Listing announcement "AR" EUR 695,000
Offered for sale
"AR" Abeking & Rasmussen 63 ft 125 sq m Seefahrtkreuzer Racer Cruiser Yawl 1936
Few yachts enjoy almost 40 years of tender loving care by the same understanding and knowledgeable owners.
The astonishing 63ft Abeking & Rasmussen 125sqm Seefahrtkreuzer AR has, and when you step aboard you truly feel it. She is the embodiment of the classic yacht as fully functional art. Keeping her true to Henry Rasmussen's design for his own yacht has been paramount over the years, and apart from the inevitable and necessary structural refits, the only real concession to modernity in AR has been the subtle introduction of sail handling systems to enable this elegant, fast, safe, comfortable and seaworthy yacht to be sailed short-handed by a family.
History:
Germany’s pre-eminent 20th Century designer of beautiful, strong, fast and able yachts, Danish born Henry Rasmussen, also knew how to sell them. His method of dealing with the Great Depression years was to travel to the USA and engage W. Starling Burgess in finding American newbuild clients for his Lemwerder, Bremen yard, Abeking & Rasmussen. He returned with orders for 14 yachts.
AR was born out of that marketing flair; her name would be the clue when she went on show at Kiel during the 1936 Olympic Games yachting regatta there, at which Rasmussen’s 8-Metre design GERMANIA III won Bronze representing Germany, and AR hosted many international guests.
Henry Rasmussen also knew how to design and build them. The Seefahrtkreuzer Rule was his own creation, and from it developed a line of beautiful yet sensible, fast yet seaworthy and seakindly yachts, with AR being one of its finest expressions – nowadays also in preservation.
Abeking & Rasmussen’s output was so astonishing (138 vessels - albeit of all sizes - in 1936 for example) that it is hard to imagine Henry (or “Jimmy” as he was known) having much time for sailing, but during the first season he did manage to cruise her back to his home town of Svendborg on the Danish island of Fyn, where no doubt she was noticed. Original power came from a suit of sails by the local Wilhelm Mählitz loft, and a 6 cylinder 24hp Selve petrol motor in calms.
AR was quickly sold to Willy Schröder of Altona (Hamburg), a member of Norddeutscher Regatta Verein, who renamed her HARRO IV and sailed the Baltic coast out of Travemünde, competing in North Sea Week 1938. In 1939 she passed into the ownership of highly successful German racing helmsman and fellow NDR member Heinz Horn, becoming his 13th SKJOLD.
She survived 1939-1945 and, like many other fine German yachts, then became a prize of war, the British “Windfall” yacht LIVELY, but unlike most Windfalls she remained in Germany as one of the newly formed British Kiel Yacht Club’s fleet. However, along with fellow club yachts KRANICH and AEGIR X, LIVELY did visit British waters during at least one summer under the command of the BKYC Rear Commodore, Tom Dixon, taking part in the 1951 Fastnet Race followed by the Royal Yacht Squadron’s race clockwise round the Isle of Wight for the Britannia Challenge Cup. That year’s Fastnet start was a torrid affair in strong westerlies with many yachts not making it beyond the Solent, including Kennon Jewett’s John G Alden-designed ketch MALABAR XIII, dismasted off the notorious Shingles Bank. LIVELY at least made it as far as Portland before retiring to Weymouth with a split mainsail. The season before, LIVELY had finished 3rd in the Copenhagen – Kiel Race, the third and final stage of the RORC’s 1950 “Scandinavian Series” (the earlier stages were: Dover – Kristiansand, and Arendal – Copenhagen). For the Copenhagen – Kiel stage all competitors were British forces “Windfall” yachts:
1. HUTSCHI (British Zone SA) 100 sq m Seefahrtkreuzer Brauer/ Krüger 1935
2. KRANICH (British Kiel YC) 100 sq m Seefahrtkreuzer Brauer/ Krüger 1935
3. LIVELY (British Kiel YC) 125 sq m Seefahrtkreuzer HR/ A&R 1936
4. AEGIR X (British Kiel YC) 100 sq m?
5. KÖNIGIN (Royal Engineers YC) 100 sq m Seefahrtkreuzer HR/ A&R 1935
6. FLAMINGO (British Kiel YC) 100 sq m Seefahrtkreuzer HR/ A&R 1935
LIVELY was sold in 1953 to Hanseatische Yachtschule at Glücksburg on Flensburg Fjord and renamed MÖWE. It was to be a long and happy story at this extraordinary institution which is still going strong. During almost 30 years of sail training and 120,000 sea miles, she won the Blue Ribbon of Flensburg Fjord and held for many years the sailing school’s internal speed records. The present owners bought her from the school in 1982, since when - as AR again - she has been cared for lovingly as a cherished member of the family, cruising the Baltic, Kattegat and Skagerrak, and racing successfully in the western Baltic classic yacht regattas organised by Freundeskreis Klassischer Yachten,
There seems hardly any period in her long life when AR has not been a happy ship; when you step aboard, you truly feel it.
To own AR is a very rare and highly recommended opportunity.