A quick 92 km trip aboard my Drammer 935 yacht: A photologue

I tied up at our marina around 16.30. So 92 km in 8 hours.

BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

With Mrs. D away for the weekend on yet another one of her vintage period costuming events, I decided to take Sirion for a nice, long day trip.

On Friday evening, I decided I would sail into the Merwede, head west towards Dordrecht, go up the “Noord”, upstream (going east) on the river Lek and then finally down the Merwede kanaal back to our Marina. 92km, notice how my iPad is now showing all the AIS traffic too!

I got up at 0600am and was in the Marina by 07.10. By 07.30 AM, Sirion was, once again underway. The Merwede lock at Gorinchem starts operating at 08.00AM, and it takes about 30 minutes to get there.

Initially, I was the only vessel waiting for the lock, which was also taking traffic the other way as well. But then a barge radioed back from the Linge. Barges get priority, and lock masters will wait for the barge.

Not a big deal, I had another coffee while waiting.

The lock master wanted me to enter first in front of the barge. But unless it is a huge lock where I can stay at least 30 meters or so ahead of the barge, I prefer to enter after the barge. So I declined and went in last.

Last year, there were endless problems with this lock and the bridge. It had just worked flawlessly, bringing the other traffic into the Linge. But when we ready to leave the lock, the bridge would not open. The lock master reset the system, she lowered and opened the barrier several times, but no luck. Luckily, I can just lower the radar mast and sail underneath this bridge. But the barge was stuck.

Here we are leaving Gorinchem behind. The famous A27 Motorway Merwedebrug. Always congestion. For the cars, not the boats! This weekend the south direction was closed off as they were replacing the tarmac. They were also doing some maintenance on the underside of the bridge. If you look closely you can see a barge moored to one of the main pillars. And a safety vessel floating by. It's there for safety. I heard it calling several of the barges on the river to slow down near the bridge.

As usual, some interesting vessels are moored at the Damen HQ.

Further down the river some pretty large supply vessel were moored at a repair yard.

Up close of the bow: Notice the opening with the grating in front? The bow thruster is behind it. Those bars are to prevent any large debris being sucked in and damaging the propellor.

Next to it is also this ferry. It seemed vaguely familiar. I noticed it was a Swedish ferry. They all have this distinct colour. There were two of these. No idea why they would bring these ferries all the way down here. Can’t be for regular maintenance. Maybe they have been sold and are getting a refit and re-paint?

A bit further down the river this workboat catamaran is from, Lowestoft, the UK. Going by its name, I would say it is some sort of support boat for the wind farms.

All in all, it was a very calm day on the Merwede. I passed Dordrecht and turned into the Noord and crossed over to the Rietbaan. You will have seen me do this before during earlier trips.

I had spotted this nice-looking tug before. Still a bit of a dream for me, owning my own tug!

There are no awards for floating ugliness, but if there were, this one would be in the top 3. It is some sort of floating facility. These days often used to house asylum seekers and immigrants.

I always like this old, beautifully restored crane. It just sits there, a monument to a very industrious period of shipping in this area.

The next one would have definitely been the runner-up in the maritime ugliness awards. Mega Yachts don’t come more ugly than this!

I am not sure why these superyachts have to look so ugly?

Have a look at its massive bulbous bow!

Another image of a very Dutch thing: The Waterbus. This is a service that runs from Dordrecht to Rotterdam. For pedestrians and cyclists. Takes about an hour. I love going on it with my bicycle.

You would be forgiven if you thought that is some passenger ship behind the dike. But it is in fact a building. In the shape of a passenger ship!

We are back on the Noord here and are about to turn starboard into the river Lek. Always a busy intersection with an endless stream of barges all talking on the radio, agreeing on how they will turn, going starboard, starboard, hold, speed up, slow down etc.

This is also where the town of Kinderdijk is. Have a good look at the map. It is one of Holland's famous tourist attractions. It has 19 windmills, all in working order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinderdijk

Unfortunately, you can not see any of the windmills from the river.

This cruise ship was manoeuvring just around the corner of the intersection. For some reason it seemed to have decided to reverse from the Lek into the Noord. It was a bit confusing and the skipper was a foreigner and I don’t think any of the other barge skipper understood what he was saying or what he intended on doing.

I have sailed the river Lek several times, but always coming down river. This was the first time sailing it the other directions. It somehow looks different.

At Vianen I turned starboard into the Vianen Lock and made my way into the Merwede Kanaal. You will have seen my doing this many times. A lot of bridges need to open for Sirion including this one the railroad bridge at Arkel.

I have had some notorious delays here, partly because the bridge operator (who works remotely) had forgotten I was there waiting!. This time it opened more or less as I arrived.

I tied up at our marina around 16.30. So 92 km in 8 hours. Which is actually pretty good. You won’t find many people doing 92 km in a single day. In this case I was also limited by the operating hours of locks and bridges. The Merwede lock opens at 08.00AM and the bridges in the Merwede kanaal shut down at 1900PM. So you need to plan it carefully. Even so, with locks and bridges you never know. You might get lucky and they more or less open when you arrive. You might have to wait half an hour, an hour. Or they break down and you might find yourself completely stuck.

That’s why you should never be in a rush to get back home when on a boat. It makes for a much more relaxed day.

Today I am doing some more boaty things. I will be heading over to Schiedam, where our two boys live. The Dutch Navy has an open day on two of its mine sweepers and we are taking Ben, our grandson, to see and experience it all.

I am taking my Jaguar, afterwards I will point the leaper south and head for Paris. I have a hotel booked near Le Bourget airport. The next couple of days I will be at the Paris Air Show! So expect my next thread to be aviation-related!

Jeroen

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