Colani, Lutz
Date Born/Est
02 Aug 1928
Biographical Display
LUIGI COLANI, designer
Luigi Colani designed a revolutionary boat for the Federal Republic of Germany's eight in the 1972 Olympic games in Munich. Colani used a one-piece titanium frame incorporating outriggers covered by an opaque composite skin (expoxy, glass and carbon fibre). The boat weighed 65-70 kilograms, about 40 kilos less than the lightest eights then available.
The boat was flawed by manufacturing faults in the slides for the seats. Trials were inconclusive and the Glass casket, as the boat is known, was never used.
In 1995 Colani agreed to renovate the boat and donate it to the River & Rowing Museum. He made the following dedication on the transfer of title form:
'Colani Achter 1972. For my friend Karl Adam, famous coach of German Ruderacademie Ratzeburg, I financed and built this composite rowing machine Titanium tubing space frame with continuous bending of the tubes for the gasflow welding technique, and a very thin skin, are the features. The sensational oars to go with the boat have never been built.'
Luigi Colani designed a revolutionary boat for the Federal Republic of Germany's eight in the 1972 Olympic games in Munich. Colani used a one-piece titanium frame incorporating outriggers covered by an opaque composite skin (expoxy, glass and carbon fibre). The boat weighed 65-70 kilograms, about 40 kilos less than the lightest eights then available.
The boat was flawed by manufacturing faults in the slides for the seats. Trials were inconclusive and the Glass casket, as the boat is known, was never used.
In 1995 Colani agreed to renovate the boat and donate it to the River & Rowing Museum. He made the following dedication on the transfer of title form:
'Colani Achter 1972. For my friend Karl Adam, famous coach of German Ruderacademie Ratzeburg, I financed and built this composite rowing machine Titanium tubing space frame with continuous bending of the tubes for the gasflow welding technique, and a very thin skin, are the features. The sensational oars to go with the boat have never been built.'
Place Of Birth
Berlin/Germany/Europe
