Alex F. Pfotenhauer

1923 - 2018

Alexander was born on Sept. 28, 1923 in Dittersbach, Germany,(then Silesia), the son of Sascha von Decker Pfotenhauer and Francis Pfotenhauer. He was fortunate to be born with dual German-US citizenship since both his father and maternal grandmother were born in Hawaii, each the child of subsequent German consuls to Hawaii. Alex was educated in Dresden and married to Edith Seidel in 1945. Alex was a talented photographer and yachtsman. An avid photographer throughout his life, Alex captured the beauty of boats and the sea, home and family, and in particular his wife Edith, the love of his life. In WWII he was drafted into the German navy despite bold professions of allegiance to the US, an admission that branded him as an outsider and resulted in the worst assignments aboard a series of minesweepers, all of which he escaped with his life, when one after another they were torpedoed in the North Atlantic. At the end of WWII Alex and Edith spent a harrowing honeymoon escaping through forests ahead of the advancing Russians. Edith had already survived the horrifying bombing of Dresden. Having lost everything, they sought refuge in beautiful Prien am Chiemsee in Bavaria. On an island in the middle of Chiemsee, King Ludwig of Bavaria had built a replica of Versailles. Here Alex set up a large Lindhof camera on a tripod and photographed war weary tourists. In 1949 Alex followed a dream. He moved his family from Bavaria to Miami, Florida, a place he imagined as a tropical paradise in the land of freedom and individualism. Alex initially worked as a photographer at The Shelbourne Hotel in Miami Beach, while taking guests out in his little sailboat on the side. This led to his first job as a captain. In 1951 the owner of the Shelborne Hotel, Sam Friedland, who also owned Food Fair stores, hired him to captain his small Chris Craft. This was the start of a career in yachting, In 1955 Alex sailed with Captain Mike Anderson on the classic sailing yacht, Ticonderoga, on a transatlantic race from Havana, Cuba to San Sebastian, Spain. From 1956 to 1963 he captained the sailing yacht Symfoni, a 60-foot ketch built in 1937 in Stockholm for the King of Sweden. The yacht logged over 65,000 miles during the seven years Alex was captain, including trips to the Mediterranean. Between 1964 and 1970 Alex ran the sailing yacht Wanderer, and the 130 foot converted Canadian Coast Guard vessel, Asmeda Hope, taking both vessels to the Mediterranean during the summer, followed by a command on the 103 foot Feadship yacht, Prosit. Malcolm Forbes hired Alex in 1971 to run the Forbes corporate yacht. From 1971 to 1988 Alex commanded a series of Forbes' yachts, all named "Highlander", which were used for corporate entertaining and advertising trips for the magazine, hosting onboard corporate chief executives, dignitaries, political leaders, entertainers and heads of State. It was an interesting job to say the least. In 1989 Alex was coaxed out of retirement to supervise the build of a private yacht in Holland for the media billionare, John Kluge, building a 204 foot Feadship motoryacht. In 1991 Alex retired, living in Fort Lauderdale in the winters, and Camden, Maine in the summers. Alex passed peacefully on March 29, 2018 at 94 years of age, and is survived by his daughter Sylvia Seret, and his son, Ingo; Grandsons, Winston Pfotenhauer, Isaiah, Ajna, & Sharif Seret; and great-grandchildren, Winnie Pfotenhauer, and Asa, Indi, Kiran and Sophia Seret.