After 237 years, the curtain fell for Meppel’s oldest company. The last ship slid on Friday from the Helling at Scheepswerf Wout Liezen, formerly Scheepswerf Worst. The yard must make way for city expansion.
Wout Liezen is sorry that more than two centuries of shipyard history and craftsmanship are lost and will never return to Meppel. For himself, his wife Annie and regular size Roelof, the closure is, despite the long preparation, to take a swallow.
“We have a lot of customers who like to come here, but there is no successor. And you can’t stop the progress either.” With this, Liezen refers to the urban development in the area that is now called Noordpoort: living, sports and recreation on the water. Liezen made agreements with the municipality years ago to stop. “All other large companies in the area such as Murris’s slaughterhouse (later Vion) and Hiab have already disappeared,” Liezen points to the bare plain behind the yard.
The office of Liezen is wallpapered with photos of ships that have been built or rebuilt. Not only under the flag of Liezen (since 1999) but also from far before his time, when it was sausage and later sausage and Duthmer. There is even an etching of the place where sausage once started with the yard. “At the center, at the Bloemendal/Mallegat in 1788, they built wooden ships, later from Staal. From father to son the company passed.”
Not only the company passed from father to son. At Lies, people whose father and grandfather also worked for sausage. Liezen can tell about it with love. Such as about banker Albert Pruntel who worked for 55 years at De Werf.
“If the ship our harbor inner feed, Albert could already hear what had to be repaired on the engine or the screw. Professional pur sang.” His photo is still stuck on the planning board. The planning board that was well filled so far with ship names and their dimensions, but is completely empty from today.
Not only the ships that built sausage in just under two centuries got bigger and bigger over the years, but Meppel also grew. The municipality wanted to build the new -build district ‘t Meugien and Worst in 1947 moved the yard to the current location in 1947. History repeats itself, but now no move but closure. Liezen: “Such a yard will never come back.”
Worst, later together with partner Duthmer, started building even larger steel ships. At some point even sea -going vessels, coasters. They were so big that they barely fit through the bridges. The engines were only built into Zwartsluis, otherwise the ships could not sail Meppel via the Meppelerdiep Meppel.
Story continues after the YouTube video