FIRST DUTCH WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL to be held in Den Helder DEN HELDER
Organizer, boatbuilder, and boat school instructor Bert van Baar will be holding the first-ever Dutch Wooden Boat Festival in summer 2019 together with Jet Sluik, organizer of the Traditional Boat Show. The show will be at Museumharbour Willemsoord in Den Helder, a former navy yard, now a yacht basin and cultural center.
The festival opens on Friday with the annual Helderse Botterrace that is held on the Marsdiep, organized by the Helderse Botters Foundation. The festival also coincides with Jutterharbour Days on Saturday and Sunday, organized by Willemsoord Company, with museums and entrepreneurs in the harbor participating.
Boats will on display in the water, on the quays, in the Medemblikker warehouse, and in and around the former mast warehouse (Building 66). In the harbor, the following boats are confirmed for attendance: HD2 and RD28 from Den Helder, sailing lugger JAMES HAYLETT, three-masted barque EARL OF PEMBROKE, sailing traders TRES HOMBRES and NORDLYS, minesweeper HOOGEEVEEN, the Danish mail boat LEPRECHAUN, a Thames Wherry, a Norwegian Oselvar Fearing, and, in Dock 1, sailing steamship ship BONAIRE. In the Medemblikker warehouse, WINDVINDER, an experimental model for an unmanned sailing ship, will be on display.
The program includes presentations from boatbuilders, including instructors from the Hout & Meubilerings College in Amsterdam, where they started their yacht building programs 25 years ago. Participants from the Amateur Boatbuilding Awards (ABBA) 2019 will also present. There are demonstrations of steam-bending, blacksmithing, sail making. Visiting boats will be offered a free berth in the museum harbor after registration.
Organizer Bert van Baar, who runs the Boat Building School at the Willemsoord complex and is a teacher boatbuilding at the Hout & Meubilerings College in Amsterdam, says, “Because in several other countries Wooden Boat Festivals have been successfully held for years, this was a reason for me to organize something similar in the Netherlands, where wooden boats have been built for 10.000 years!”
Jet Sluik adds, “The Dutch Wooden Boat Festival fits in seamlessly with our desire to maintain traditional shipbuilding. Personally, I am therefore happy to help this event for lovers of beautiful wooden boats. ”
FMI:
Bert van Baar
info@dutchwoodenboatfestival.
Jet Sluik
info@traditioneleschepenbeurs.
