Sail Amsterdam 2010

Talking about crazy, Sail is happening in Amsterdam.

Sail Amsterdam is a festival focused on (huge) sailing boats, or tall ships, which only happens once every five years. The ships are authentic or remakes. In a convoy of fifty tall ships and over two thousand private ships they sail from IJmuiden to Amsterdam. The tall ships start on their own by IJmuiden and are later joined by all the smaller boats. Once they arrived in Amsterdam, the festival is officially started.
With thundering cannons, the ships announce their arrival in the capital of the Netherlands, followed by the many horns coming from the smaller boats and the cheering from the many people that are standing and looking from the shore. All those crazy boat lovers on their own are already something that makes this happening something worthy to see.

And that is exactly why I’m at a friend of my mother’s place to watch it. They live on the sixth floor in a building right next to the IJ. The IJ was originally part of the ‘Zuiderzee’, which was connected to the North sea. But since the Dark Ages, people built dams to keep the water away from the city. The strength of the water and the danger it brought to the city was one of the reasons that in the 19th century was decided to impolder most of the IJ and to shut off the rest of the water from the sea by building a dam.
And this is where it is all happening. A couple of bridges had to be partly removed so the giant tall ships can pass through. And from my seat on the sixth floor I have a perfect view on the ‘eye-candy’ like the Amerigo Vespucci, an old Italian warship, the Stad Amsterdam, coming from the Netherlands, and the Mir from Russia, together with many other magnificent tall ships.

Imagine pirate like ships, thundering cannons to announce their arrival, seagulls floating on the wind and between the masts and the wind blowing in your face, together with the scent of the sea. It must be amazing to sail around the world on such an amazing and huge ship... If ever possible, that would be a journey that I would sign up for!