Ruth E. (Ninja) Helmling
– learned the craft of journalism at the Kölner Journalistenschule für Politik und Wirtschaft, the Cologne School of Journalism for Politics and Economics. Internships brought her throughout the entire media landscape, from the youth magazine X-MAG via several local newspapers, online-news such as tagesschau.de and the news agency REUTERS to DIE ZEIT, largest weekly newspaper in Germany and awarded one of the 50 best newspapers in the world. She wrote freelance for the several national daily newspapers and for DIE ZEIT. More recently, articles have been published for a younger audience in the KinderZEIT and ZEITLeo and republished in several books. Since 2017 Ruth E. Helmling is a full member of the New Zealand Society of Authors. 2019 she half accidentally also enrolled for a study of Maori Arts at the local Wananga in Turanganui-a-kiwa, Aotearoa which she finished in 2021.
– learned the craft of traditional sailing in 2001 and 2002 on the Ijsselmeer in the Netherlands. After finishing her studies with a Bachelor in Economics and a promising career start in journalism, she swapped pen and paper in 2008 for sails and the sea – and got herself hired on a tall ship with three masts and thirty sails. By now she has sailed more than 60 000 miles across all seven seas, including both the Arctic and the Antarctic. Mostly on square riggers. In 2010/11 and 2012/13 she studied at the Enkhuizen Nautical College and holds a Captain’s licence for Sailing Vessels any size and anywhere. After a painful round of struggles with bankrupting schools she now also can drive any vessel without mast. Since sailing to New Zealand in 2013 she has put down her roots there. Though the sea keeps calling her away on new exciting journeys…