Nor did being landlocked stop the king of Württemberg in the 19th century from founding (and being obsessed) with a yacht club and yachting. So, I guess as long as you can find a port willing to deal, you'll find a way.
Eh, while
Lake Constance (der Bodensee) is no ocean, it is certainly big enough for
yachting, and
Friedrichshafen is a Württemberg town - named after the first King of Württemberg, in fact, who founded it. So for yachting, W is not landlocked at all.
A German colony in this time period is unlikely without major butterflies. There weren't many powerful northern German states that might have sustained a navy. Prussia wasn't developed for another century and didn't have much of a navy until 150 years after that.
That is wrong. First, it is rather irrelevant whether the title of "King in Prussia" existed when it comes to the colonies of Brandenburg. And Brandenburg did have a 500-gun-
navy of ~30 vessels in 1680.
In fact, with colonies on the Gold Coast, Mauretania and in the Virgin Islands, Brandenburg is by far the best candidate.
It would have to be a German state in personal union with another power like Austria-Hungary with a Slovenian port, or Denmark-Norway-Shleswig-Holstein or Sweden-Pomerania or a Britain-Hanover, the non-German portion always being the less relevant.
Maybe the Germans would be given nominal control as a political gesture. Even this is unlikely given that most of these states (especially the Nordic states) were very autocratic.
I guess you mean "the non-German portion always being the more relevant." But it still seems garbled.
You simply cannot contrast Austria with "a German state". In that time frame, Austria was a German state.
Of Denmark-NO-S-H, only Holstein was part of the HRE and should be called "German". With a PoD in 1607, you can have Christian IV a victor of a shorter 30YW, and translating his important role as War Leader of the Lower Saxon Circle into a permanent position. In 1659 the first attempt at a Danish-owned African trading company was based in Glückstadt in Holstein, a town established in 1617. It should be possible to find a reason why this might officially kept as a Holsteinian enterprise.
Any autocratic Danish absolutism began only under Frederik III. in 1660. so it is certainly not a given.
Having Sweden acquire Bremen-Verden in 1648 as in OTL, but managing to acquire the city of Bremen as well, and somehow basing its collonial efforts there would be very interesting.
BTW, absolutism in Sweden was very much the depowering of the nobility and was generally supported by rural freeholders and urban tradesmen, so autocracy is a bit misleading, IMO.
And Britain-Hanover? AFAIK, Hanover was never governed by a British institution. No more than Canada today is governed by UK officials. If the Elector of H would decide to spent his German possession's money to establish a colony, he might do so.
(Maybe the Kolonie Georgien is established in the 1730s as Hanoverian instead of British attempt?)