by Lothar Birk

Dear Prof. Nowacki,
Happy Birthday! Carola and I wish you health, happiness and all the best for the next decade!

Like many of my fellow students I started my studies of naval architecture with the desire to become a designer of boats and yachts. Little did I know that there were other passions waiting to be found by me in Berlin: my wife Carola, hydrodynamics, computers, and teaching …

by Stefan Harries

1987. The city was divided. The world, too. West and East. I studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt, then still called Technische Hochschule. This was West Germany and I was blessed to be free to choose where to go …

by Justus Heimann

After all these years I’m still thankful that I had the chance to be temporally part of your universe.

The hitherto uncharted working field – computer aided naval architecture and engineering – you’ve established, probably, as the first of its kind and surely unique in the way you’ve embodied it, definitely changed the paradigms of our research field but also of our industry …

by Wolfgang Jonas

Ships and the sea have always been my passion. And, actually I wanted to be a captain, preferably on an icebreaker. At the age of 16, as a student on a trip as a deckhand on a cruise ship (1969), I became so terribly seasick that I decided to stay on land and study shipbuilding instead …

by Panagiotis Kaklis

This was the question with which my PhD supervisor Prof. Ted Loukakis greeted me at the event he was organising at his house in honor of his eminent guest Prof. Horst Nowacki. During that smooth evening of 1987 in Psyhiko (Athens), I could not imagine that the answer to Ted’s blunt question would be eventually in the affirmative …

by Hyuncheol Kim

After serving in the military in 1991, I studied in the ship design laboratory of Professor Soo-Young Kim of the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at Pusan National University. It was there that I first studied how to model ships on a computer. And reading Professor Nowacki’s many papers, I thought that I would like to study under him …

by Apostolos Papanikolaou

I came to Berlin to study naval architecture back in July 1967, close after my 18th birthday and my graduation from the German High-School in Athens (Deutsch Schule Athen). It is a long story to tell about the way I managed to enroll at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB) for studies in naval architecture without knowing at that time even one person in Berlin …

by Uwe Rabien

It was around 1973 that I met Prof. Nowacki for the first time when he “re-appeared” at the Technical University Berlin. I was an assistant there. The word was out that he was contemplating to leave the University of Michigan to join the department of naval architecture at TU Berlin. I asked him downright if I had a chance to work for him …

by Chris Rorres

I’m an applied mathematician with a lifelong interest in Archimedes—his finished works, the numerous fields of engineering, science, and mathematics he created, and his continuing influence on our modern world. However, I knew little about modern naval architecture and Archimedes’ influence on it until I connected with Horst more than 20 years ago …

by Michael Schmiechen

Lieber Horst, the invitation of Stefan Harries, to contribute to the special edition of  ‘Schiffstechnik’ in honour of your ninetieth birthday, came as a surprise. Time flies; I felt that your eightieth birthday was yesterday! …

by Kim Soo-Young, Andreas Kraus and Corine Standerski – for Nelson

Dear Professor Nowacki,
The three of us – Soo-Young Kim, Andreas Kraus and Nelson Bianco Standerski – came from Korea, Germany and Brazil. All of us had studied Naval Architecture, but with different backgrounds. We shared an office in the rooms of your Ship Design Section on the Severin site from 1984 to 1987 …

by Geir Westgaard

I wanted to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to you, my P.h.D. supervisor, for giving me the opportunity to come to Berlin and work with you. From the moment I arrived, you have been nothing but supportive and open-minded, always giving me the freedom to investigate and explore new ideas …

by Klaus und Gisela Wietasch

Dear Horst, Your goal was always to have a goal, now you have reached one again: 90 years! Da capo! …

by Prof. Utz von Wagner, Prof. Kai Nagel and Prof. Andrés Cura Hochbaum 

The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Transport Systems with its Institute for Land and Sea Transport Systems and the Chair for Dynamics of Maritime Systems of Technische Universität Berlin is proud to count Prof. Horst Nowacki among its emeriti …