Episode 15 - Carsten Haas

This week on Oceans Unplugged, we’re joined by sailor Carsten Haas for a conversation about life on the water, the experiences that have shaped his sailing journey and what keeps drawing him back to the ocean.

Carsten shares stories from his time sailing, the challenges and rewards that come with life at sea, and the lessons learned through years of experience on the water. We also explore the mindset behind sailing, the adventures that make it worthwhile and his continuing passion for getting out there and taking on the next challenge.

Another honest conversation from Oceans Unplugged, going beyond the sailing itself to discover the people, stories and experiences behind life on the ocean.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Oceans Unplugged. I'm Lee Gallagher, formal professional sailor, mariner, harbour authority, patrol officer, coast guard officer, and lifeboatman. In each episode, I'll be sitting down one-to-one with the people who push beyond the horizon. Ocean racers, explorers, rowers, and the leaders behind the world's most demanding expeditions. We'll expand on the guests as we get into it. Oceans Unplugged is proudly supported by YB Tracking, the global leader in race and expedition tracking technology, helping bring the world's toughest adventures to life in real time. This is our stories, unfiltered and in-depth. So, welcome back to another episode of Oceans Unplugged. And this week I've got a great guest for you, uh, Carsten Haas, and he's from the German sailing school and yacht charter company called Burt Academy. Did I get that right? Burt Academy? That's what we say in Germany. So tell me a bit more, what is Bud Academy all about?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Oh, well, um, we started like uh around the millennium and started like uh with just doing like the basic powerboat level, it's called Sportburg Führerschein back in Germany, and then we started doing the advanced uh sailing courses, and then the people asked um Carsten, can we come with you on a sailing trip? And I said uh why don't you do it yourself? I mean, you're prepared now, you're uh educated, so do it yourself. They said, no, let's go and uh have an experienced skipper on the side and um learn a little bit more like practical sailing or practical boating.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah, here in the UK we do it uh a lot, we kind of call it a bit of hand holding, yeah. So it's giving that element of reassurance to the the guests or the the crew on board. So this uh weekend we're here in the the lovely harbour of Yarmouth. The sun is shining like always in England. Yeah, yeah. So I've uh organized the good British summer holiday. Uh so why are we here in Yarmouth?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

We're here for the let's pronounce it right, Tettinger Regatta 26. For the reception is uh today and Friday, and tomorrow is two races, I guess, and Sunday is another race, and uh lovely uh surroundings with breakfast, with supper, with uh party, and of course the champagne reception we're looking forward to.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

A little bit of champagne as well, yeah. So now you you do a lot of uh events globally as well. It's not just here in uh Yarmouth or here in the Solent, you do them globally. Yeah. What places do you go to?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Oh, we started uh back starting. We started in Croatia, uh, which is like the closest you can go by car from Germany, or you can fly there in an hour from Frankfurt, which is really nice. Um, started basically just doing sailing trips in the off-season to get the people prepared to do their own trips, and uh it started growing, and then we're doing family trips, company events, and then we started going to Spain, the Baltic Sea, Sweden, England, uh, Seashells in the winter, Caribbean Sea, British Virgin Island, Grenadines, St. Martin, did I forget anything? Yeah, Tahiti, uh Bora Bora, and basically wherever is water, uh, we do our trips.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

And a little bit of the luxury sailing. So you've not you've also got another business which isn't to do with uh Bud Academy, as in the instruction. It's a bit more specialist.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah, we started that like last year, it's called Concierge Escapes. Um, we just want to like the industry changed a little bit just from just sailing to to getting experience. Yeah, in the when we started sailing, it was all about sailing and getting the sails up and doing mileage and doing um just sailing. And now it's more like like vacation. The the people are more buying like an experience now. They want to have fine dining, they want to have uh beautiful swimming area, space, and do some insta photographs and you know, doing you know, like it's more vacational, more family-wise, more um chilled, relaxed, not just racing or education, it's actually enjoying it a bit more.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yeah. So on those, what type of boats do you use like within Wood Academy versus the the concierge escapes?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

It's um like from the classical sailing boats. We started like with the classical um chip and mainsail, and we done all the the tacks and the jabs, how they used to be, and now there's a lot of um self-tacking boats, and there's um well, like more comfort. Like my friend Dubrovko in Croatia always says, he started up um renting out boats with sails, yeah, and more thin boats and fast boats, and now it's more like um refrigerators, having a grill, a television, and automatic vinegar, and you know, like the luxury we've been talking about. We put this to another level to uh get it even on bigger catamarans because this is the the big thing now. We have more space, and the people uh spending like a week or two weeks on it, so they want all the toys on it, stand-up paddle. So want maybe a jet ski or they want a chef on board or a stewardess. So it's um it's still sailing, yeah, but it's more like uh spending time in a bay, and so there's like big catamarans, 50 foot, 60 foot, and then with proper crews, um uh and a chef on board, that kind of thing. Like crew on board, you know, make it more and more comfortable for the people, so they can get to relax a bit more, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where I mean, you're obviously doing this uh a lot more in, as you say, the the places where there's gonna be sunshine, there's gonna be the well here in at the moment for uh those of you who aren't in the UK, England is traditionally known as having an English summer, is like we get about three hours of sunshine on a Tuesday, uh on a Thursday in August, something like that. Um, whereas at the moment in 2026, it going into August, we've had I think it's almost three straight months of really good weather, um, which has been 25 degrees and above. And as Brits, they're not used to it. I grew up in South Africa, I'm absolutely loving it.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Um, but yeah, normally you go, as you say, to like Croatia, to the Seychelles, Med Sea, uh summer or in the winter, you know, follow the sun and try to go uh somewhere where it's lovely and warm when you're back home, have it the cold and the rain, it's a beautiful escape and uh do a vacation there.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

So is there any part of uh the industry that are kind of looking uh in areas or uh your customers looking to go into areas that haven't been visited before? I mean, I know we've previously spoken about maybe the Philippines, which is a growing tourist area, especially in the charter market. Are they looking further afield to Thailand, Vietnam, the Middle East, or the Far East? Um or is that still uh sort of not quite there yet?

SPEAKER_01 7:02

I think it's not quite there yet. But the people, as we said, um in the beginning it was just sailing.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

And so they're done Croatia with us, they're done Croatia with their family, they're done Croatia with their friends. So they want to do something different. So we try to look always for new spots or like events like this one, like uh spice it up a little bit or come back to the original kind of sailing for the people who want to hoist a Spinnaker or do like we do, like some regatta or last year the round the island race to do something special. And then there are the people I want to. I've done all the sailing sailing stuff, I want to switch to a catamaran, or I want to even switch to a motorboat to make it even more faster, comfortable. And then it's um depending on flights and everything, so they're um if if we propose something new, we want to go to the grenadines next year, or we want to do the St. Martin again and maybe the Heineken race, and they go, Oh, that's nice, let's uh do this and add like a shore-based vacation. Is that the right word? Yeah, so like spend a couple days, or on the way there, they can spend like what a couple days in Miami or go somewhere at. So it's more like included in a complete vacation for a couple of weeks. So they do like a week on a boat and then they're changing up to some hotel nice. Oh, we want to do Belisa, that was the one I was looking for.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Oh wow next year. Okay. So within the German market, I mean, there's obviously the the sort of want and will to go travelling a lot more. I mean, is there anything like within the German market that they want to do? So the the adventure of going to the Arctic? Because that seems to be an opening thing as well. People going very high altitude, uh high latitude or low latitude sailing, even. Is that something in Germany?

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Or well, this is like a small uh niche, I would say. Yeah. Uh that people are more interested in in doing like these special things. Yeah, that's what I meant. We have this classical charter vacation. We have the the times like like Jorn, we have on board. He wants to do something with his family and experience more, but then like the the husband or the wife, are they gonna oh can I do a bit more? So we said about going in the in the northern part, like I'm thinking about doing like the the Norway area or something, yeah, or the fjords and that kind of thing. The fjords kind of thing. So they are um yeah, but just a group, or like going up to to Glasgow, the Irish Sea and stuff like this. So um, but there's like a smaller group. So it gets more and more, let's say divided, is that the right word? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back then it was Croatia, and then they've done that, and then they're done Mallorca, and then they do Greece, and so they try to we try to do always uh find some new spots. And the problem is they're not always boats. They're like in the Soland, you know, we have some charter companies here, but it's not like in Croatia where they have thousands of boats where you can rent on and and uh go. And so um it's like like getting more divided in the the quality sailing, is that the right word? Yeah, or luxury sailing and um busy chefs and everything, and then uh still the people want to go in uh sleeping bags and boots on and no rain here.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah, I don't think we're gonna have sleeping bags tonight, it's gonna be a bit roasting. Um, so for this weekend, what are you most looking forward to? Because you've obviously been sailing around the the Sholan recently for what three, four weeks now?

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah, about about that. So we come up here and always um get a group for a couple of days. The good thing is you can do like Monday to Friday, or you can do the weekends Friday to I guess Monday morning or something. So you have like a short trip. Um when we come here, I love uh thanks to you, uh the Solan really much. So we always start in Hamble at the lovely uh with a Port Marina, what's it called?

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Uh uh Port Hamble Marina.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Port Hamble Marina, and then we almost basically the the the good trip to Portsmouth to see the traditional sailing because it's tidal and we have all the the British, the English uh military naval history. This is like right there, you know. Like we drive past HMS uh Prince Charles. Is it Prince Charles?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

No, uh yeah, Prince of Wales Prince of Wales and uh HMS Queen Elizabeth.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

And right next to us is the the victory of Lord Nelson, which is like so when we stand then like I'd always try to get spiced up, so we done a like a world sailing safety sea safety training, so which is necessary for to become a good and safe sailor, and this is like um more concentrated or more important, I would say, and then in the Med C so customers join that as well, and then uh we get a next group coming, and then maybe this week doing the tetinger gatta, and then next week just doing some vacational sailing, and so it's um all not just the sailing, you know, make it better, or maybe a weekend in London at the end, so it's I mean, with with your uh sea safety course that you did.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Uh as we say, it's adding a little bit extra. I mean, you weren't just doing it with yourself and your crew, there was other people on the course, and this week with the course that you did, it was uh Ollie here, who I interviewed just this week. Uh so there's all sorts of levels of different sailing that you can interact with uh over here, and it's quite open, isn't it? In the say in the Solon.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Yeah, it's quite open, and it's uh like uh like the the intense amount of people sailing here in the area. I mean, you know that better than me in Hamble River. How many boats are there? Oh thousands. Thousands. And you you we just passed the what is it, 580 uh boat coming back.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Oh, yeah, one of uh Don McIntyre's uh mini globe race boats. Mini Globe race.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

I mean it's it's just so close. And we we done the in the pool, we met uh Oliver Hare. Good luck for him on the race from New York back to uh for the ocean race uh the ocean race plastic, yeah. So it's uh really easy to meet these nice guys and they're really open. You can talk to them and um learn from them and see how they adjusted it. And Yamas Harbour, um, as we spoke, driving in, they have like three boats out from the harbour master, and they're directing you, really helpful everything. So even if you're not used to tidal uh sailing or uh berthing in the British way, and always helpful, always it's just good fun.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah. When you say the British way, are you on about tying an OXO on a cleat?

SPEAKER_01 13:25

This is a different podcast, maybe. If somebody wants to listen about uh British ways of handling the boat and uh and maybe mainland European is OXO and like the the better way we do in the world.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

We've had so many arguments on how to tie a cleat in different ways. Um, but yeah, OXO is definitely the right way. OXO.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

We will see later on when we finish this, they'll change all the knots and the cleat here. Oddly enough, he was following.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

But yeah, see, as you were saying here at Yarmouth, uh, and like in many of the ports and harbours around uh the the UK, really, all of the marina staff are here, helpful, supportive. Uh and at the moment, one side of us uh we've got, I think I saw an Australian boat, and this side of us we've got a Dutch boat, and there was uh another German boat, and so there's many nations that come sailing around uh the Solent and uh yeah, it's open to all.