Background

Hamburg merchants with contacts abroad and Britons living in Hamburg introduced the gentlemanly sports of rowing and sailing for pleasure in the Free and Hanseatic City from around 1840. The new watersports were very British in their origins. On Lake Alster and the River Elbe, they very rapidly became Hanseatic. By the beginning of the 1860s gentlemen of both nations had also sailed within the confines of Hamburg on the Alster lake, long the realm of oarsmen, and were soon discovering the Upper and Lower Elbe river as convenient home waters as well.

A small, determined group of friends contested the sailing regattas of the Germania Rowing Club (there were six "boats" in 1863) and in 1866 attempted to found a "Germania Sailing Club for the encouragement of sailing on the Alster, Elbe and Baltic". To become internationally eligible for entry and to be able to offer satisfactory credentials and among other things to qualify to participate in the sailing event on the River Seine at the 1867 Paris World Exhibition, the club was renamed into "Norddeutscher-Segel-Club" (North-German sailing club - NSC) in the same year.

The NRV is established

Just one year later, the committee of the new NSC decided to protest strongly, yet in elegant Hanseatic style, following the failure that year of the "Allgemeine Alster-Club", frozen in tradition, as a regatta organizer: Members from three rowing clubs (initially with only a few sailing-boats) spontaneously founded the NORDDEUTSCHER REGATTA VEREIN at the Uhlenhorster Fährhaus on November 8th 1868.

While this "VEREIN" was to be a club, it was intentionally not called that because one of its objectives was to take over the organisation of regattas for other clubs. The inclusion of "NORDDEUTSCHER" in the name was highly political at the time and almost involved a claim to be nationalistic. In 1866 Chancellor Bismarck had launched the North German Confederation as a provisional "smaller Germany" solution headed by Prussia. In Northern Germany a mood of breaking away towards new horizons prevailed.

The first Annual General Meeting for the 75 members followed at the "Patriotisches Gebäude" on January 21st 1869: statutes and committee rules were agreed, and in March the first board was elected at a second meeting.

Having been founded as a registered association before the German Empire came into being the NRV has been subject to the supervision of the Hamburg Government Secretariat (Senatskanzlei) ever since 1868 and remains so today. The club thus is not included in the official "Vereinsregister" (club register). For many generations and up until the recent past, one of the two mayors of Hamburg stood at the top of the NRV as its Honorary President.

Right from the outset certain family names have played an inportant part in the history of the NRV. These have retained their influence and reputation to this day, with children and grandchildren who often enough have become members themselves.

The founders

Aries, Berens, Bickel, Bieber, Bluhm, Dencker, Droege, Ebeling, Gossler, Hammerich, Hauswedell, Hellmrich, Justus, Kirsten, Langsdorff, Lehmann, Mogg, Molinari, Popert, Reis, Schröder, Schultz, Schuster, Tietgens, Vagd, Vasmer, Wentzel, Westendarp 

The first NRV Committee

Gossler, Hauswedell, Langsdorff, Reis, Wentzel

The first regular committee (after two-stage voting)
Gossler, Hauswedell, Justus, Langsdorff, MacDonald, Münchmeyer, Parrau, Reis, Wentzel

The first board

President: Carl Hermann Wentzel
First Vice-President: J. R. MacDonald
Second Vice-President: C. P. Parrau
Secretary: Dr. Oscar Gossler
Treasurer: F. H. Langsdorff

Insignia

In 1875 the board decided to introduce a club flag based on the ideas of C. Hermann Wentzel, its president. This features a black double-headed eagle on a red field, replaced from 1885 by a single-headed Imperial eagle looking to the right over a black-white St. Andrew's cross on a red field. A black-white-red breastplate leans on an anchor shaft of which the eye and stock are just visible above the eagle. Until 1945 there were two oars crossed behind the breastplate, signifying the club's strong, but by then long expired, rowing tradition.

Commodore

For decades important and prominent personalities have held office as Honorary President of the NRV, bearing the title "Kommodore", not infrequently seconded by a "Vize-Kommodore". This honorary office is held in high regard, the holder of this position by no means seldom having the last word in matters of tradition, representation and innovation.

The Hanseatic Element

Especially in the early years and time and again later on, members of the NRV were drawn from renowned Hamburg families, mostly with a commercial background. They had, and nowadays still have, close contacts abroad. In their sailing activities, they keep abreast of progress without committing mistakes, intensively cultivating the sport and its social side while avoiding all exaggeration. Quite soon, word of their activities had already penetrated as far as the Imperial Court in Berlin. Even in that feudal milieu, the Hanseatic manner and solid republican pride could cut a good figure when required. The NRV gala dress, indeed, was deemed acceptably chic in naval circles during the Wilhelmine era. In 1895 the "Brockhaus conversational dictionary" made it clear just what the new fashionable sport of sailing represanted of: A "Hobby (Liebhaberei) for people of substance". In the NRV even then, nobody would have disputed that.

Club within the club: Alster pirates and Alster water-rats 
For some exciting news (in German) click on www.alsterpiraten.eu

Club within the club: Hamburgischer Verein Seefahrt
For more details, click on www.hvs-hamburg.de