“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 †