Kurt Reinke served his apprenticeship with the well-known yacht yard Abeking & Rasmussen and was later the technical manager.

In 1970 he was appointed into the design office of Britton Chance Jr./ USA and while there was responsible for towing tank tests for the development of optimal lines of 12M America's Cup yachts.

At this time, in 1971, he founded the company Reinke-Yachtbau, designing boats for home and professional builders.

From smaller yachts around 7 to 9m like plywood hard chine boats, wooden round-framed boats and steel yachts his designs developed in 30 years up to a size of 20m length, mainly in aluminum.