Uwe Rottgering - FANFAN!

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Unlike most other competitors I will not only rely on an electric autopilot. My yacht is fitted out with an Aries windvane. I was told that it was one of the last devices which was build by her inventor Nick Franklin in the 1990s. During my circumnavigation I had my Aries and three Autohelm/Raymarine drive units on board. The only thing which broke on my Aries was a plywood vane which was washed away by a breaker south of Australia .

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My yacht FANFAN! is based on the Baltic sea close to the polish border (54.07 N, 13.45 E). The climate there is already quite continental, which means, that winter can become harsh sometimes. My marina was completely frozen and it took until March until the ice was gone. I spent FANFAN! a visit in the middle of March. She stood high and dry on land and from her cockpit one can overlook the great landscape of Western Pomerania . In sight is the former power plant of the WWII rocket testing site Peneemünde, where the infamous V2 Rocket was developed and tested.

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“Uwe Röttgering, born in 1968, started sailing when he was a child. After crossing the atlantic for the first time under sail in his early twenties, trips to Iceland , Scandinavia and jobs as a charter skipper in the Western Mediterranean followed.