The shadow of the Arnhem Rhine bridges slides over us, we pass the exit to the IJssel, an old fort on the Pannerdensch Canal and sail out of the country at Spijk.
With six hundred tons of shredded waste wood in the open hold, we are on our way to Wittingen, past Hannover. First a stretch of the Rhine, then many canal kilometers. MS Alm is 86 meters long and the pride of Pieter and Adri Romijn-Fernhout. Since 2003 they have been sailing through France, Germany and the Benelux.
Often with grain or rolls of steel. But wood chips are their specialty, also because the Alm fits under the lowest canal bridges in Germany. In Wittingen the chips become furniture board. It finds its way to Ikea’s and Lundia’s and will one day be shredded again.
Clearance and customs clearance at the border has disappeared, with the parlevinkers, sailing shopkeepers. Navigating without AIS, with which ships share their data, and radar is unthinkable. Steering is done with a joystick.
Much also remained the same. Sailing is passed on, for example. The parents and grandparents of Adri (51) and Pieter (61) were also skippers. And everyone still knows each other. “We are a sailing village,” says Adri. They speak river Esperanto: just enough French and German to get along with other skippers, lock keepers and the water police.
And they speak the language of water: the river is called ‘small’ when the water is low, and ‘heavy’ when the summer bed is filled to the maximum. The Alm now sails upstream and back ‘downstream’. “Although that is a Germanism,” says Pieter.
I’m sailing along as a paying passenger; that is possible on a few ships. I sleep in the bow; I also sit next to Pieter and Adri, who take turns at the wheel. We pray before eating. And that we can fit under the bridge.
Adri cooks and does “the outside things”: attaching lines (she may say “strings”), painting, contact with their cooperative and customers, “and the B&B”. Pieter does all the technology; he designed it himself, by the way. For it economical, low-emission system he received a prize from the Alm.
He sends from six in the morning. If Adri takes over, he can sleep. “That’s how most people have arranged it,” she says. “Within our company we are dependent on each other, which makes our position equal.”
Skipper’s couple Pieter and Adri: ‘Sailing is our life, but the weekend is for the children’
The Alm is their livelihood, but making maximum profit is not a goal. “The ship is ours, we are not of the ship,” says Pieter. “I get annoyed when people say: we can’t go to that wedding or birthday, because we are skippers. Yes, there are restrictions, but a lot is possible.”
On Fridays they take their car off board, leave the ship behind and drive home to Hasselt. “We like nothing more than sailing, but the weekend is for the children,” they say. When they were small they sailed along, two of their three children still attend skipper’s boarding school during the week. “You give the most to your children by being there for them as much as possible,” they say.
And on Sunday evening they drive back to their ship. Once the wood chips are unloaded, they will return with road salt.
Will a child ever take over the Alm? “I will never put pressure on them,” says Pieter. “But I do want to give them a chance in a good way.”
