During the pandemic, not only has the demand for mobile homes skyrocketed.

Despite lockdowns, the desire for mobility has also been reflected on the water.

Sales of pleasure boats and motor yachts increased significantly.

In the Schiersteiner Hafen this was reflected in a record booking for the guest landing stage of the Schierstein water sports club.

However, if you are looking for a permanent berth for your new piece of jewelery in the idyllic marina on the Rhine in a hurry, you need a lot of patience.

The 650 or so berths in the port at river kilometer 506 are fully booked.

This also applies to the 130 places in the water sports club that are reserved for members.

Waiting lists are kept for the port.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis and for Wiesbaden.

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The development of the inland port, built in 1858 and expanded to its present size in 1923, into a Dorado for water sports with a regatta course and a popular local recreation area for the region could not have been foreseen.

However, the 100-year-old Schierstein water sports club played a key role in shaping the development.

Dirty legacy

The master watchmaker August Weiß could not have suspected this when, in the scorching summer of 1921, less than two years after the end of the First World War, he published an appeal to found a water sports association in the harbor.

The response was great and the new association was quickly founded.

His first goal at the time was a swimming lane at the mouth of the harbor.

A year later the first swimming festival took place.

Swimming accompanied the club until 1952, when a bathing ban due to increasing port pollution forced swimmers to use the indoor pool on Mainzer Straße.

The former club president Lothar Weckerling remembers this in the club chronicle: “After the training we had to scrub the grease off the boat every time.” And the fearless swimmers would have got a “black throat” in the “cesspool”.

The move of the swimmers did not deprive the club of the foundation.

Today it offers departments for canoe racing and canoeing, for sailors and motor boaters.

A dragon boat department was added in 1996 and one for the trend sport stand-up paddling in 2016.

And maybe if the water quality continues to improve, there will be a swimming course again.

“Glorious” seventies and eighties

For more than 1,300 WSS members, the 1,400 meter long and around 200 meter wide harbor basin is an ideal, idyllic leisure and sports area. Motor and sailing yachts, on the other hand, are more often drawn to the narrow port exit and under the Dyckerhoff prestressed concrete bridge built in 1967 out onto the Rhine. Even if Europe's most important waterway is always a special challenge for recreational athletes because of the large number of professional boaters. There are also regular sailing regattas in the harbor.