A PEAK BEHIND THE CURTAINS – SHORT AND SWEET
How can it be that a family business with a workforce comprising no more than a husband and wife can have penetrated pretty much the whole of the worldwide market and in all probability – with no fanfare whatsoever – established itself as the micro-global-market leader selling windvane self-steering systems direct to the global cruising community in just (nine months short of) fifty years? It’s difficult to believe, even for me!
1976Read on to learn more about how all this came to pass. It’s a short story, but a story liable to leave one (at least one – me) a little short of breath.
1976 was the year I swapped my yawl Lilofee for a business called Windpilot. Lucky me, I thought, to have such a wonderful fairy godmother! I was down to the bare bones though, with nothing to speak of in the bank to help me realise the grand plans ripening in my head
The company came with a rustic (and decidedly landlocked) workshop including a selection of machinery left over from WWII, which I promptly loaded into my army surplus truck and relocated to my new Windpilot HQ in Hamburg. I stocked up on sailcloth and assorted metalworking and GRP materials as well and before long my new premises looked much more like a workshop than the house of ill repute it had served as previously. In the early years, I repaired boats and cars (drawing the ire of the local community in the process) as well as selling self-steering: money was tight, the rent aspirational and the landlord a stickler for punctuality.
1983 brought big changes at Windpilot with the launch of my Pacific and Pacific Plus systems. Production moved on from stainless steel to sand-cast aluminium at the same time. Rolf Lenk, who created the models from which the moulds for my new aluminium components were made, has been a great friend ever since.
1997 saw the introduction of new emissions regulations targeting (and effectively terminating) sand casting, leading the proprietor of the foundry I used, Günther Radloff, to shut up shop. This prompted me to develop a modular family of products that could be produced using a permanent mould casting process instead. The Kurz company has been manufacturing the Pacific Light, Pacific, Pacific Plus and SOS Rudder for the global market using industrial methods ever since. The new range hurtled from drawing board to production in a mere 14 months!
I brought the CNC machining work back in house at the same time, a move that also entailed remodelling the building and beefing up the foundations (a seven-figure investment back in the Deutschmark days – with interest at 7.3% on top).
1976 – 2004 was the boat show era: I served time at dozens and dozens all over the world without ever learning to love the experience. Windpilot employed 2.5 people in production at this time. There wasn’t much happening socially,
there was less than nothing in the bank, interest payments and costs were daunting (especially compared with revenues, which they had overtaken some while back)… The marketing concept was crying out for change, that much I knew for certain.
One thing I didn’t suspect was that, inclement as the outlook appeared, the clouds were in fact only just starting to gather; soon the storm would break, in private and business life alike.
19981998 was the year one of my competitors took offence to something in my book SELF-STEERING UNDER SAIL and sued me for libel at the High Court in London. The court decided the whole miserable affair in my favour in 2003, although the associated six-figure increase in my debt (the plaintiff claimed bankruptcy to avoid paying me any of what he owed) did take some of the edge off my relief.
2003 changed everything – in my personal life and for the business. This was the year I first met my now-wife (my fourth). We resolved to start again from the beginning, letting our employees go and running the whole Windpilot show – production included – on our own. We have been at it for 22 years now, sharing every minute with never so much as a thought of a holiday.
We grow stronger all the time, a resilient team capable of withstanding just about anything that comes our way.
We decided early on to ditch the conventional marketing strategy completely: no more spending on boat shows, advertising or sponsorship. In its place we put our faith in word-of-mouth, relying on satisfied customers the world over to spread the message about Windpilot for us. This approach has worked so wonderfully well that now, rather than chasing sailors for their business, we can trust them to come to us. It adds up, in my eyes, to a fair reward for all our hard work over the years in the service of the bluewater community.
2004 was the year I made my books on all things self-steering available online in six different languages. They were downloaded (free of charge) some three million times over the subsequent 18 years.
2022 saw 18 books in three different languages made available online. They cover my views on the suitability (or unsuitability, as the case may be) of various types of yacht for extended voyaging under sail as well as sharing what I have learned over a lifetime designing, building and selling windvane self-steering systems.
Our database, which contains the design and construction details of just about every sailing boat produced on any scale worldwide (3,890 models and counting), enables us to provide owners with the ideal system selling direct from Hamburg.
We also have a database of addresses and a media database that enables us to search using thousands of different criteria and includes everything from images of the arrival of the Bounty to pictures of Moitessier and various South Sea paradises.
2010marked the launch of the Windpilot blog in two languages. This blog originally came into being as my response to the Drifter affair, which brought to light the scandalous conduct of a certain Cuxhaven-based sailing association in relation to Dutch couple Coby and Arnold Lelyfeld.
My overpowering sense of justice has caused me no end of emotional turmoil, not always unrelated to my various entanglements with the legal system (and attendant vultures) in several countries. None of what I have been through though has ever shaken my faith in the primacy of morality and integrity.
The blog has become my hotline to the international cruising community and it is enormously gratifying for me that so many people apparently find my musings to be of interest.
Extract from our database for yachts from A to Z
Number of boats of this type using a Windpilot
69 Albin Ballad
185 Albin Vega
18 Allegro
58 Allures
22 Alpa 1150
154 Amel
451 Beneteau
22 Bestevaer
28 Bianca
15 Biloup
36 Boreal
34 Bowman
75 Breehorn
35 Bristol
44 Bruce Roberts
29 C&C
76 Colin Archer
21 Cal
54 Cape Dory
27 Carena
47 Carter
29 Catalina
19 Chatam
28 Cheoy Lee
12 Columbia
43 Comfortina
25 Compromis
178 Contessa
166 Contest
16 Crealock
17 Cumulant
171 Dehler
13 Downeast
192 Dufour
29 Elan
48 Endurance
28 Ericson
143 Etap
57 Feeling
29 Flicka
43 Garcia
36 Gib Sea
25 Grand Soleil
35 Hans Christian
48 Hanse
41 Hanseat
16 Hunter
62 Hurley
25 Island Packet
523 Jeanneau
159 Koopmans
46 Malö
34 Maxi
73 Meta
82 Moody
33 Morris
42 Motiva
119 Najad
88 Nicholson
31 Nordsee
590 Ovni
42 Pacific Seacraft
29 Pearson
163 Reinke
36 Rustler
46 Sadler
70 Skorpion
13 Southern Cross
41 Sunbeam
56 Swan
46 Trintella
328 v.d.Stadt
74 Vancouver
21 Via
45 Rival
88 Victoire
56 Wauquiez
173 Westerly
33 Westsail
112 Wharram
104 X Yachts
26 Yamaha
11 Yokohama
8. Zuanelli 34
Hamburg 20.09.2025
Marzena Wiska + Peter Foerthmann
