Urk to Elburg

27 September 2015

This morning dawned bright and sunny with, again, a near total absence of wind.   We had a stroll around the town taking a few snaps.

Early morning sun on the breakwater at Urk

Looking North towards Lemmer and Friesland

The famous lighthouse in Urk

When the Ijsselmeer was the Zuiderzee, Urk was an island and therefore this lighthouse was of great navigational importance.   We think that is is great that it has not been decommissioned and still shines out every night.   One flash every 5 seconds with a range of 18 miles - nautical miles, that is (33km).

Back on the boat for a coffee and just before noon we cast off our lines for our trip to Elburg.   

Departure from Urk

As we were not in a rush we kept the revs to just above idle (850rpm) which gave us a sedate 3.2 knots.   It also meant that we could barely hear the engine.   At 1245 we went under the Ketelbrug which carries the A6 motorway.

Looking back at the Ketelbrug

Locked through the Roggebotsluis at 1515 and, having upped the revs a bit, arrived at the town quay in Elburg at 1700, five hours and 18 miles after we left Urk.  We stayed three nights on the town quay for €17 per night with coin-operated electricity at 50c per 'unit'.

Alongside at Elburg, halfway through the first beer.

Same place

Pirramimma catching the last of the evening sun

Flat calm

Next morning was a bit different:

Misty morning

… but it soon warmed up to another flat calm and sunny day with a great sunset again:

Late evening, Elburg

/Rich

Lemmer to Urk

After our three nights in Sneek we had planned to spend one night in Sloten before returning to our homeport of Lemmer.   The forecast wasn't brilliant, but we were going anyway and would see how things panned out.   It was grey and overcast and once we had cleared the shelter of the town, we had the pleasure of a good 20 knots on the nose with rain.   Nonetheless, we carried on with our plan and approached one of the nature moorings just South of Sloten. This was a repeat of the fun we had at Adam Island and again had to heave the boat upwind on the warps until she was secure on the pontoon.  Half and hour of effort, but we got there eventually.   Lunch was leftover hot chicken pasta and was excellent - just what we needed on a day like today.  

Two hours later it was still blowing and WindFinder was predicting 30 knots.   The pontoon, in our opinion, was a bit rickety and the silly little rings to which we were attached were already beginning to pull out of the semi-rotten timbers so at 1620 we made the decision to clear off back to Lemmer.   By 1730 the breeze had eased somewhat but squally showers remained.   On the approach to Lemmer we could see a thick black line squall so reduced the revs to 1000 to allow that mess to blow through and as we arrived at our berth only light rain remained but better still, barely a breath of wind.   We calmed ourselves down  (and warmed ourselves up) with a Hibiki for the Nav and a Whiskey Mac for the Skip.   

For our trip out of Lemmer we couldn't have asked for better weather - a blue sky and almost no breeze; maybe pushing F2 on the Beaufort scale.

Lemmer, with a display of ex-lifeboats including an old RNLI vessel.

There were a lot of vessels clearing out of the town and onto the Ijsselmeer, no doubt to take advantage of the beautiful late summer weather, so it took us about 40 minutes to get through the bridges and lock out of Frisian waters.

Locking out (up!) of Lemmer in to the Ijsselmeer

Looking back towards the town

Locking out of Friesland is a rise of less than a metre; not much, but holding back an awful lot of water...

It was great to be out on open water once more.

The open waters of the Ijsselmeer

We increased the revs to 2000 to give the engine a good blast and a boat speed of 7 knots.

Steaming along

Two hours later we were in the outer harbour in Urk and moored up by 1415.

Moored in Urk

These are really good solid high quality moorings with built-in electricity and water.

We took a stroll around and onto the beach in the late summer sun.

We ate out tonight at 't Achterhuis - 60 metres from our mooring and a 1.3km walk through the town.   The place was packed.  From our table we had the interesting sight of a fleet of UFOs coming into land:

UFOs over Urk

… and were treated to a magnificent sunset:

/Rich

The Friesland Shipping Museum, Sneek

22 September 2015

We had heard good reports about the Maritime Museum in Sneek so were looking forward to our visit.  The place is amazing.  Covering an area of 3 or 400 square metres, over three floors and also incorporating the former High School, the museum is very well presented with vast amounts of information about the watery history of Friesland and its intimate relationship with the sea and inland waterways.

One area which caught my eye was the model room - or rather series of rooms.   The first display case contained models of over 50 sailing dinghies, some local to the area and others internationally known, like the Laser for example and - of course - the Flying Dutchman

Flying Dutchman.   Photo from Wikipedia

Here is an overview of the display case:

I thought that the quality of these models was superb, especially considering their scale. A little further on there were larger scale models.   These had an overall height of maybe about a metre.

Zestienkwadraat (16m2) 1931 - and still raced today with fleets of 50 or more

1934 'Pampus' class

General view of the larger model dinghies

And then we arrived at a model of the Royal Yacht, De Groene Draeck (The Green Dragon, I think, although dragon is draak in Dutch).  I don't think I have ever seen a model boat of this quality.   With an appropriate camera, I don't think you could tell the difference between this and the real thing.  She is a Lemsteraak and the original yacht was built in 1957 as a gift from the State to Beatrix on her 18th birthday - hence the sail number VA18.

De Groene Drank 

The yacht herself is actually in the private ownership of HRH Princess Beatrix although there is currently some argument in the Netherlands about who should pay for her  annual maintenance which is usually well into six figures and 'over budget' which itself was recently doubled to €95,000  a year.  The expenses of boat maintenance …   

The sharp end of De Groene Draeck

A little further along there is even a display case about the model makers' art, which I thought was a wonderful idea.   It really brings home how much incredibly skilled workmanship goes into building model boats.

Some of the tools to build your model boat

The exquisite workmanship is not just reserved for classic model dinghies and the Royal Yacht; here is a selection of coasters, working vessels and a 'rondvaart' (sightseeing) passenger ferry:

One of the best museums we have been to.

/Rich

Adam Island, Sneekermeer

18 - 21 September 2015

After a month back in the UK, we returned to Pirramimma in Lemmer mid September.   The first few days were a mixture of sunshine and heavy showers which gave me the opportunity to fit new SpeedSeal covers on the impeller housings of both engines and, in passing, check the generator impeller that I had replaced the previous month.   Bit of a surprise here…

This impeller has had 22.5 hours use and has been installed in the engine for 63 days!   So out it came and in went my last spare.

I posted this photo on Facebook and my good friend Diederick thought that it could have been damaged from too much water pressure caused by bits from the previously destroyed impellers still being in the heat exchanger (causing a partial blockage) and that it might be possible to use a powerful wet & dry vacuum cleaner to suck the bits backwards out of the pipework.   I couldn't look into this issue until we were back in Elburg at the end of September, but Diederick was right:

I was happy to have that little issue solved…

Anyway, at about 11.00 on 18th September and having brimmed our water tank, we slipped our mooring at Lemmer and headed for a little island in the NE part of the Sneekermeer where we had met some friends earlier in the season. 

With the engine fully warmed up, we upped the revs to a nice sedate 1400rpm which gave us 5 knots with the gentle (6 knot) breeze behind us - just enough to push the diesel fumes ahead.   

As we approached the Sneekermeer the wind was steadily increasing; more than forecast in fact.   By the time we had arrived at our mooring we estimated that it was a steady 20 knots, probably 25 in the stronger bits, from the SW.   Decided to take a mooring on the NE side of the little island to gain some shelter and avoid mashing the fenders against the pontoon.   This meant a faster than normal approach and an attempt to lasso the bollards before the wind blew us off again.   We actually managed this without too much of a problem … except that we were dangling from our mooring lines about a metre off the pontoon.   On a sailing boat this is not an issue as you can just run the lines to a winch and wind the boat upwind to the pontoon.   Different matter on a 20+ ton motor boat.

After some minutes of sweat (felt like a couple of hours) we were happy with our mooring efforts so turned the engine off and relaxed.   We had the little island to ourselves.

The island is called 'Adam'.   There is a newly built island 15 or so metres away (shown in the photo below with another cruiser alongside) and is called - you guessed - Eve.

On the chart this place appears to be called 'Sâltpoel' so maybe 'Adam & Eve' are local names.   Apparently the previous 'Eve' was blown away, or sunk in a storm, or something, hence the newly built island.   I don't know if anything from Adam was used in the construction.

The next day (Saturday) the wind continued to blow and the Meer filled up with vessels of all types.  There were at least three separate dinghy races happening, a couple of the large Skûtsjes out training as well as the usual motor and sailing cruisers, and a couple of these:

Each to his own.

Friends from Papillon, Paul and Sheila, had arrived on Sunday afternoon for drinks and dinner and we had a great time catching up with their news.

Monday morning it was still cold and windy, but this time the wind was in our favour as it just blew us off the pontoon as we cast off the lines.   We drifted gently downwind as we brought the fenders and warps inboard and then circled back towards Papillion to wave goodbye.   

A five mile trip into the middle of Sneek where we arrived at lunchtime.   Moored right in the town centre for three nights at a cost of €19.50 per night all in (WiFi, electricity, water if required and tourist tax) which we thought a very reasonable price.   One of the benefits of being in the middle of this town was complete shelter from the wind; a very welcome change.

/Rich