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Rollo Gebhard: 40 years of adventures on the seven seas.

Rollo Gebhard, was born in Salzburg (Austria), the son of a private scholar and he spent his childhood in Upper Bavaria, the Netherlands and Switzerland. He attended the Humanistic Gymnasium in Dresden and passed the final examination at the age of seventeen. Water always held a tremendous fascination for the young Rollo, who mostly grew up inland, away from the sea. He built all kinds of model boats and spent his holidays with his mother on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. The outbreak of the Second World War and the subsequent call-up to the photographic section of the Luftwaffe put an end to his dreams of a boat of his own and voyages on the high seas. After the war he settled in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and spent time hiking in the surrounding mountains. He worked as a photographer in the trade he had learnt in the army and later became an actor. Apart from his activities at the theatre, he owned and managed a music and gramophone record shop. In 1956 he bought a sailing dinghy, the first ³Solveig². With this boat, which was only18 foot long, he crossed the Mediterranean and sailed a year later solo through the Suez Canal, the Read Sea and into the Arabian Sea. An attack by pirates off the coast of Arabia forced the lone sailor to abandon his journey. But Rollo Gebhard did not give up: with the ³Solveig II², an 18_ foot plywood boat he crossed the Atlantic in 1963 and received a rapturous welcome in New York. The major newspapers devoted pages to his exploits and he was invited to take part in television shows. After his return from the USA, he started making preparations for a world circumnavigation and started on this huge voyage in the new ³Solveig III², a 24 foot cruiser. In this little boat he accomplished two single handed circumnavigations covering a distance of more than 60 000 miles. Together with his life partner Angelika Zilcher he started a third circumnavigation in 1983, which took up altogether 8 years. The sportive high point of this third world circumnavigation was a six month long non-stop voyage across three oceans from Australia to Germany. The pair travelled 2300 miles without entering port or requiring any other form of assistance. Rollo Gebhard spent more than 40 years at sea with only short periods on land, covering a total distance of some 150,000 nautical miles. More and more, his voyages took on the character of expeditions. He was awarded the German ³Federal Cross of Merit² (Bundesverdienstkreutz) and has received the highest sailing awards. In 1991 the animal loving sailor founded the ³Gesellschaft zur Rettung der Delphine² (Society for Dolphin Conservation, Germany ) with the aim of outlawing the use of driftnets for fishing worldwide. With his new motor cruiser he started exploring the European seas as well as the rivers and canals between the rivers Maas and Oder. With this boat he visited the European cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki and St. Petersburg. A daring journey in 1998/99 took him down the river Danube into the Black Sea and from there to the Crimean Peninsula, the Caucasus and along the Turkish north coast to Istanbul. Thus his boat became the first western yacht to accomplish a circumnavigation of the Black Sea, discovering the most beautiful ports and beaches of south-eastern Europe. For his most recent undertaking, the ³Expedition Volga 2001², his motor cruiser had to be transformed into a Russian boat, because up to the present foreign vessels are not allowed to enter Russian inland waterways. Together with his wife and a Russian friend he spent 3 months travelling across Russia on a route, which no foreign yacht has dared to sail before. He completed his Russia-Europe circumnavigation in October 2003 in Papenburg on the river Ems, having covered a distance of 10,000 miles. With his numerous television documentaries as well as more than 2000 lectures in Germany, Austria and Switzerland Rollo Gebhard has become familiar to a public consisting of millions of people.

 

A life without adventure is inconceivable for ANGELIKA GEBHARD

 

Thus it was certainly no accident, that she met the twice world circumnavigator Rollo Gebhard at a lecture appearance in Tegernsee, in Upper Bavaria. Angelika Zilcher will never forget that evening. Rollo Gebhard was able then, as he is now, to captivate a public of millions of people with his fascinating film lectures and television documentaries. After completing her studies as a teacher, Angelika Zilcher became Rollo¹s assistant, organising and accompanying him on his tours, before setting off with him on their first joint world circumnavigation. When they tied up six years later in Emden, the two had sailed more than 50,000 miles together and had accomplished a unique sportive achievement: they had travelled non-stop from Australia to Germany in six months without entering a single port. Shortly after their return, they founded the ³Gesellschaft zur Rettung der Delphine² (Society for Saving the Dolphins) with the aim of achieving a worldwide ban on fishing with driftnets. Angelika Gebhard has published a number of press articles and written four books: ³Mit Rollo um die Welt² (published by Ullstein), “Wellen, Wind und Abenteuer³ (published by Klasing), “Mit Rollo auf Abenteuerkurs³ (published by Klasing), “Zauber der Wolga³ (published by Klasing). Since 1993 she has been involved in the making of films, documenting the joint adventure journeys. ³Gewässer ohne Grenzen² (Delius Klasing) and ³Freiheit auf dem Wasser² (Delius Klasing). She also helped to capture the travels in Russia with the film camera: ³Kurs Abenteur² three 45 minute programs on the Bayrische Fernsehen (Bavarian Television), ³Zauber der Wolga² five 45 minute programs on Bayrisches Fernsehen and ³Unterfalscher Flage² two 45 minute programs on Bayrisches Fernsehen.

 

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the rollo gebhard team