Christoph Rassy
In 2003 the German-Swede Christoph Rassy handed over his Hallberg-Rassy shipyard to his son Magnus. Shortly afterwards he started his world tour as part of the Blue Water Rally.
It looked like therapy to finally gain some distance from his life's work. But Rassy decidedly rejects this as a motivation for the blue water trip. "I never wanted to be the old man who was always on his boy's neck."
It was also never the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. "On the contrary: I never wanted to sail around the world," says Rassy in an interview.
Seldom have he decided things as spontaneously as this trip. “I had the boat and the time. So why not?"
Rassy talks about pirates, coral reefs, and the brave new world of navigational electronics. He reviews his career and takes stock of his departure.
Other successors were originally planned for the shipyard. “You tend to underestimate your own children,” he says. "But at some point I was convinced that he was the right one."
The 73-year-old grew up on Lake Starnberg and built his first boat from the discarded fuel tank of a British bomber. His will to build bigger boats first brought him to Lake Constance and then to Sweden.