References

Hab­be­ke Shi­py­ard is a very relia­ble shi­py­ard for the KNRM. They pro­ved to build excel­lent life­boats. Life­boats ope­ra­tes in seve­re wea­ther cir­cum­stan­ces in high seas, the­re­fo­re the life­boats need to be relia­ble. Hab­be­ke has pro­ven to be capa­ble to build a vari­e­ty of life­boats under class and to look after peri­o­di­cal main­tenan­ce as well.  In the pro­cess of design, buil­ding and main­tenan­ce Hab­be­ke is always very coo­p­e­ra­ti­ve to sha­re their exten­ded know­led­ge in favour of the crews of the life­boats. Besi­des crafts­mans­hip Hab­be­ke per­forms also a high standard of cus­to­mer service.

In Janu­a­ry 2012 I went to the Nether­lands for the refit pro­cess of our Valen­ti­ne class boat, achie­ved as the “NOMAD”. It was built for the trans­port of per­sons and not direct­ly as a res­cue boat. It was my first intro­duc­ti­on with Hab­be­ke Shi­py­ard in Volen­dam and also with Clo­sed Valen­ti­ne model, unli­ke the “nor­mal” Valen­ti­ne which have an open wheelhouse.
After the refit, I have sai­led seve­r­al times to learn about the pos­si­bi­li­ties of a ship powe­red by water jets. I had some expe­rien­ce in Cur­acao with Antje, the old life­boat from Kat­wijk, but this was a bre­ath of fresh air com­pa­red to the Antje whe­re you bare­ly had a rever­se and who flew off the water when turning at full speed PS or SB, the Nomad just keeps stic­king to the water wit­hout brea­king out. After the neces­sa­ry adjust­ments, towing bol­lards, more Ull­man seats, NOMAD was ship­ped to the island whe­re she arri­ved on the Lady Clau­dia on April 12.
From the arri­val of the ship is the “Dick Braak­man”, rena­med in honor of the for­mer ope­ra­ti­ons coo­r­di­na­tor of the CITRO. In Cur­acao we have the same kind of waves that is com­pa­ra­ble to wind for­ce 8 on the IJs­sel­la­ke, so very nasty short waves no pro­blem for the boat but the crew should aban­don pro­per­ly. In 2 years I have sai­led almost all acti­ons as skip­per, and must say the boat will never let you down, you can do eve­ry­thing with it what you want. Here our main­ly jobs is the sal­va­ge of fis­hing boats and yachts, Vene­zu­e­lan flo­a­ting mar­ket, gui­ding sai­ling regat­tas, get­ting peo­p­le out of the water, (with the stern plat­form for res­cue­wor­kit is easy to get a per­son out of the water) ., medi­cal eva­cu­a­ti­on mer­chant ships, etc., the waves are never hig­her than 3 m here only in a short time, so annoying. Due the speed of our ves­sel, our acti­ons never last much lon­ger than three hours. Towing boats on the towing bol­lards goes smoot­h­ly with the amount of hor­se­po­wer of the vessel.

“In 2004, mem­bers of the Pro­ject Com­mit­tee of Cai­ster Life­boat Ser­vi­ce in the UK began to explo­re the repla­ce­ment of its exis­ting life­boat. After tho­rough research and many per­so­nal dis­cus­si­ons, the team rea­ched a una­ni­mous deci­si­on to pur­cha­se a Valen­tijn 2000 built by Habbeké.

Throug­hout the con­tract nego­ti­a­ti­ons and the peri­od of con­struc­ti­on it beca­me obvious to all con­cerned within the Cai­ster team that Arie de Waart and his loy­al team of employ­ees were not only first class crafts­men who take an immen­se pri­de in their work but they are also peo­p­le whom you can trust impli­cit­ly. This ena­b­led car­rying out busi­ness with them a plea­su­re, and con­ti­nued with their after sales service.

We would have no reser­va­ti­on in recom­men­ding Hab­beké shi­py­ard of Volen­dam to any per­spec­ti­ve client.”

Life­boat orga­ni­sa­ti­ons such as the KNRM (Roy­al Nether­lands Sea Res­cue Insti­tu­ti­on) do not allow “any­o­ne” to build their ves­sels. Such boats have to be able to with­stand hur­ri­ca­ne strength winds and sea con­di­ti­ons, and must be built to the hig­hest standards of design and workmanship.

In our opi­ni­on this means that the peo­p­le who build the­se boats, from the direc­tor down to the most juni­or staff mem­ber, must be total­ly com­mit­ted to their pro­ducts, and must work in the know­led­ge that their pro­ducts will have to be of the hig­hest qua­li­ty – not only hand­ling natu­ral for­ces at the height of storms at sea, but also with­stan­ding hea­vy col­li­si­ons with lar­ger ves­sels as they go alongsi­de. They must sur­vi­ve fal­ling off meter-high waves and must also swift­ly right them­sel­ves after capsizing.

Such con­di­ti­ons mean that tho­se who crew the­se boats have to trust that their boat is capa­ble of with­stan­ding the worst that natu­re and per­haps man can throw at them: trusted ship­buil­ders pro­du­ce trusted ves­sels and Hab­beké are the­re­fo­re one of the whar­ves whe­re the KRNM allow their boats to be built.

“During my thirty years ser­vi­ce with the KNRM, I have been asso­ci­a­ted with many dif­fe­rent life-boats; twen­ty of the­se years as skipper/coxswain. My lon­gest peri­od was with the Eier­land type of boat whe­re the work was hard, the boat was under-powe­red, and you were always cold, wet and tired. This chan­ged a lot in 1990 when we star­ted trai­ning for the new type of life-boat – the RIBs. I was honou­red to “lay the keel” of our new boat, the ADRIAAN HENDRIK, a VALENTIJN built by HABBEKÉ SHIPYARD.

I wor­ked on the Adri­aan Hen­drik for five years. A lot of this work was expe­ri­men­tal and can assu­re the rea­der that the VALENTIJN RIBS are an enor­mous impro­ve­ment in life-boat tech­no­lo­gy. I would like to com­pli­ment the team at Hab­beké for pro­du­cing such strong and trust­wort­hy ves­sels. One can rely upon them in all sorts of wea­ther, and sea con­di­ti­ons, a tri­bu­te to the visi­on and exper­ti­se at your wharf”.

1937 – 2014 †

“Once you have sai­led in one of the­se ves­sels, you will never want to return to the pre­vious designs … They are espe­ci­al­ly sui­ted to manoeu­vring in brea­king water, ground seas and hea­vy surf are no lon­ger as drea­ded as they were!”.  “For instan­ce, if you have to get to a yacht that is aground amid brea­king seas, you go in as clo­se as you can, turn head-on to the surf, and then drop astern until you can get the tow across.  Then it is just a ques­ti­on of put­ting on the power and towing the ves­sel out into safer waters”.

In a tra­di­ti­o­nal life­boat, this was just not pos­si­ble – you would get tur­ned and twi­sted at eve­ry wave” Fur­ther­mo­re, the jets allow you get more and safer power: recent­ly we had to reach a wooden sai­ling ves­sel trap­ped among a brea­king ground sea.  But with care­ful hand­ling of the buc­kets, we rea­ched her at about 10 knots.  To do this we would appro­ach the brea­kers head on and take the high ones by pus­hing the bow into the brea­king water as it hit!  By alte­ring the thrust on the twin buc­kets one can keep the boat in balan­ce, and going for­ward – of cour­se in the dark it is a litt­le more dif­fi­cult and we have been knock­ed all over the pla­ce as well; but she always reco­vers and allows us to car­ry out our tasks.

But the­se ves­sels also allow you to run befo­re a fol­lo­wing sea – they are after all very fast and manoeu­vra­ble.  Their manoeu­vra­bi­li­ty also always allows one to get a tow across and the power of the boats then ena­bles one to tow big or small, vic­tims to safety”.