23rd March 2015 – I don’t know the English word for it. In Dutch it is called zwierbomen or zwaaibomen. They are metal bars to the side of the ship. Skippers used them for getting to land where mooring their ship wasn’t an option. These bars had a hinch on the den or the deck over the hold.
I was looking for a set of zwaaibomen for some time, but couldn’t find any. A friend called me a few days ago he fond two sets in an old warehouse. They were cleaning out the building and I could buy them cheaply. It took us some time to get them out. I find my ship is fully packed with stuff, but that warehouse is a through nightmare… Four metal bars each of them 6.5m long, it wasn’t easy to transport them to the Watergeus. They will make it one day to the Aquarel, but not in the near future.