More Roelof

what about him?

I promised Carla to write about myself, well who doesn’t like that... ... ... So here we go.

I grew up in a small village in Friesland, a province in the north of The Netherlands. I lived there with my parents and my older brother. Before I discovered life on the water, we wend as a family every summer to the Veluwe, a forest environment in de middle of The Netherlands. The only water I met was an excavation which was turned into a swimming lake.

In our village in Friesland, there was a long straight channel and at 7 years old, I’ve got an inflatable rowing boat. Together with my brother we sailed on that straight channel. We had a lot of fun and we had the feeling we were free. Free to discover the “world”. In these days, I read the books of “de Kameleon”. This series of books was about two twin brothers who had a self-made boat with a car engine in it. These two kids had all kinds of adventures on the lakes of Friesland. That was what I wanted, just like these Hylke and Sietse, sailing on the lakes of Friesland.

When I was 9 my parents bought an 8-meter powerboat. My brother and I slept in the V-berth. Every night my parents needed to create a bed from the dining table. What an excitement it was. We had no experience, but my parents made the best of it. I cannot say that everything went well tough. One day, my dad sailed away from the quay while my mother and I were still on the shore, we had no time to step onboard. As a 9-year-old boy, that is not that great 😊

Pretty soon, we got a small polyester dinghy with this boat. It was a Pioneer dinghy with a 2 Hp engine. Later on, we upgraded this to a 3.5 Hp engine. With this small dinghy I learned for the first time handling a boat with a motor.

After a couple of years, my parents sold the 8-meter boat en bought a 10-meter powerboat. This one had an aft cabin. With this boat, there was another kind of dinghy. This one was not in good shape, it partial leaked, but my brother and I tested this boat by ourselves off course. “When will it go wrong?” Well let’s say that this boat was not designed to handle two boys on the bow while there was a lot of water already in the boat… we created a submarine. 😊

Because this dinghy was not that safe, we changed it for an inflatable dinghy with a 4hp engine. And off course as a teenager a discovered a lot of lakes and channels with “my” boat. My brother didn’t join us anymore on holidays, so every time when we have moored the big boat, I stepped into the dinghy and off I went.

To sail the big boat was quite different then sailing the dinghy. But at one moment, when a was on the boat my own, the boat needed to move to another dock. As a 16-year-old boy I was “forced” to do this, with help of people on the shore. Without any problems I moved the boat by myself and I gained confidence. I can do this! I learned al lot by looking at other boats and people who are trying to Moore. When things go wrong, I learned the most of it. Almost always the problem was the wind en bad communications on ships. I realized, whatever it takes, keep calm, discover the wind, and tell the crew what I expect.

When I was 18, my parents allowed me to have a summer vacation on the boat by myself with my best friend. He had no experience, but I already sailed the boat sometimes instead of my dad. I was convinced we could handle this. It was a great summer. Two young men with a boat trying to impress girls.

One year later, my relationship with Carla was already started. I knew her a long time before. We played in the same orchestra, but after a couple of years we liked each other more than before. In that summer, my parents allowed me to sail the boat with Carla. How cool was that, Sailing together on the Frysian lakes. Because Carla had already experience with boats it was almost a flawless week… almost… Lets say that with hard side wind, sail into a marina dock without a bow thruster, well it can give you a nice keepsake in the paint.

If you want to know more about Carla en me together, read About Us

My life in short: North of Friesland, Percussion, Secondary technical school Leeuwarden, Middle of The Netherlands, Technical College Commercial Computer Science, Software for Body repair shops, Software Developer, Teacher.

2 beautiful daughters, a fantastic beautiful and strong wife, dogs, motorcycling and of course �. Boat life!!!