First Post!

Welcome to our new website and the Ship’s Log. This first post will share a longer history of the Dione IV (read more in the ‘Boat’ sections) and will mark the point in time where Sher and I get together on the boat for the first time. Of course, a lot has already preceded this, but we decided to start our official posts on this day, April 5th, 2024, the day of Sher’s first arrival on the Dione IV. From this day on, we’ll be together on the boat and thus start our joint logbook.

Highlights – the overview

Dione IV is scheduled to be hoisted ashore today and will spend the next few weeks in various halls getting enhancements and maintenance done. With this, she’ll be ready to sail out and take us around the world! Coincidentally (or… coincidence doesn’t exist??), the yard has planned the hoist ashore on this day. But even before she gets scooped up out of the water, there was lots to do to prepare… ropes and cables to remove and clean or replace, and making sure the masts are ready to remove.

All preparations complete, Sher arrives… We have been counting down to this moment for almost 2 months since we met in Portugal and all this time, we’ve been looking forward so much to this moment! In the car, on our way back to Harlingen, we agree to never do this again, ha-ha. These 7 weeks seemed like ages!

Captain’s Log (T-87) – the complete story

T-87 (T minus 87)? What does that mean?
This is our adventure date counter. “T” being time to take off, or launch as in the NASA space program. It’s the time we have chosen to set off on our adventures… July 1, 2024. We’d like to keep track of how many days we’ve been sailing (initially, at least) and so will count from T=0 on July 1st, when we sail off, with plus and minus indicating days before and days following departure. But worry not, the system inserts the actual calendar dates, so you won’t need to do any counting to figure out where we are on a specific date!

For one-and-a-half-years I have been planning a big maintenance job on the boat. Coincidentally (or… coincidence doesn’t exist??), the yard has planned the hoisting on shore this day. Last weekend (Easter), my sister Klarien and I sailed to this yard in Harlingen, and we took down the sails and all lines in preparation for removing the masts, which was necessary because the boat work would be done inside halls with limited height.

Last week, I have been preparing everything for that… disconnecting all cables to the masts and washing all ropes we took off. They were very dirty, green from algae, and stiff from salt. The mighty little washing machine on board had a very hard job this week! I tried several ways of washing and found out that a powerful whitewashing powder with half a cup of baking soda added worked best. I tried adding bleach but that generated a huge amount of foam. Not only didn’t that improve the result, but lots of foam and froth came out everywhere on the little washing machine… but it kept on going! After washing, I brought the lines to my storage room in Harlingen, only a few minutes away. Very convenient! Nothing lying in the way for the works to come.

The yard wanted to take down the masts in the morning and crane the boat ashore in the afternoon, but I requested to postpone that a few hours because in the morning I had to go and pick up Sher from Amsterdam Airport.

So, at 7 in the morning I leave for the one-and-a-half-hour drive to the airport. I arrive way too early and Sher has a delay in luggage pick up so I have to wait almost two hours before she finally appears in the exit of the baggage hall. What a great joy to see each other again! We have been counting down to this moment for almost 2 months since we met in Portugal and all this time, we’ve been looking forward so much to this moment! In the car, on our way back to Harlingen, we agree to never do this again, ha-ha. These 7 weeks seemed like ages!

At 12 o’clock we arrive at the yard, and we have a coffee on board. It’s raining. We have to wait until another boat has been moved away from the crane and at 13:30 the yard boss comes and tells us to move the boat under the crane. His name is ‘Yts’, a Frisian name. I imagine a joke: him knocking on a door and somebody asking: who’s there? And he will answer, “it’s Yts” (his name is pronounced the same as “it’s” in English)! Ha-ha. But he’s a nice guy. Anyway, we start the engine and release the mooring lines. It’s still pouring, and we get soaking wet, working on deck and maneuvering to the crane. Well, some baptism for Sher, being on board for her first time… when positioned under the crane, we have to wait some more, and it stops raining. It even gets sunny, but the wind increases rapidly. Yts arrives with a mobile cherry picker to take the windset (wind indicator) off the top of the main mast, not to damage it while hoisting the masts. But Dione IV is rocking in the strong wind gusts, and he has a tough job in reaching for the mast at 17m height. After a number of efforts, he manages to take the windset off, but when he comes down he says, “it is too dangerous in this wind, we will have damages and we don’t want that. We have to postpone this”. And we agree! We are going to wait until Monday.

We leave the boatyard, and we head out to our B&B in the center of Harlingen. We have rented a B&B in a village near Harlingen (Pietersbierum) for the next month, since we can’t stay on the boat in the yard, but that wasn’t available yet, in this weekend. So, we stay 3 nights at another place.