Good thing there's TomTom & Co. The electronic pathfinder is unperturbed by the maze that the road builders in Berlin-Köpenick have constructed with great effort and even more signs, and leads us unperturbed to Wendenschloßstraße 366. "You have reached your destination," announces the voice from the small, black box on the windscreen. Really? We are standing in the car park of a well-known discounter and are desperately looking for the right company sign on the facades of the surrounding buildings.
You can't miss the repair yard for inland waterway vessels, but you can see the plaque with the Klink & Krüger logo hanging in a shop window, three stylised waves and above them a historic steering wheel with the indispensable lever for the ignition adjustment. We are in the inner sanctum of the restorers and learn that so far everyone who has wanted to has found Klink & Krüger and that at the moment they have to take care of the essentials first.
Man, that's the boss duo Carsten Klink and Malte Krüger and their employees David Schmidt and Rolf Overberg. The essentials - historic boats in need of renovation - stand next to and sometimes on top of each other in the hall. It goes without saying that the "fitness centre" for the hard-working classics is not located just anywhere, but on historic grounds. At least for the people at Klink & Krüger. The company headquarters in the premises of the former Engelbrecht shipyard, the first port of call for car enthusiasts such as Ferdinand Porsche and Hans Stuck in the 1930s, was chosen with care. The company wants to restore its boats where they were once built and thus build on the traditions of the pre-war era.
A trip into the past shows that the Autoboot-Primus was literally born out of necessity. Claus Engelbrecht, who died in 1935 at the age of 74, originally built sailing boats and motor yachts in Zeuthen - both of the highest quality - and not only made a name for himself, but also a "small fortune". And not just through the sale of his shipyard.
His bank account was badly battered during the period of inflation, but his reputation as an excellent boat builder was not. Claus Engelbrecht had to give up his retirement, but was quickly able to resume his old successes at his new place of work. Despite the global economic crisis, Engelbrecht had more than 600 employees on his payroll in the mid-1930s, who did exactly what is known today as "custom-built". In other words, they built exactly what the customer wanted, down to the smallest detail.
For Carsten Klink, who turned the historic shipyard site in Köpenick into the headquarters of his inland shipping company Ed-Line, founded in 1997, the advantage of Klink & Krüger's location also lies in the short distances. Klink grew up with boats and is a real technology enthusiast who, even when dressed in a good suit, gives us the impression that he would much rather be working at the workbench or in the engine compartment than sitting in front of a computer in the office.
Carsten Klink inherited his enthusiasm for (almost) everything technical from his father, a renowned engine engineer who moved from the "golden west" to the GDR for love. His son still appreciates the fact that his father "got" him a modern outboard engine from the class enemy at some point and somehow. The successful shipowner, who began his maritime career as a sailor and is now the captain of the largest inland waterway vessels, now employs 77 people and remains completely cool at the sight of the outboard power packs from Japan and the USA that are packed with electronics.
The only things that make him weak are his partner Sabine, his daughter Aniane, his dog Kira, who never takes a step without her master (or is it the other way round?) and historic ships and boats. The 44-year-old captain and entrepreneur's eyes go wide when he hears the word "autoboat". If you want to understand Carsten Klink's enthusiasm, you have to know the figure and character of his "mistress". She is made of steel or wood, slender, between five and ten metres long and, between the world wars, not only highly sought after by Berlin celebrities.
Their (hull) shape varies; there are round-bottomed, rough-water shaft trusses and the "racers" with a V-frame, some of which are motorised with engines from aircraft construction and can therefore reach speeds of up to 50 km/h. If you can afford it, you can have your boat fitted with Maybach engines; the highly coveted engines from Friedrichshafen are at the top of the wish lists of the fast guys and are always under the long foredeck in a real car boat.
They are usually powered by marinised car engines, which are lighter and easier to turn than conventional boat engines and which, together with the dashboards and steering wheels modelled on those of cars, give the boat type its name. The important thing in a car boat is that you can operate and control everything from the driver's seat. You have just learnt to drive a car or had someone teach you to drive a car and want to apply what you have learnt in the boat as well.
There are two reasons why these gentlemen are often chauffeured, as in a car: On the one hand, a chauffeur, who in the past often slept in a hammock in the engine compartment as a night watchman, is part and parcel of high society; on the other hand, operating and maintaining the technology requires expertise and muscle power. Anyone who has ever had to shift a jammed conical gearbox has appreciated a strong hand ever since. It remains to be mentioned that the boat people also use the automotive world when labelling their vehicles and refer to boats with a fixed cabin superstructure as limousines and those with a folding tarpaulin logically as "cabriolets".
Even though Berlin, with its countless lakes and waterways, can certainly be considered the "capital of motorboats", the motorboats, known as "Berlin cigars" in reference to their origin and stature, are not a German invention. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, regular circuit and long-distance races were held in Italy, France and Switzerland, in which boat builders, drivers and renowned engine manufacturers such as Delahaye, Daimler, Napier, de Dion-Bouton and Panhard et Levassor demonstrated their skills.
In the "land of unlimited possibilities", the USA, the main characters at the same time are Chris Craft, Gar Wood and Hacker, who "teach their runabouts to run", sometimes with powerful aircraft engines from Lycoming, Kermath, Scripps and Cummings.
Today, around 80 years later, car boats are real rarities. "Of the 1,000 boats built in Germany, there are perhaps 50 left," estimates Carsten Klink, adding, "but only 30 of these can be restored to their original condition with varying degrees of effort, the rest are not even worth scrap."
You can also find the full report with even more photos in the current April issue of BOOTE which is available at newsagents until 26 April.
