Captain Age Dekker and sailor Jan Haan will take center stage at the sailors’ commemoration in West Terschelling on Saturday afternoon. Every year Terschellings who remained at sea are commemorated, whenever that was.
Dekker and Haan, along with five others, died off the Danish coast in 1920 when their sloop capsized in the surf. They had hit a mine on the steamship Nicolaas, which was on its way from Gothenburg to Amsterdam with matches and steel. Another lifeboat with ten people on board, including two Terschellingers, made it safely through the surf.
As far as we know, no Terschellingers drowned at sea last year. A year ago, the commemoration was dedicated to the collision between the fast boat Tiger and the water taxi Stormloper. Four people died in that accident off the Wadden coast of Terschelling.