On May 9th we moved her from winter harbor out to the "inland sea," the Ijselmeer. The usual crew are myself, Steve and Jaroen. Steve is in the yellow hat, Jaroen is at the helm:
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The Ijselmeer (pronounced ICE'-OH-MIR) is full of beautiful old ships. Most were designed for transporting goods in the shallow waters of Amsterdam's harbors & canals. They have no keels or center boards, but use a kind of outrigger board called a "Larboard" (arrow above) to improve rudder response. There's one on each side of the ship, and the one on the lured side is lowered when the ship tacks.
Here's a picture of a windward Larboard raised, and somebody fixing a problem the hard way:
Serious sailors, these Dutch!
The picture above may give you some idea what Dutch water engineering is like. The Green strip is a dike which holds the water in the Ijselmeer, which is a completely man-made sea. That's just the top floor of the house you see in the picture, the rest is behind the dike, and BELOW SEA LEVEL! You can see why anybody who stuck their thumb in the dike to stop the country from flooding would be a hero!
