the then IYRU, he also played a major part in the development of the International Offshore Rule (IOR) and later the IMS. Hans-Otto started his sailing career onboard his father’s yacht
Carla, mainly cruising the Elbe estuary and the North Sea. When his father died prior to WW2, the 21-year-old chemistry student suddenly found himself in charge of the family business, an industrial chemicals complex specialising in the production of paraffin wax and petroleum lubricants. Over the years he developed the business to become a world leader in this field – while the consequent improving financial situation put him in a position to finance his costly passion for offshore racing.
During wartime Hans-Otto Schümann continued to run his company, located in the centre of the port of Hamburg, for as long as was possible. When in the summer of 1943 Allied bombs destroyed Hamburg during Operation Gomorrah he was out for a sailing trip on the River Elbe. No bombs, only reserve fuel tanks dropped by planes heading back to England came raining down from the sky around his little sailing boat…
To his great surprise the Schümann chemical plant itself had somehow been left unharmed in the midst of the rubble and chaos. This stroke of fortune enabled the business to restart production quite quickly following the end of hostilities. In 1956 Hans-Otto Schümann was testing his brand new Abeking & Rasmussen-built Rubin I on a trip to Madeira. On his way
south he called into Cowes during Cowes Week. Due to his fascination with both this event and the complex sailing waters of the Solent, Cowes itself soon became a second sailing home to the German industrialist.
As well as appreciating the level of sailing competition on offer in England, he also admired the dry British humour and the self-confident lifestyle of the English yachtsmen of the era… some- thing that he had missed living in the struggling German society of the 1950s and 1960s.
In time Hans-Otto Schümann became an enduring ambas- sador for British yachting in Germany, particularly for the IOR rule and the Admiral’s Cup. This sparked a tremendous enthusiasm in the early 1970s and subsequently led to the convincing German victory in the Admiral’s Cup of 1973. It is thanks to him that from then on more and more German yachts carried the letters RORC on their stern.
Hans-Otto took particular interest in the design and building of his yachts. He enjoyed a long and close relationship with Rod and Olin Stephens, who designed his first Rubins. Some of his early boats were also built in his own yard, Burmester, in Bremen, as long as cold-moulded wood remained a build option. When the S&S era came to an end it was Schümann who placed some of the earliest important orders with an up-and- coming young German team, the designers Judel-Vrolijk. Meanwhile,
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