Dear skippers and water sports enthusiasts,

Sad news reached us about the death of Professor Volker Böder who died in Basel following a tragic accident on 1 September.
He was conducting a hydrographical survey on the Rhine when his survey vessel collided with a freighter.

Volker Böder was professor for geodesy and hydrography at the HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU).
He was also a member of the board of the Deutsche Hydrographische Gesellschaft e.V. (German Hydrographic Association) and editor of the internationally renowned journal "Hydrographische Nachrichten" (Hydrographic News).

Volker Böder, whom we had the pleasure of meeting at the INTERGEO 2011 in Nuremberg, was a committed supporter of OpenSeaMap.
He once invited OpenSeaMap to write an article about our project with which he rendered us a great service.

For the next semester he had planned an OpenSeaMap project with his students and we were supposed to meet again at the INTERGEO 2012 in Hanover ...

But now we have lost him and we are grieving with his family.

Markus Bärlocher


Article about the accident
OpenSeaMap Article in the "Hydrographische Nachrichten" (German)
OpenSeaMap Article in the "Hydrographic News" (English)