Tag: shipyard de Haas

Travelling back

Royal decorations and flat tires

May 24th 2019

Two men bravely trying to fix a flat tire

The weird thing about traveling and still not having left the country is that somehow ‘normal’ life gets interwoven with your journey and that -if necessary- you can travel back for things like the dentist last week. Today there was another event worth travelling back for. Jos de Haas from Jachtwerf de Haas was going to receive a Royal decoration today, but it’s quite an undertaking to get to the wharf by public transport from the marina in Edam. But our friend Job was so kind to come and collect us, so early in the morning we drove to The Hague together. The conspirators Paul, Henk and Willem who had recommended that Jos should be honored with a Royal decoration, had kept the whole ordeal secret, so Jos was oblivious to the fact that dozens of family members, friends, acquaintances and customers had gathered in the wharf to surprise him. It was heartwarming to see how many people have been touched by his kindness and were here to celebrate this moment with him and many had generously helped to organize the event, provide for food or drinks and music.

When the festivities were coming to an end we thought it was time to go back to Edam. But to our surprise the car had a flat tire. It had felt like we had hit a bump when we entered The Hague earlier, but when we arrived at the wharf it looked perfectly okay. But obviously it wasn’t. 

Modern cars don’t have spare tires anymore, but they come equipped with a sort of foam that you have to inject in the tire. The foam expands inside the tire and should seal the hole, provided it isn’t too big. But the hole in this tire was way too big, more of a tear than a hole. When we pumped in the foam you heard the hissing sound of the air escaping again. The only thing left to do was to call roadside assistance. They had to go to the depot to get a new tire first, but after 2 hours a new tire was mounted and we were finally on our way back to Edam again. 

Goodbyes and paper boats

Shipyard ‘de Haas’, a diamond in the rough.

April 3rd 2019

The launch of our paperboat ‘Binckie’ at shipyard De Haas in 2014

Not much time today for boat chores. Going away for a long time also means saying goodbye to a lot of people. So today is all about saying goodbye.

We went to the ship yard where we built our last paper boat as part of an art project in which we made boats from paper. In the beginning the idea was to make paper boats and make movies in which we try to sail in them, but fail abysmally because our boat would obviously sink. As everyone knows you can’t float in a paper boat. But the third boat wouldn’t sink anymore, so the project evolved from tragic soggy failures to paper boats made with biodegradable glue that were actually sea worthy, but would disintegrate after a few weeks. The first boats we built in our living room, but then we were asked to built one that could serve as a ferry during an art festival, the I’M Binckfestival in The Hague. We couldn’t build this one in our living room anymore, because it had to be a lot bigger and carry more people than just the two of us. That’s how we met Jos and Roel de Haas. They run shipyard ‘de Haas’ and kindly let us build our boat there. Binckie, as our boat was called was 5 meters long, 2,5 meters wide and could carry up to six adults. Thanks to the care and devotion of Jos and Roel, Binckie didn’t survive a few weeks but a few years and all the time he found shelter at the ship yard until he was eventually sold to a event bureau.

The shipyard was founded by Jan de Haas senior in 1921 and almost a century later it is run by Roel de Haas, the fourth generation in line. Roel and Jos (his father and former owner, officially retired but nevertheless still every day at work at the yard) are wonderful people. During our paper boat project we’ve gotten to know them as warm, resourceful and helpful people. And we still come there often, not only for repairs now we have a ‘real’ boat, but also for a chat and a cup of coffee. Today we brought them home made loempias, an Indonesian snack to which Roel’s stepdaughter is particularly partial, as a saying goodbye gesture.

Some of the regulars who have been coming there for decades had been to the Baltic Sea before and provided a lot of last minute advise. That’s what makes this place so special, the comradery of the people that come here. 

The last exchange of email addresses, the last goodbyes and back to Stellendam. Busy day again tomorrow.