How it all started
A longing is where the story of Sailing-Classics began…
"How can you book a sailing trip like this?"
I think it was 1998 when I first visited the Voiles de Saint-Tropez as a tourist and saw an incredibly beautiful ship there, the J-class yacht Endeavour… I was so enraptured that I would have given absolutely anything to be allowed to sail on this ship. But such mega yachts were and are usually only rented out as a complete ship.
The idea of organizing sailing trips on large, real sailing yachts for individual bookers or as cabin charters then flitted through my mind for years. In 2005, I had a career change and the opportunity to do something completely new. It was completely clear to me that this would have to do with sailing and with this concept, because sailing has fascinated and occupied me since I was a child…
Andreas Steidle-Seiler
I then went to Klaus Röder (Carpe Diem Yacht Design) with lots of sketches and ideas. He later confessed to me that he thought the idea was pretty crazy. Nevertheless, he drew me a beautiful hull, that of the first yacht KAIRÓS. He also drew the cracks for CHRONOS and RHEA. With my construction description, I finally ended up at a Turkish shipyard in Bodrum with a very young naval architect named Ayberk as project manager, who later set up his own business and completed the KAIRÓS.
Before that, the Swabian (me) had the good fortune to meet an upright northern light. Barbara (my wife today) promised to help me and has played a major role in the success of Sailing-Classics to this day.
But the start in 2007 was more than bumpy. We had rigging damage in the Caribbean and then in 2009 the KAIRÓS hit a reef off Corsica. We still managed it, partly because many customers – some of whom I didn’t even know – left their deposits and said: You fix it and we’ll come back… And Ayberk repaired it. And the insurance paid at some point. And from the restart in 2010, things went steadily uphill, with many guests coming back again and again!
In 2012, we succeeded in finding further investors, founding the new Sailing-Classics CV and starting construction of the CHRONOS. Today, after commissioning the RHEA, we have over 60 employees (some part-time) and Mariusz, our oldest employee, rightly says: “We share many stories…”
However, ships are very capital-intensive and the operation and logistics in the many shipping areas are very complex. Marketing such a niche product also requires a lot of consulting and effort. So there is still a lot to improve. But even after ten years, the enthusiasm of our guests and the commitment of our crews drives us to keep on sailing…
Andreas Steidle-Sailer
