About usInclusion through sailing
Our vision: At the TURNING POINT Foundation, we aim to enable everyone – particularly children and young people with physical or intellectual disabilities, as well as those affected by social or societal disadvantage – to take part in sailing. This provides them with a long-term platform that supports them in reaching life-changing turning points. Our aim is their full inclusion in society and the creation of opportunities for activity, passion and fair play.
Why inclusion through sailing?
Sailing is like everyday life: you have to overcome challenges involving yourself, other people, nature and technology. The shared joy and sense of achievement lead to a feeling of self-efficacy, increased self-confidence and a greater awareness of one’s own strengths. With this newfound courage, friendships are formed and challenges at school or in working life are better overcome. Regular sailing together marks turning points in many people’s lives – this is confirmed by our experience and the scientific research we’ve carried out.
Our goalsWe want
- to promote inclusion in our society through sailing.
- to enable as many people with disabilities and those from disadvantaged backgrounds as possible – particularly children and young people – to experience a personal turning point towards greater courage and self-confidence through sailing activities.
- to support sailing clubs and charitable organisations in implementing inclusion through sailing in a sustainable manner,
- thereby improving participation in our society in the long term.
How do we achieve this?
With our WENDEANGEBOTEN, we want to empower clubs to live inclusion in the long term - both athletically and socially. To this end, we bring together local clubs, charitable institutions, sailing schools and people with disadvantages. We make the best possible use of existing infrastructure and support existing initiatives. Our team's many years of experience in the fields of sailing, inclusion and non-profit organisations as well as our broad network enable us to provide needs-based support - throughout Germany, locally.
Helping people to help themselves - together we are strong!
Results & Successes
Thanks to our ever-growing collaboration with sailing clubs, sailing schools, charitable organisations, the academic world, politics, the media, the business sector and committed individuals, we have been able to enable numerous people to participate in sailing on their own terms since 2022.
The transfer of knowledge in both theory and practice – the WENDEAKADEMIE – enables coaches to establish and support inclusive sailing programmes within their sailing clubs on a sustainable basis. Through our partnerships and networking initiatives, we have already been able to foster numerous synergies. This is creating a network of committed individuals and organisations across Germany dedicated to inclusion in sailing.
Thanks to the scientific research supporting our sailing activities, we can demonstrate that sailing builds courage and self-confidence in young people. Long-term inclusion in the sailing club has already provided a turning point in the lives of many young people.
Our History
The foundation’s founder, Heinz Peter (Pit) Schmidt, has been sailing himself since childhood. As owner and organiser, he sponsored a successful youth team in 2016 at the Fast40+ race, an offshore regatta in the Solent on the south coast of England. During the event, he witnessed how the young sailors bonded as a crew, overcame challenging situations together, formed lifelong friendships and gained self-confidence, determination and courage for their future careers. Drawing on this experience, he began to consider how to make sailing accessible to young people with physical and intellectual disabilities.
In 2021, Pit met the internationally successful sailor Jens Kroker. Together with their partners, Sabine Kroker-Hohmann and Erika Ziegler, they drew up their first plans to promote inclusion through sailing. Shortly afterwards, they founded the non-profit TURNING POINT Foundation, based in Heidelberg. They were soon joined by experienced Paralympic coaches Bernd Zirkelbach and Christian Bittner. Since then, the team has grown to its current size of 20 people, who use their diverse expertise to drive the work of TPS forward. The team includes sailing coaches active in both recreational and competitive sailing, as well as staff from the fields of psychology and education.
