Klaus Oldendorff

Klaus Oldendorff finished seventh in the Dragon class at the 1968 Acapulco sailing competitions skippering the West German yacht. In his formative years, he followed in the footsteps of his father Egon Oldendorff and worked as a leader in their traditional Lübeck shipping company, which had been founded in 1921.

Ten years later, in 1964, he founded his own shipping company, the Hamburger “Nord”. In the mid-1980s, the avid sailor removed his fleet to Cyprus for tax purposes and moved his home and principal business to Limassol to remain “in-house mastermind”. There he founded the Cyprus Shipowners’ Association, known for its stringent safety regulations, became its president and, with 37 ships, became one of the most powerful men in Cyprus. Oldendorff died in 2003 as the result of a heart attack during a skiing holiday in Switzerland.