written by Roman Koch on March 29 of 2022 and read by 862
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Around 2017 the class last active builder stopped its production, Roman Koch then started to look after a new interested boatyard. A difficult task since the Soling its build under “old-fashioned” style which present problems under the new environmental laws and the obligations of the boatyards to full fill the necessary requirements, like air – filters and so on. Something that for a new building project would be senseless.
Meanwhile at that point UK started their BREXIT, Roman and his wife Christine then had the idea to buy and get the moulds out of the UK before it happens and avoid then a huge amount of problems. Martin Zeileis and Michael Dietzel came into help regarding transportation and storage while the search of a boatyard was in place.
The issue we were facing to get a new boatyard interested in building the Soling was the same issue the Yngling had, the solution appeared by the “OK” by World Sailing exchanging construction materials and a close followup by the technical committee of the class. The Soling class then approached the same method, in which 3 prototypes will be built.
With this in hands Roman was able to get Peter Liebner's interest in the project - www.bootsbau-liebner.de a successful sailor mostly at the Dragon Class, and until 2000 an agent of Borresen Dragons in Germany and after with Petticrows, with his family running a boatyard since 1990. The idea a spare product to be made once upon a time.
Other problems them arose, the mould situation, quite in bad shape, that needs reparation or like a missing mould for the backbone , and even when Mader had the entire set available, they were not keen to rent it, so a new mould has to be made which increased cost and time consuming.. while time is running. Another recent issue was the fiberglass cloth type market availability, something to be changed by WS technicians, etc.
But in finally the project started to move forward…
Now Peter, Michael Lipp, and “Porky” Markus Mehlen (involved in Marc Pikel's Olympic starboat project) gathered past week to hurry on.
A new update of this article will come one soon, hopefully with better pictures. And hopefully the boat does its first sail during the Chiemsee Worlds approaching soon.
Article amended by the ISA
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