the repatriation of tens of thousands
of British troops stationed in Germany gathers speed.
The locale has a long history, not least as the venue
for the sailing events of the infamous 1936 Olympics,
but it was immediately after the war that the British
military took over the club for sailing.
Founder Colonel WG Fryer later recalled: “I found
the Olympia Yacht Haven full of yachts and the Kieler
Yacht Club, damaged by our bombers, locked up and
empty.
"So I told the Chief Engineer and the Assistant
Quarter Master General of 8 Corps that I was going to
requisition some yachts from the harbour and form a
yacht club. They both nodded, so I went ahead.”
On 11 June 1945, the British Kiel Yacht Club was
born and held its first Kiel Week regatta later that
summer, just three months since the German surrender.
Britain returned the venue to Germany in 1951, the club
moving to its present home just two miles away.
As well as running the hugely popular annual Kiel
Week regatta ever since, the club has been
instrumental in training British forces in sailing (on the
Baltic, with a fleet of ten Halberg Rassy 342s and a
Comfortina 42), diving and powerboat driving.
Flamingo, the last of its famous, classic Windfall yachts,
was recently sold, but the modern boats will return to
Gosport under sail when the yacht club is handed back
to the German government at the end of this year. At
Gosport, they will continue to be used for sail-training
at the Joint Service Adventure Sail Training Centre.
“It is a shame”, said Major Adrian Pery, Officer
Commanding Kiel Training Centre, “but the main thing
is that we’re retaining our capacity to provide
adventurous training with the facility at Gosport.”
As for the future of the British Kiel Yacht Club itself,
not much is known. The land and buildings will be
returned to the German Federal Government, who
along with the Kiel Stadt Authorities, will decide the
next steps.Clockwise from
top: A club
gathering;
founder WG
Fryer; Olympic
base; racing“We’re
retaining our
capacity to
provide
adventurous
training with
the facility
at Gosport”