Trips -N - Ships

With the bitter winter that the Netherlands is experiencing, I’m not sure just how many maritime museums and ships I will see, but  I do have plans to see a few. The easiest and first one on my list is to get aboard the Amsterdam, a museum ship replica of an East Indiaman that is docked close to the city’s Centraal Station. What sucks is that the National Maritime Museum, one of the best in the world, will be closed for renovation until at least 2010. Anyone got any contacts to get me a sneak peak tour?

Close to Amsterdam in the new province of Flevoland is the Batavia Werf, a shipbuilding musuem that has already built the replica VOC ship Batavia. They are about halfway through the construction of the De 7 Provinciën, a 17th century ship-of-the-line and I’m really looking forward to checking out shipbuilding on this scale.

For my daytrip to Rotterdam that I have planned there is another ship being built in the section known as Delfthaven - where some of the Pilgrims departed on their way to the New World. There the 18th century ship-of-the-line De Delft, is currently being built year-round by a group of about 200 volunteers. Besides getting to take a look at traditional shipbuilding, I will also hopefully get some great view of Rotterdam’s busy harbor - The biggest in Europe and I believe second only to Shanghai.

These are the biggest projects I’m going to visit, but hopefully I’ll have time and money to see more Dutch maritime heritage while I’m there…

The Gloucester fishing fleet has been greeted by tragedy this new year as the dragger Patriot sank in Middle Bank over the weekend with the loss of her two man crew. Anyone that grew up in a fishing family, or had loved ones involved in the industry dreaded to get that phone call from the Coast Guard saying the boat went down or is missing. As a little kid, with Dad and Grandpa Scola working  on a near 60-year old wooden boat, that feeling of unease that comes with winter fishing was not lost on me. Nor is it lost on anyone else that has to hold their breath from a day or two to over a week, while the family is out fishing.

And so now Matt Russo and his father-in-law John Orlando become the most recent names added to the men Out O’Gloucester lost at sea. They are the first since 2001 and will also leave wives and children behind -But that is the price the sea demands of Gloucester for doing business with her, a pact made centuries ago sanctified by the blood of her fishermen. And when the sea takes Gloucestermen, it gives back to the city a grim gift of widows and orphans. Too many to count over the years I’m sure…

More than five thousand souls so far and although the sea does not demand so many lives from Gloucester anymore, this latest tragedy shows that our city and its fishermen are still bound by this ancient pact. I didn’t know the men lost personaly, but like most of Italian Gloucester, I know the family -My deepest sympathies to all of you.