The Zuiderzee Museum

Shortly after 1400 on Monday the 17th of September we arrived in Hoorn and secured to an end-berth in GrasHaven. We organized onboard and then walked up the floats past ten fingers of mostly occupied slips. The marina is a fully modern and very well maintained facility of 710 slips, and in the havenkantoor we checked-in and paid €49 for two nights including electricity, water and wifi. We asked for directions to a museum that would give us some background on the discovery of Cape Horn.

We continued ashore and followed the directions into the centre of town, where we found the Westfries Museum. Actually, it appeared to be leaning out to greet us as we approached; one certainly gets a different slant on architecture around here. We used our passes to gain admission to the museum and searched in vain for any mention of the connection to Cape Horn. The displays are mostly inward looking depictions of life in the town, with very little on the far-reaching exploits of its former citizens, whose activities included the discovery of Cape Horn and the running of the East India Company.

On Tuesday morning we walked to the train station and bought return tickets for €4.40 each for the twenty-one minute trip to Enkhuizen. From the Enkhuizen station we walked past the fortified tower, the Drommedaris, which was built in 1540 and then we continued through the old town to the canal and along it to the Zuiderzeemuseum, which is housed in a string of seventeenth century buildings that were once East India Company warehouses.

Our museum passes gave us entry and soon we were in the schepenhal and examining the collection of wooden boats packed like sardines into the fifteen metre high room. Although in the photos they look like models, they are beautifully preserved, full-sized vessels.

Viewing is from floor-level, beneath the boats, from a deck-level balcony and from a balcony at mid-mast height. The collection consists of both workboats and yachts. There is a Fresian bol, two tjotters, fishing boats, including a Marken smack and one similar to the kwaks we saw in Volendam. There is a small tjalk, which appears to be a predecessor of the skûtsje.

From the indoor exhibits, we headed out, across the street and along the dike to the entrance of the outdoor museum. This begins with a recreation of a fishing harbour, modelled on the one in Marken. In the harbour is a wonderful collection of boats dating back nearly a century and a half.

I had promised Edi that among the things that would be included in our skûtsje's renovated galley is a dishwasher. I showed her one hanging on the quarter gunwale of a tjalk in the harbour, but she said that she wanted one a tad more modern.

One of the things we were looking for among the exhibits is Hoop op Zegen, the skûtsje built in 1904 by Wildschut in Gaastmeer. Along with our Nieuwe Zorg, it is one of the fourteen known survivors of the twenty skûtsjes built by Wildschut. It was not in the schepenhall and the ladies at the desk knew nothing about it. It wasn't in the fishing harbour, nor did anyone there know where it might be.

A man at the net-mending hut told us of a small tjalk on one of the canals in the recreated town. The town is divided into several districts, each a reconstruction using original spacial planning and layout from various towns and villages around the Zuiderzee. Hindeloopen is the model for the church district, the polder slope is modelled after Urk, a former island in the Zuiderzee. The town canal in the museum village is on one side modelled on Noord Holland styles, while the other side depicts the Friesland style. The Noord Holland side is an urban depiction with a row of merchants' shops; apotheek, slager, bakker, kaaswinkel and so on. The Fries side is a more rural depiction with houses set back from canalside gardens. In front of one of the houses sits a small skûtsje. 

We immediately saw similarities to our Nieuwe Zorg that told us this vessel had been built by Wildschut.

The more we looked, the more convinced we were.

On the Noord Holland side of the canal, directly across from the skûtsje sits an elegant house. We went in and asked the museum hostess about the boat. We told her we were searching for a skûtsje built by Wildschut in Gaastmeer in 1904. We added that the internet had informed us that it is on display in the museum and that we were at the end of our line, having not found it in the ship hall nor in the fishing harbour. She told us no, the boat out there is an old fishing boat from the Zuiderzee and that it spent a long time there and then came here. We shrugged and wandered around in the elegant rooms looking at the architecture and fine furnishings. Then Edi overheard the hostess speaking in Dutch to the next people in the door, ridiculing us by saying that we were looking for a boat that doesn't exist that we had found on the internet. Edi decided it was not yet time to inform the woman that she speaks Dutch.

We finished viewing the displays in the house and went back out to the canal. There, almost directly in front of the house we spotted a small placard on a stake. Clearly printed on the panel is Wildschut, Gaastmeer 1904. While only 35 centimetres narrower than Nieuwe Zorg, Hoop op Zegen is nearly seven metres shorter, and is the smallest of the twenty skûtsjes built by Wildschut. Edi decided it was time to inform the tall skinny hostess in the house of her fluency in Dutch.

Besides the skûtsje, we also spotted other sailing clogs. These were on a bench where we paused to buy a couple of smoked kippers. The fish were very oily and they continued to repeat for a long time after we had finished eating them. We decided that they were otherwise not a repeat.  

Among the fascinating things about the Zuiderzeemuseum is that craftsman, artisans and other interesting and display-related people participate in the museum. Cheese is available for purchase in the cheese shop, smoked eel and herring are available at the smoking demonstration, handmade brushes and brooms are for sale by the maker in his old-fashioned shop, the sailmaker can be commissioned to handmake a new sail or mend an old one and his working becomes part of the museum exhibit.

It was late afternoon by the time we had finished our tour around the museum park. We walked back into the centre of town and paused at Vishandel van der Veen and sat on their canalside patio enjoying delicious broodje scholfilet en koffie. The sole was so good that on the way out we bought two fresh filets for dinner the next day.

The train took us easily back to Hoorn and we paused at a book shop on our walk through town to buy a new ANWB Wateratlas for Friesland. While Henk and Madij had handed over Nieuwe Zorg with a complete chart kit for the Netherlands, Belgium and most of northern France, many of the charts date back one or two decades. We plan to spend some time exploring the waterways of Friesland, so an up-to-date chart is essential, and we saw that a compact chart book would be easier to handle than the traditional large folding charts.

Back onboard Nieuwe Zorg in GrasHaven, we reflected on our day. We had been totally enthralled by the Zuiderzeemuseum and we easily declare it among the very finest museum experiences either of us have ever had.

North From Amsterdam

We waited until nearly 1030 on Saturday the 15th of September for the boats on the slip across from us to leave. We then had room to swing Nieuwe Zorg's bow across to port the eight or so metres to the corner of the pier, from where it could be squeezed by hand past the corner. My calculations had been correct; she was about ten centimetres shorter than the space available, and with her bows past the corner, we were be able to motor forward out of the marina rather than having to back out.

We had thoroughly enjoyed our four day stay at SixHaven. With the free ferry to downtown Amsterdam a less than five minute walk away, it is a very convenient place from which to enjoy the city. Shortly after 1030 we slipped and headed out into the Noordzee Kanaal and almost immediately left it and entered the Noordhollandsch Kanaal and the Willemssluizen. In the lock we were joined by a cruiser named Stormvogel. The skipper pointed to his 't Eiland burgee from Aalsmeer, and said "that's Henks old boat".

We locked through and slowly made our way past an amazing assortment of liveaboard vessels in a decreasing level of quality and care the further from the city centre we went. The vessels gradually decreased in frequency, and then ended with a few derelicts. We were out in the open country, with the cattle and sheep, the farmhouses and the windmills.

At 1145 we entered the Monnickendam-Edam Kanaal and at noon were motoring along the narrow canal past a near-solid line of dike houses in Broek in Waterland. Each of the houses has a foot ferry to cross from the road on the one side to the otherwise-isolated house on the other. At 1220 we arrived at the first bridge than needed to be lifted for us, and we moored to a bollard and a pounded stake on the left bank while we waited for the bridgekeeper to arrive. The keeper arrived and let us through the bridge, and then through a second one a bit further along.

In Monnickendam, we stopped in the approaches to the lock to await the lock keeper's return from lunch, and then shortly after 1400 we began locking through. Two other boats came through with us, both of them turning right and heading through Monnickendam to the Markermeer, while we turned left up the Stinkevuil of Purmer Ee for a kilometre or so until turning right up the Purmer ringvaart and bypassing the two low bridges on the Trekvaart Het Schouw. A bit less than an hour later we turned off the ringvaart and into the Oorgat through Edam. At 1520 we secured starboard side to on the right bank in a residential area of Edam, just short of the start of a series of six low bridges that we needed lifted.

Among the bridges we needed lifted is the Kwakelbrug, for which Edi's great-grandfather was once the toll keeper. We walked the short distance through Edam to the bridge, and saw in the shipyard next to it a kwak hauled-out on the ways and having her wooden bottom repaired.

The shipyard in directly behind the house in which Edi's great-grandfather and grandfather had once lived. Edi paused at the front door and thought back a century and a half.

Next to the house is a gate that leads to the boatyard, and on the gate is a sign signifying that Scheepswerf Groot has been in business since 1768 in the side and back of the house. We later learned that it traces some of its roots to the golden era of shipbuilding in Edam in the seventeenth century.

We continued along to the Edam Museum, which is housed in a house built in 1550. Our museum pass gave us entry and the loan of small audio guide players, which are triggered by proximity switches to explain the various displays.

We wound our way back to Nieuwe Zorg and in the evening I prepared pork tenderloin with a crimini, shallot and garlic sauce, boiled baby potatoes and steamed broccoli, garnished with sliced tomatoes with shredded fresh basil.

On Sunday we explored the back lanes and small streets of Edam and relaxed onboard. On Monday we walked along the dikes to Volendam and among other things, enjoyed a fried sole sandwich from a waterfront fish shop.

We had spoken with the bridgekeeper on Saturday and learned the routine for passing through Edam. The descending schedule is 0930, 1130, 1400, 1600 and 1800, so on Monday morning at 1130 we set off. The first lift is a pair of wide, heavy traffic bridges, which leads to a short pound of about 25 metres length, where we needed to stop and wait for the keeper to close the two bridges behind us and restore traffic flow. Then the keeper pedalled down through a tunnel under the main roadway and began working on the third bridge while Edi held our bows to a pilon and I held the stern to another.

Once clear of the third bridge, we motored and drifted very slowly toward the Kwakelbrug, while the keeper pedalled along the canal bank to prepare the bridge for us.

The scene was idyllic as we slowly passed through the narrow wooden footbridge that Edi's great-grandfather once tended.

Looking back to the Kwakelbrug, we saw how close Edi's great-grandfather's house and the Kwakelbrug are to the boatyard, Scheepswerf Groot. She then recalled that her great-grandmother's maiden name was Groot. Bells rang! Some further investigation is certainly warranted.

As we slowly drifted down canal, the keeper pedalled ahead and began preparing the fifth bridge for us, closing gates to stop traffic, unlocking the mechanisms and activating the electric winch.

The canal is narrow, and passes through marvellous scenery, including the patio of the Hotel Fortuna, where we had sat on Sunday afternoon enjoying coffee and appeltaart. The sixth bridge is opened by hand, and as we passed under it, the bridgekeeper told us we could duck under the next bridge, the last one before the lock which would lead us out into the Markermeer.

As we approached the lock, the lights turned red and green, indicating that it was being prepared for us. We easily locked-through, and at 1221 we entered the Markermeer and turned northward. On the lake with us was a great variety boats, mostly sailing craft. Among the sailing craft were many old vessels, and as we motored north at 6 knots, we were slowly overtaken by a tjalk under sail.

The wind was blowing offshore about 12 to 15 knots and it was a wonderful beam reach for all of the boats sailing north and south along the coast. Without rig; however, Nieuwe Zorg had to contend with motoring with a steep chop slapping at her port beam.

At 1400 we were in the entrance to the harbour in Hoorn, deciding which place to try first for moorage.  As we neared, Grashaven appeared the natural choice, so we entered and quickly found a guest dock with a small cabin and an intercom to the office. We were given a berth across the end of a finger and we moved to it and secured. We were in Hoorn, the place after which Cape Horn had been named, so in a way it was closing the loop on our rounding of the Cape in February.

Heading North from Aalsmeer

By our third day aboard Nieuwe Zorg we had become familiar with the skûtsje's systems and had settled in. I hauled out the ANWB charts and began looking at possible routes northward to Harlingen. The first leg was easy; turn right and follow Ringvaart van de Haarlemmermeerpolder to Rieker plas, through it to Nieuwe Meer and along it to Nieuwemeersluis, through the lock and into Schinkel of Kostverloren vaart, which is followed northward to the Noordzee Kanaal.

I also looked at the route on the Navionics app on my iPad. It confirmed that the lowest bridge along the route was 2.44 metres, so with our air draft of 1.95 metres, we would not have to wait for any bridges to open for us. I looked at jachthavens close to downtown Amsterdam, and seeing that SixHaven, directly across the IJ from Central Station was the most convenient, I phoned the number listed on the iPad app and made a reservation for three days from mid-afternoon on Tuesday the 11th.

On Monday morning, while Edi was boiling water for coffee, the propane tank ran dry. The spare tank was also empty. This was our signal to call Henk to take him up on his offer to drive me and the empty tanks to a refilling station. He arrived within five minutes of my call, and we loaded the two 35-litre tanks into his car and drove to the local Shell station and up to the AutoGas pumps. The safe 80% fill meant 28 litres in each tank, and at €0.809 per litre, the total came to €45.30. How incredibly simple and convenient compared to the convoluted arrangements we had to put-up with during our circuit of the Americas.

It was drizzling on Tuesday morning when I called Henk; he had asked to be there when we cast off and headed out. Henk arrived and suggested to me that I put on some rain gear, otherwise I'd be drenched by the time we got to Amsterdam; the erected canopy is too high to pass under some of bridges. He dug down into a locker and pulled out a suit that he had left onboard for me.

At 1224 we slipped and headed out as Henk watched his cherished skûtsje motor slowly away. For just over thirty-seven years, more than half his life, he had poured his heart and soul into Nieuwe Zorg, and now she was leaving. We all felt lumps in our throats and wet cheeks.

At 1337 we arrived at Nieuwemeersluis and sat alongside some pilings awaiting the cycling of the lock. At 1349 we entered and temporarily secured, waiting for the two small craft ahead of us to move further in so that we could squeeze forward and leave room behind us for a large commercial barge.

Pauline Anette moved in behind us and secured, then we all rode up about half a meter as the lock filled. Of the many hundreds of locks I have transited in Europe, this first one with Nieuwe Zorg was by far the lowest level change of all.

After we were through the lock, we allowed the commercial traffic to overtake us as we motored slowly along the canal enjoying the passing scene. The parade of boats ahead of us all needed the bridges to be opened for them, but at only 1.95 metres of height, Nieuwe Zorg can slip under all the closed bridges on this canal.

Once the last boat ahead of us passed through each of the bridge cuts, the bridgekeepers all lowered the bridges ahead of our arrival, knowing it wasn't necessary to hold-up road and pedestrian traffic for us. We ducked under eleven bridges as we slowly motored through Amsterdam, admiring the wonderful variety of architecture along the canal sides.

At 1513 we left the canal, enter the IJ and turned eastward through the heavy commercial traffic across the north waterfront of Amsterdam. We located the entrance to SixHaven and threaded our way in through a gap not quite a metre wider than Nieuwe Zorg and then all the way along the narrow alley past jutting bows and sterns to the back of the marina to lie alongside the end wall, directly under the havenkantoor. 

There were boats secured alongside all four of the T-docks, narrowing the passage to under four metres. Fortunately, Nieuwe Zorg handled it superbly, squeezing by with less than thirty centimetres to spare. I am delighted with manoeuvrability and her responsiveness.

On our first trip since taking possession, we had come 19.1 kilometres. We checked-in and paid €87 for three nights, including electricity, water and wifi.

We asked the Havenmeester for directions to the local supermarket and then walked the kilometre or so to it. Disappointingly, it is in an immigrant neighbourhood, and the selection is not what we were looking for. We were; however, able to find sufficient to make do until we find a store stocked more appropriately to our tastes. On Wednesday we walked the few hundred metres from the marina to the free ferry, which crosses the IJ to Central Station. From there we took the Metro southward to Ikea to finish our laying-in of basic equipment and supplies. Unlike in Canada, Ikea here is easily accessible by public transit.

On Thursday we celebrated my sixty-eighth birthday with a visit to the Van Gogh Museum. We took the ferry across the IJ and walked a crooked route about five kilometres through central Amsterdam, enjoying the varying scene. At the museum, instead of the €14 per person entry fee, we opted to each buy €49.90 passes good for one year for entry to over four hundred museums throughout the Netherlands.

On our way back, we took a different route to see more of the city and along the way we paused near the flower market for coffee and appeltaart in a street cafe. We also did some shopping to strike-off the last few items from our list, and arrived back onboard at the end of the afternoon, refreshed from our ten kilometre walk.

The weather forecast for Friday called for rain with winds above 30 kph. We decided to see if we could stay another day. The Havenmeester readily extended our stay and we settled in aboard, nicely warm and dry as the rains began. By early afternoon on Friday, the hour-by-hour online forecast was predicting sunny periods with a slight chance of rain, so at 1300 we walked to the ferry and rode across to downtown. Through Google, we had located an Albert Hein supermarket just across the Martelaarsgracht from Central Station. We found it a rather narrow, but block-deep supermarket fitted into a patchwork of several old buildings. Because of the confined space, the selection is a bit limited, but what is there is nicely skewed to the upscale end and toward the quality we want. We stocked-up for a few days and were ready to continue northward on Saturday morning.

Settling-in and Making Plans

In late July, after we had contracted the purchase of Nieuwe Zorg, we had encouraged Henk and Madij to take her out cruising during the five weeks until the completion date. They had spent three weeks cruising with their extended family, during which time Henk must have spent many hours maintaining and fine-tuning the skûtsje; she was in even better condition than when we had left her after the survey.

On the 5th of September, after we had all signed the formal deed of transfer, Edi and I took possession of Nieuwe Zorg. We then spent a delightful couple of hours with Henk learning the idiosyncrasies of the vessel's systems and listening to stories from their thirty-seven years of restoring, upgrading, maintaining and enjoying this wonderful historic skûtsje. 

After Henk left, Edi and I lay down for a nap to try to catch-up from having been up and travelling for over twenty-four hours; we also needed to start adjusting to the eight hour timezone change. We were expecting Lex and Klaas from Scheepsreparatie Friesland to arrive onboard sometime in the early evening to discuss preliminary ideas for Nieuwe Zorg's refit and for her restoration to sailing.

Lex and Klaas arrived shortly before 1800, waking me from my slumber on the saloon couch as they arrived. We showed them through the skûtsje and threw ideas around with them for the better part of two hours. They took measurements, made notes, did calculations and we all scratched our heads and pondered the possibilities. They left with a good idea of what we wanted and a better understanding of how to achieve it than they had gleaned from the emailed list of items we had sent them a couple of weeks previously.

A little before 2000 we rushed off following directions on my iPad's TomTom to the closest Albert Hein for some groceries and cooking utensils. It was a smaller version of the huge Dutch supermarket chain, and they had no cooking utensils. From the store's information counter we were given the address of a much larger Albert Hein store in Amstelveen, which we punched into TomTom and allowed the program's mellow voice to lead us there. Their cooking equipment supply was limited, so I punched in Ikea's address in South Amsterdam and TomTom took us there with 45 minutes of shopping time left before the 2100 closing.

From Vancouver, we had brought sheets, pillow cases, duvet cover and towels, plus cutlery, stemware and our favourite coffee cups and saucers, so we needed everything else. As we hastened around the circuit, we loaded into our cart an assortment of pots and pans, cooking utensils, plates, bowls, pillows, a duvet and whatever else we could think of before the closing announcements began. We were back in the car with our load of goodies shortly before 2115 and following TomTom back to the larger Albert Hein. With a bit more than half an hour until closing, we set a more relaxing pace selecting sufficient groceries and supplies to settle us into living aboard until, after some much-needed rest, we could conduct a more organized laying-in of basic goods.

During the following days we alternately measured and remeasured spaces aboard, rested, went on shopping trips and drew preliminary layout plans for Nieuwe Zorg's interior makeover. As much as we love the craftsmanship and design of Nieuwe Zorg's interior, it is dated. It is a third of a century old, as are her systems and her construction technologies. Our intention is to totally strip-out her interior down to bare steel and start over. The makeover includes making the stateroom the full width of the hull, rather than two-thirds the width. Also, we want to move the shower to the centreline to take advantage of the higher headroom there. Because of the low curved roof, using sliding doors instead of hinged ones will make access to the stateroom and heads much easier.

The current galley has extremely limited countertop space, the counter being mostly taken-up by the gas cooktop and the sink. We want to add an island to increase the countertop workspace and we are thinking of granite countertops. Under them we want a convection/microwave oven, a dishwasher and a fridge/freezer. Because of the easy and frequent availability of fresh produce along the inland waterways of Europe, we won't need the two fridges and two freezers we had in Sequitur; a single under-counter combo unit will be sufficient.

To make more convenient use of limited space in the galley, we are planning on using sliding doors in the cupboards on either side of the dishwasher. This will prevent door interference and will give quick and easy stowage access when unloading the machine.

For breakfast on our third morning aboard, Edi prepared some pain perdu au jambon. We had settled-in quickly, and we began organizing for a slow trip northward to Harlingen, Friesland for Nieuwe Zorg's facelift. At 104 years of age, the old girl is past due for her hundred-year makeover.

Taking Possession

We had returned to Vancouver on 28 July from our shopping trip to the Netherlands, where we had found and contracted to purchase a 1908 skûtsje. Except for our impatience to return to the Netherlands, we enjoyed a wonderful August in Vancouver; it was mostly clear and warm with only one short rainy period. To ease our impatience, we hosted four dinner parties for family and for sailing friends, and we went on a weekend boating rendezvous to Keats Island with the Vancouver Power and Sail Squadron.

Bram and Amy brought our granddaughter, Annelies over several evenings so that she could play in our rooftop sandbox. At twenty-two months she is beginning to talk. She shows a very quick grasp of concepts and easily modifies and extrapolates activity and discoveries into new directions, so she is delightful to play with.

In early August, my nephew Andrew and his wife Sarah added another member to the family. I received a wonderful photo of my new grand nephew Emery, my nephew Andrew, my brother Peter and my father Gerald. Four generations of Walsh boys from a few weeks to 98 years old.

Toward the end of August, we wired the balance of our skûtsje’s purchase price to the yacht broker’s trust account in Enkhuizen, and at the same time, we wired the insurance premium to the agent. With all the purchase details taken care of, we began organizing our return to the boat in Aalsmeer, Netherlands. Although Aalsmeer is at the end of the runways of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, Air Canada does not fly there. They do; however, fly to Brussels, only 205 kilometres from Aalsmeer. All the flights to Brussels were overbooked at the end of August; however, on the Tuesday after Labour Day there were flights with many open seats, so short notice booking on our choice of them was easy. There is something about Tuesday and Belgium. Edi booked flights to Brussels via Montreal for the 5th of September and I reserved a car to get us from the airport to Aalsmeer and to use during the first few days for shopping after we arrive.

 When I was reserving the car, I clicked the GPS option and was shocked to see that even with my Hertz #1 Club Gold, which still triggers Air Canada Elite discounts from a former life, the GPS charge from Brussels for the four days came to just over €70, including taxes. I decided to look at options. When we were in the Netherlands in July, everyone referred to TomTom when talking of driving or walking directions. Online in the Apple App Store I found TomTom with maps for all of Western Europe for my iPad for $89.99, about €72.50.

While I was in the online App Store, I decided to look at Navionics charts for Europe to see if there is coverage of the inland waterways. We had been delighted with the quality of the Navionics charts for iPad and they became a very important adjunct to our chart-plotter aboard Sequitur as we navigated from La Punta Peru southward along the Chilean coast, through the archipelagos of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, around Cape Horn and up the eastern coasts of the Americas. Many times the iPad was our primary source of navigational information. I found the Navionics Europe HD application for $64.99, and some quick investigation showed me that the lakes, rivers and canals are all charted. I downloaded a copy to my iPad.

We each packed a piece of checked luggage at 22.5 kilos and balanced our four carryon pieces at exactly 10 kilos each. The total of 85 kilos is much less than the 224 kilos we lugged back from St Augustine when we had left Sequitur two months previously. However, our current trip is planned for only five weeks, sufficient time to take possession, move aboard and become familiar with the skûtsje as we slowly take her from Aalsmeer, North Holland to Harlingen, Friesland for her facelift.

On Tuesday morning we wheeled our luggage the two blocks to the SkyTrain station and rode to the airport. Because of a late arrival of the inbound plane, our flight was delayed leaving Vancouver, and we had run to make the connection in Montreal. Of course, our Vancouver flight arrived at one end of the terminal and the Brussels flight departed from the other end. Fortunately, Trudeau Airport is rather compact, so the run was not so bad.

Customs and Immigration in Brussels were a snap, our luggage had made the tight connection and our car was waiting for us at the Hertz gold counter. The TomTom worked well on my iPad, and shortly before noon, we arrived at the marina in Aalsmeer. Henk was aboard Nieuwe Zorg ready for our noon appointment. During the past few weeks he had completed the work arising from the survey, which included mounting the leeboards. They look wonderful.

We did a walkthrough and a systems familiarization, and then we signed the transfer papers, formally taking possession. With the skûtsje came a sheaf of papers, including the bill of sale from 1975, when Henk had purchased Nieuwe Zorg. The price he paid was 15,500 Dutch guilders, about $5950 Canadian at the time.

Henk also gave us a Polaroid photo showing the state of the skûtsje when he bought it. It had been unattractively converted into a woonboot, the Dutch term for houseboat, and it was by that time rather dilapidated. As crude as the conversion was, it had at least saved the skûtsje from being cutup for scrap.

Also among the papers was a meetbrief, or ship registration document dated 29 October 1978. It shows an entry from the registration journals of Sneek with details of the first measurement done on 20 March 1908 of a skûtsje named De Nieuwe Zorg built by R. Wildschut in Gaastmeer for A. Vaandriks of Koudum. A second measurement is detailed from the Groningen journals on 25 June 1942, with the name shortened to Nieuwe Zorg and her owner listed as D.A. Visser of Staveren. The 1978 document shows H. van der Zon of Hoofhorp as the owner. We are missing the history of our skûtsje for the years between 1942 when she was remeasured for Douwe Albert Visser and 1975 when she was purchased by Henk van der Zon from T. Olderhage of Lisse. This will hopefully soon change; we have recently been contacted by the great-granddaughter of Douwe Albert Visser, and she will be seeking details from her father.

Also included in the documents given to us by Henk is a Polaroid photo of Nieuwe Zorg taken in 1983 after he had removed the dilapidated houseboat structure, added a graceful jachtenroef and restored her sailing rig. Henk and his wife Madij continued to upgrade and refine their prized skûtsje for over a third of a century. Their attention to detail, their care and their pride were all so obvious from the moment we first saw Nieuwe Zorg. She took possession of us, and now we had reciprocated.