“I urge you to never stop building on your dreams”
Geeeeez, where to begin?
I am just a guy with the unusual tendency to have an appetite for challenging and adventurous situations. I like to challenge myself to “just do it”, work towards my dreams and design my life to be as grateful as possible and share that with others.
I bought a sailing yacht in 2019 to live in, also because I couldn't bear to pay rent to a real estate investor and simply drain my precious earned salary into someone else’s pockets. I enjoyed that lifestyle so much that I wanted to upgrade to a more comfortable home that would meet my needs for the next ten years. Additionally, I wanted to create a second income stream with something I truly enjoyed in life: my passion for sailing and share my sail yacht with others.
During my early career I worked for sustainable startups like BlueCity, rotterzwam, and BuurtBuik. I learned and experienced the gravity of the sustainable challenges we all face. I became an advocate of circularity and passionate about all the subjects related to sustainable problems and circular solutions. I also learned a lot about myself and changed significantly. What matters in my life, what is important to me and what do I want to achieve and contribute to life and to others around me. I stopped flying, became a vegetarian, started exercising daily, lost ten kilos along the way, surrounded myself with excellent entrepreneurs and indulged myself in all practical solutions around the new circular economy. And that brought me to where I am now.
I am working for the front runner - that operates at the end of the production chain - in the circular coffee industry: rotterzwam. In my spare time, I run a voluntary, social food waste organization and have decided to fulfill one of my dreams:: buy and live on a sailing yacht. So you probably understand that I set myself the goal to revamp the sail boats as sustainable as possible. And through this website I would like to share my story, experiences and challenges with you in a practical way and try to reach the broader public via social media.
Sea Rover | The Hague
From a safe and comfortable apartment in the center of Rotterdam to moving to a petite sailboat in one month? “Sure, that’s possible” - I said.
Sailing has been around me since I was six years old. But it wasn’t until my best friend and I decided to step up our sailing game and buy our very own sailboat for the summer of ‘19. That adventure ended with our own, free of charge, open sail boat that we bartered from another friend of mine. One sailing holiday later, with that same, little sailboat, we encountered her… in the last waterlock before returning to our home port close to Amsterdam, the first Sea Rover lay there. Without a mast, no sails and only a small sign in the tiniest window hinting it was ‘for sale”.
Then everything went quickly, very slowly! I organized a visit some weeks later because I felt the need to have one more look before I would decide to NOT make an offer. After the viewing it took me a couple of weeks to decide that I could just make a low offer that he wouldn’t accept anyway - or maybe I actually hoped so. By doing so, I would probably just learn a lot more, I thought. So when I made that bold offer, I expected him to refuse. But then - to my surprise - the owner accepted due to the love for his boat and the connection we had developed from the start. Then suddenly the decision was quickly made. I would move out of my safe apartment and continue my life on a sailboat.
Right now it is my very own - and small - tiny house on the water, as well as my adventurous activity for weekends and holidays. The minimalist lifestyle is implemented throughout the boat. I keep almost only my clothing there and everything else is what you’ll need to sail, cook minimalistically and enjoy yourself during a good day on the water.
Sea Rover | Lefkada
“And then? How the hell do you end up with a second sailboat” I can almost hear you thinking.
Well, whenever you indulge in living on a sail yacht you start to have an increased interest in every piece of information available. So I dove into every website, forum, book ánd boat marketplace out there. And I probably shouldn’t have done that last bit... Because then, one day, I came across a very nice looking, well-priced sail yacht in Greece. A study pal of mine tipped it of it to me and his own brother was the selling broker. That sounded trustworthy, so I thought: “why not learn a little more, eey?!” I was already reading a lot about boats, planning sailing courses and expanding your sailing network. Why not try to find out more about how it goes with larger boats and maybe even get to know this experienced sailing guy selling the boat. “And nothing more than that, Dickie” I said to myself.
I figured that if I would offer well below 25% of the asking price, the owner wouldn’t agree or someone else would surely offer more. But I would just learn from the experience. In the worst case scenario I would just withdraw my offer and let it be. Luckily the owner of the boat didn’t agree with my offer, but he did make a counteroffer. I declined and told him I already had a boat and this would be a totally new adventure and so it would take me a lot of effort to organize, so I wouldn’t go up in my offer. He lowered again. Even to a point where I thought that this was a very nice counteroffer and that this might seem interesting after all. But I kept my word and stuck to my intention. Three weeks later the yacht broker called me and said the owner gave it a thorough thought and it was a deal for my initial offer… literally - I thought - … I AM FVCKED! And now what?’
One restless night and a lot of pondering gave me the answer. FVCK YEAH, let’s try to make this work. What do I need in order to build this dream and make it a success? Every morning between 6 and 9 I wrote an ‘investment pitch' and a business case for the boat. I pitched it to some of my friends and some relevant people in my network and thus found investors among my 3 F’s (friends, family and fools). So after that was settled, Veni, Vidi, Vici. But more on that in the blogs of my ‘Bottled Posts’.
“In my humble experience the beauty of sailing is that no matter with whom you are, where you are and what challenges you face. The sea will treat anyone equally and some sort of calmness and tranquility will take hold over the ambiance on the boat.”