“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 †