Sailing is your true
All editorial board members are devoted to water. Not everyone has their own ship, but all of them sail. Because if you write about the sea (or the ‘inland water’), you have to taste fresh water from time to time.
Klaas Jan Hoeve
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Although Klaas Jan has sailed many and far with keel yachts and large multihulls, he made a very different choice a few years ago. After the closure of L.J. Harri in Amsterdam’s Schreierstoren, where he is one of the regular employees, Klaas Jan sold his large seagoing catamaran and switched to a trailerable trimaran and a seaworthy motor yacht. The trimaran has already travelled – by road – to Brittany – and the Baltic Sea. In the meantime, we find the ‘Windfee’ on the Wadden and IJsselmeer. The motor yacht ‘Stina’ is office and pied-a-terre on the now finally accessible Dutch and Flemish inland waterways.
Servaas van Dusseldorp
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Servaas could be found in his youth on the Spaarne and the Mooie Nel in a Piraat and a Flash. Together with his brother, he built a Scow Tempo and became Dutch champion several times with it. From competition sailing on inland waterways, he made the switch to sea in a Kwarttonner and later in an Onetonner. As crew on an Admiralscupper, he sailed the Fastnet race in the Dutch team. In his student days in Wageningen, he became acquainted with a group of friends who were restoring a Wieringeraak. He sailed on the WR167 as skipper with student groups. Ten years later, in 1982, this gave rise to the initiative to purchase the Danish Galjas Marieje. A phone call soon followed to start skippering the Marieje which he does to this day. He proved that he had not lost his touch with competitive sailing by finishing 2nd in the Fyn Rundt in 2022.
Peter Fokkens
Peter learned to sail during a working week at secondary school; barely three years later he was head instructor at a Frisian sailing school, and some time later the proud owner of a Vrijheid and an old cargo klipper, which he restored at long intervals. After years of professional sailing, Peter became a freelance temporary captain on several ships, including the koftjalk Neerlandia.
He also taught manoeuvring courses and guided sailors in exploring new sailing areas, including the Wadden Sea. Now he sails for pleasure, but still with guests, on the Danish galjas Marieje, with which he sails the Baltic Sea or English Channel for several weeks every summer. And every weekend he can be found aboard the Baltic Trader tjalk Zilvermeeuw, moored in the Gouda museum harbour.
Willem Bast (webmaster)
After the ‘big boat licences’ above comes the water sportsman. Descendant of VOC helmsmen and a shipbuilder, but never made a nautical living himself. It started, as a 9-year-old, living on the small river Alblas in a 9-foot dinghy and a (sailing) wherry. Summer 1964 spent at Jonte Ouwersloot’s Sailing Institute Holland in Andel with long trips on the rivers in ‘Zestienkwadraten’ and through the Biesbosch (with real tides back then!). Then came a Flying Junior. Polyester unfortunately, so too heavy to ever win anything. In 1970, dad bought the botter yacht Taling, put on hold in the crisis years by Janus Kok in Huizen as a ‘bringaway’ to keep his people working. Finally finished with a deckhouse as a pleasure yacht during the war. For 24 years, they put all their love and spare time into the little ship and made trips as far away as Danish waters. When dad got too old, Willem wanted something else than sailing and the Taling was sold.
Initially, the little vessel continued to receive a lot of love, but in 2021 the last owner put the chainsaw in it in desperation. When Willem moved to live close to the Kaag in the late 1990s, the itch returned and a Flytour was purchased. Sailing on weekdays after work. And since a couple of years there has been a big floating restoration project, which is exciting to see if it will work out.
Headline photo: Servaas at the helm of the Marieje.
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