Born in Ceres in 1986, Erhardt started life in the hands of his grandfather, a legendary doctor in the Ceres district. At the age of only 18 months, Erhardt’s relationship with sailing and water sports would start when he moved onto a Lello 34 with his father. Here they lived for longer than a year. From this point onwards, Erhardt would always be found close to the water. During secondary school he represented the South African U/18 canoeing team for three consecutive years, winning the African Championships in all 4 disciplines. In his last year U/18, Erhardt would achieve a 9th place at the world marathon championships in Bergen, Norway.
At the age of 20 years, Erhardt would start a diving business that would eventually pay for his last years of study at Stellenbosch, where he graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, BEng (mech). During his final year Erhardt would propose his own final year project. This project, involved the use of PIV (particle image velocimetry), wind tunnel tests and CFD analysis to model the hydrodynamic effects of the hull-keel join of sailing vessels. Erhardt has also written a piece of code to solve the Savitski Method (and many texts that is additional to Savitski’s 1964 publication). This code has been verified with comparative model tests in a towing tank.
In 2020, Erhardt started Avanti Engineering (PTY) LTD for the first time with the goal of removing as many manufacturing challenges for the yacht and small craft industry in South Africa as possible. With the ability to solve almost any problem, Erhardt is committed to growing Avanti Engineering’s capabilities until there are no more challenges to be found…