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A peaceful, atmospheric, and harmonious 20th Hanse Sail

The 20th edition of the Hanse Sail has maintained its national and international reputation as an attractive and peaceful event on and around the water.

The mayor of the Hanseatic City, Roland Methling is delighted, “that the Sail could present itself with the attributes of a 20-year-old: youthful, beautiful, courted, described by the Media and the visitors, photographed and filmed. I am glad about the well-tested safety concept that was responsible for the million visitors in Rostock and Warnemünde throughout the four days. I give thanks to the organisors at the Sail-office and to all those, who are responsible for order and safety.

Numerous voluntary helpers, as well as partners and sponsors guaranteed a wonderful, ‘maritime summer festival of German unification’, which has delighted many international guests. The anniversary-Sail could attend with new events, such as “Life during Hanseatic times”, boat-building-actions at the Museumshafen, or the sailing-stadium near the former Neptun-shipyard. We are motivated to prepare the 800th anniversary of the city of Rostock in 2018 by inviting traditional sailers from all over the world.” 

Holger Bellgart, chief of the Hanse Sail-office, calls it “an atmospheric and harmonious Sail. The event area was crowded on Friday and Saturday. But it is quality that has the priority , not the number of visitors. They need to be impressed anew every year on a higher level. Besides my campaigners in the office I would have to thank dozens of partners. Special thanks go to harbourmaster Gisbert Ruhnke and his team for the logistical accomplishments concerning the 240 ships from 13 countries.”

Matthias Fromm, commissarial director of tourism Rostock-Warnemünde, sees “the Hanse Sail as the ideal time to get together leading national and international representatives of economy and politics. Being a mixture of a fair, an economical meeting, and sailing, the maritime event crosses national borders.”

The various attractions of the 20th Hanse Sail were well accepted. Around 28,000 visitors chartered on traditional ships – a little more than in 2009. The Federal Navy, partner of the Sail since 1991, was satisfied: the tender WERRA and the speedboat S73 HERMELIN each registered 5.000 visitors during the “Open-ship”-event. The naval base was visited by 10,000 interested parties in the course of the “Open base”.

Densely besieged were the Hanse-Sail-Stage and the NDR-Stage, with Aura Dione performing on Saturday in front of 11,000 spectators. The showmen were satisfied with their revenues, which they ascribe to the risen quality of the market structure.

A special word of praise was given to the Stadtentsorgung Rostock, who removed more than 50 tons of garbage throughout the 4 days and provided a clean Sail.