Wind, ship and automobile
06/27/2013
When people interested in cars hear the word "Passat", they first think of the Volkswagen sedan, or the even more popular station wagon.
In fact, however, the name originally comes from a warm and constant wind that generally occurs in the tropics north and south of the equator.
Where there is wind, there is sailing and so one or two ships are called "Passat", including the four-masted steel barque shown in the picture above, built in 1911 by the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg. The technical data are impressive: 3,180 gross register tons, 115 meters long, 14.4 meters wide, 4,100 square meters of sail area and a draught of 6.7 meters.
The Passat from 1973 could not quite keep up with this, because at 4.19 meters long and 1.6 meters wide, it could tow a maximum of 1,310 kg, including its self-supporting all-steel body, which crouched just under 18 cm above the ground.
Nevertheless, thanks to four-wheel drive and more engine power, later models also managed to transport full-size yachts, as demonstrated by the VW Passat GT Synchro G60 from 1989.
And what does the lady in the picture above have to do with all this? Good question, let's assume that she was hired as a sailor ...
