My life has been all about sailing. It is my greatest passion.

 

I was introduced to sailing by my grandfather, one of the last sailing freight barge skippers in the Netherlands, who trained me as a child. In my teen years, I picked up Laser sailing, and also raced and made passages on our family yacht.

 

Sharing my passion for sailing:

Years went by and many boats later, I decided to make a drastic lifestyle change and sail for a living. So 10 years ago I left my business and life in Amsterdam behind, got my RYA Yachtmaster certificate and Yachtmaster Instructor’s license and became a full time sailor.

 

Since then I have:

• Set up a small charter company in the Algarve;

• Worked as Yachtmaster instructor for several schools in the Algarve and the Canary Islands;

• I was the Senior Instructor for a sailing school in Tenerife, mainly responsible for the Yachtmaster and Fast Track programs, and got very familiar with the conditions in and around the Canary Islands;

• Worked 2 years as training skipper for the Clipperroundtheworld Race, and made it through the race skipper pre-selection trials;

• Raced, on invitation, in China (Qingdao-South Korea-Qingdao);

• Sailed tens of thousands of miles, crossed the Atlantic, and crossed the Bay of Biscay about 20 plus times.

 

With all that experience under my belt, I decided to follow my dream to start up my own sailing school that carries my vision and values.

 

Atlantic Sailing is a school that is proud to be an organisation led with passion, where safety management is taken to a higher level by incorporating my life long experience coupled with the Clipperroundtheworld syllabus, where we understand that every individual is unique and is approached on that basis, where professional standards are the of utmost importance.

 

These ingredients combined together lead to a safe, fun and exciting sail training experience.