Zeeland trip

[AntarcticPilot]

Ik heb geen achteruit. That’s quite correct and congrats you still remember that after all those years. I hope you haven’t needed to use the phrase more recently.

Despite having a reliable engine and gearbox, there have been a few occasions when I might have used it! I have a folding propeller and just occasionally it fails to open in reverse. The answer is to do a touch in forward and then back to reverse - but that's a bit scary when you're heading into a marina berth!

 

[DanTribe]

A few comments about the Zeelands trip, purely personal and there are still lots of delights I haven't yet discovered.
If you're heading East from Nieuwepoort/ Ostend try to catch the flood into Oosterchelde. It's vicious off Breskens / Vlissingen and that is usuall y when you're tired.
Breskens is easier to enter at night than the locks at Vlissingen. If you need to stock up there are several large supermarkets by the marina yacht club VVW Schelde.
There is a "Blue Wave" convoy system every 2 hours between Keersluis Vlisingen and Stationbrug Middelburg. The bridges are openned in sequence, makes life simple.
Middelburg is delightful, The harbourmasters office is on the quay and he / she will allocate a berth and tell you bridge openning times. Mostly box berths. Read up on the WW2 battle of Walcheren, bitter fighting and very brave guys.
On to Versemeer, there are many free steigers [jetties], One of my favourites is at the Northwest corner near Vrouwenpolder. Excellent fish at a fast food cafe and good restaurants and bars on the dam wall.
If you are energetic there is a windsurf school and a fixed waterski course and have go at flyboarding [not for me!] Another favourite is Bastiaan de Langpoort. No facilities, some trees and grass and a thunderbox loo, but tranquil.
I find the area around Kortgene too busy for me but handy for stores and excellent repair facilities.
Next, through the lock onto Westerschelde, feels like you're back at sea. right to Goes, [try and coincide with a market day], or left to Zierekzee, check bridge opening times if your mast is 12m +. Zierikzee is nice but not on my list of "must return"
A visit to Neeltje Jans flood barrier is worth a visit. Not sure if you can still anchor and go ashore, but I've heard it has become a theme park.
That barely scratches the surface. If you can; visit Grevelingen, Haringvliet, Dordrecht, Gouda and onwards.

 

[johnalison]

The run past Middleberg and the Versemeer can be enjoyable but it is also a bit of a faff. You can miss this on your return by either exiting from the Roompot or by using the commercial canal via Hansweert. This latter route is usually quiet, even if the locks are very large, and the short trip to Terneuzen easy enough. Terneuzen is a pleasant little place but not special in itself.

 

[Plum]

A few comments about the Zeelands trip, purely personal and there are still lots of delights I haven't yet discovered.
If you're heading East from Nieuwepoort/ Ostend try to catch the flood into Oosterchelde. It's vicious off Breskens / Vlissingen and that is usuall y when you're tired.
Breskens is easier to enter at night than the locks at Vlissingen. If you need to stock up there are several large supermarkets by the marina yacht club VVW Schelde.
There is a "Blue Wave" convoy system every 2 hours between Keersluis Vlisingen and Stationbrug Middelburg. The bridges are openned in sequence, makes life simple.
Middelburg is delightful, The harbourmasters office is on the quay and he / she will allocate a berth and tell you bridge openning times. Mostly box berths. Read up on the WW2 battle of Walcheren, bitter fighting and very brave guys.
On to Versemeer, there are many free steigers [jetties], One of my favourites is at the Northwest corner near Vrouwenpolder. Excellent fish at a fast food cafe and good restaurants and bars on the dam wall.
If you are energetic there is a windsurf school and a fixed waterski course and have go at flyboarding [not for me!] Another favourite is Bastiaan de Langpoort. No facilities, some trees and grass and a thunderbox loo, but tranquil.
I find the area around Kortgene too busy for me but handy for stores and excellent repair facilities.
Next, through the lock onto Westerschelde, feels like you're back at sea. right to Goes, [try and coincide with a market day], or left to Zierekzee, check bridge opening times if your mast is 12m +. Zierikzee is nice but not on my list of "must return"
A visit to Neeltje Jans flood barrier is worth a visit. Not sure if you can still anchor and go ashore, but I've heard it has become a theme park.
That barely scratches the surface. If you can; visit Grevelingen, Haringvliet, Dordrecht, Gouda and onwards.

Is the " "Blue Wave" convoy system every 2 hours between Keersluis Vlisingen and Stationbrug Middelburg." Still operating? I can't find any mention online or on Waterkaart.net when looking for the times

 

[DanTribe]

Is the " "Blue Wave" convoy system every 2 hours between Keersluis Vlisingen and Stationbrug Middelburg." Still operating? I can't find any mention online or on Waterkaart.net when looking for the times

I think so. Google blauwe golf walcheren.

 

[Jan Harber]

I'm also surprised that a Stuart Turner would drive an alternator. We had a lucas dynamo but fitted a switch so we could take it off line when we needed extra boost. You had reverse? That's proper posh! We had (occasional) forward only. My first words of Dutch I learnt we "we have no reverse", for use in locks.
Ik heb green achteruit. Perhaps our Dutch speakers could correct this?

"We have no reverse", shouted in a fairly desperate way, brings back many memories of our 1960s Zeeland cruises in my dad Jack Coote's old centreboarder Iwunda, whose engine was unreliable to say the least. Entering Dutch locks, such as the then new giant lock at Kats where there would be a crush of tugs and barges, was a nerve-racking experience, especially with a following wind...
Jack wrote a couple of articles on our Zeeland holidays which were published in YM in 1963. Attached are some pages, one shows George Farmer's Lothian entering Dordrecht yacht harbour with the bridge keeper collecting his fee in a clog on the end of a fishing rod.

 

[MoodySabre]

The run past Middleberg and the Versemeer can be enjoyable but it is also a bit of a faff. You can miss this on your return by either exiting from the Roompot or by using the commercial canal via Hansweert. This latter route is usually quiet, even if the locks are very large, and the short trip to Terneuzen easy enough. Terneuzen is a pleasant little place but not special in itself.

Last time we went straight to Breskens. Next day up the Westerschelde and through the Hanswert canal. You can get to Goes or Zerikzee that day. Saves time if heading north.

 

[Plum]

I think so. Google blauwe golf walcheren.

Thankyou. Found it:- Blauwe golf Kanaal door Walcheren + Dokbrug en Zeelandbrug | Watersportvereniging Arne

 

[johnalison]

Last time we went straight to Breskens. Next day up the Westerschelde and through the Hanswert canal. You can get to Goes or Zerikzee that day. Saves time if heading north.

I have done that a few times, but I think that a first-timer would enjoy the Versemeer route better on the way north, which is why I suggested it for the return. In later years we almost always came home via the Roompot and Blankenberg, since our air draft makes it easy, stopping on the way at Colijnsplaat for a gourmet fish meal at the main restaurant there which I think is called De Scheldt.

 

[Daydream believer]

I have done that a few times, but I think that a first-timer would enjoy the Versemeer route better on the way north, which is why I suggested it for the return. In later years we almost always came home via the Roompot and Blankenberg, since our air draft makes it easy, stopping on the way at Colijnsplaat for a gourmet fish meal at the main restaurant there which I think is called De Scheldt.

Never been to Colijnsplaat, because the locals told us that there is nothing of interest so I have always been the other side to Zierikzee which can be horribly crowded on the rafts but an enjoyable town. Good fun if you arrive on the carnival days.

 

[johnalison]

Colijnsplaat is nothing special in itself, but the same could be said of many nice little places in the Netherlands. The marina is quite large and friendly and it has a very decent restaurant of its own. There are some pleasant walks around the harbour, which has its own fish cafe that looks good but I haven't attended. There is also an interesting reconstruction of a Roman temple, based on what has been dug up in the area. As I say, not necessarily worth going out of your way to visit, but a lot quieter than the bustle of Zeirikzee and handier for the Roompot.

 

[Stork_III]

The run past Middleberg and the Versemeer can be enjoyable but it is also a bit of a faff. You can miss this on your return by either exiting from the Roompot or by using the commercial canal via Hansweert. This latter route is usually quiet, even if the locks are very large, and the short trip to Terneuzen easy enough. Terneuzen is a pleasant little place but not special in itself.

The marina suffers from terrific wash from the barge traffic entering the adjacent Ghent canal, worst night ever spent on a boat, not sure how the bow cleat didn't rip out. Better to travel up to Breskens, on the overnight pontoon if necessary.

 

[johnalison]

The marina suffers from terrific wash from the barge traffic entering the adjacent Ghent canal, worst night ever spent on a boat, not sure how the bow cleat didn't rip out. Better to travel up to Breskens, on the overnight pontoon if necessary.

I’ve stopped there two or three times and although there was occasional slight wash from passing ships I don’t remember the night being disturbed significantly. Maybe it depends where you are berthed. We were once trapped there for a short while when the resident berth-holders were in dispute with the harbourmaster and blockaded the harbour with small craft. Luckily, they had nothing against us and eventually let us through.

 

[bluerm166]

The marina suffers from terrific wash from the barge traffic entering the adjacent Ghent canal, worst night ever spent on a boat, not sure how the bow cleat didn't rip out. Better to travel up to Breskens, on the overnight pontoon if necessary.

Lady Liselot enters Terneuzen and the following two videos.
Some may find the measured approach by the skipper of this motor trawler interesting as I do but these three videos gave me the impression that I have been right to avoid the port in favour of Breskens over a number of visits.
Obviously these films are confined to the docks and the Dow works also features so perhaps giving a weighted impression.
On the other hand I quite enjoyed an overnight in Colijnsplaat.Memorable because I had a porpoise doing its own thing in the deep turbulent water close alongside the boat just before entering and another one behind the transom having just passed the bridge on leaving.Perhaps in contrast to the (useful) Neeltje Jans anchorage I also enjoyed a walk around and a meal in the pleasant mainstreet .
An unusual visitor attraction but I will also remember the most elegaic cemetery discovered by taking this inviting ferry across to what I took to be a well tree'd park on this inside island at the west end of the basin.
What these gentleman are doing hiding in the undergrowth by the ferry are doing there I don't know but I assume it to be cultural and so too the ferry.

 

[johnalison]

Lady Liselot enters Terneuzen and the following two videos.
Some may find the measured approach by the skipper of this motor trawler interesting as I do but these three videos gave me the impression that I have been right to avoid the port in favour of Breskens over a number of visits.
Obviously these films are confined to the docks and the Dow works also features so perhaps giving a weighted impression.
On the other hand I quite enjoyed an overnight in Colijnsplaat.Memorable because I had a porpoise doing its own thing in the deep turbulent water close alongside the boat just before entering and another one behind the transom having just passed the bridge on leaving.Perhaps in contrast to the (useful) Neeltje Jans anchorage I also enjoyed a walk around and a meal in the pleasant mainstreet .
An unusual visitor attraction but I will also remember the most elegaic cemetery discovered by taking this inviting ferry across to what I took to be a well tree'd park on this inside island at the west end of the basin.
What these gentleman are doing hiding in the undergrowth by the ferry are doing there I don't know but I assume it to be cultural and so too the ferry.

Very entertaining, though I couldn't quite work out which boat was where. However, this has little to do with Terneuzen yacht harbour which has a different entrance, and there are not so many vessels around that it isn't easy enough to hop across the fairway to enter. I would doubt if wash would be coming from vessels transiting the lock, since they would be going slowly, but the odd ship gave us a slight swell.

I didn't see your gentlemen. The Dutch go in for odd sculptures, mostly in cities, but with less wit than the Germans. There is a weird example of modern sculpture in the middle of nowhere at the south of the Lauersmeer.
Also at Colijnsplaat is a vista over the estuary with records of all the floods, or inundations as they call them, in the last few hundred years, which is quite thought-provoking.

 

[Daydream believer]

One could easily have confused that entrance with Flushing.

 

[DanTribe]

I love those Henk Jans Lady Liselot videos, reminder of places I've visited or still to go.
I appreciate most of the sculptures. The Anthony Gormley Exposure at Lelystad we nicknamed The Dump.

 

[michael_w]

I like to go in and out of Roompotsluis. Handy free pontoons on either side of the lock. The Marechaussee guys (immigration) are happy to get out of the office and come and see you.

 

[westhinder]

Very entertaining, though I couldn't quite work out which boat was where. However, this has little to do with Terneuzen yacht harbour which has a different entrance, and there are not so many vessels around that it isn't easy enough to hop across the fairway to enter. I would doubt if wash would be coming from vessels transiting the lock, since they would be going slowly, but the odd ship gave us a slight swell.

Quite right.
I was not overly impressed with the skipper’s explanation about not seeing the names of ships on his plotter. The Westerschelde is not a difficult river to navigate, but you have to pay attention to the shipping around you and avoid impeding them.
It is not obligatory for a yacht to report to the VTS sectors, but it makes sense to do so. If there is an urgent message for you the traffic controller knows who to call. Most of the VHF traffic is in Dutch, as it is for ships’ pilots and barge skippers, but if the controller is aware you only speak English, they will of course call you in English.

 

[johnalison]

I like to go in and out of Roompotsluis. Handy free pontoons on either side of the lock. The Marechaussee guys (immigration) are happy to get out of the office and come and see you.

We liked to return via the Roompot. The marina is nothing special to my mind, which is why we preferred to stay at Colijnsplaat. I once tried to refuel at the Roompot marina only to find that there wasn’t enough depth at the fuel pontoon when we arrived, around LW. The clearance under the road at the lock is not enough for all yachts and larger yachts may need to leave nearer LW, which is then wrong for those going south. The tide runs at nearly 4 kn outside, which is useful but can kick up quite a sea for a few miles. The direct route to Harwich then takes you through wind farms, which is part of the reason we usually returned via Blankenberg.