“It’s Thursday morning again……high time for the weekend weather forecast”
Many of you will have heard this dozens, if not hundreds, of times. In total, Henk Huizinga has produced his weekend weather forecast tailored to sailors on Thursday mornings over 1,200 times.
He has run a number of meteorology courses for our HRC, and one was scheduled for this year as well.
But unfortunately for us sailors, he has decided to close his meteorological business, and his weekend weather forecast was heard for the last time on the Thursday before Whitsun. His meteorology course was also held for the last time this spring.
Last Thursday, Ben Rutte from the monthly magazine Zeilen and Rob Sijbers from RS Medical Sailing organised a farewell reception at the water sports shop Sailspecials in Leiderdorp, without Henk knowing about it.
A number of water sports clubs, including the Hallberg-Rassy Connectie, had been invited. Representing the HRC were our secretary Marga Schrijvershof, Tom and Lidia van Disseldorp (organisers of the weather courses for the HRC) and myself.
Several speakers had many words of praise for Henk, and gifts were also presented. On behalf of the HRC, he received, among other things, a Hallberg-Rassy cap which he can use whilst playing golf – and so he won’t forget us.
We had actually hoped that he might be willing to run another online weather course for us, but, as already mentioned, he no longer does that. Although he did indicate that he wouldn’t be sitting at home twiddling his thumbs and might be tempted to do so again in the future. We’ll keep that idea alive.
He is, however, in the process of setting up a sort of interactive online course to complement his book ‘Het Weer in Kaart’. Many details were not yet available, but we will keep an eye on this too.
A reception like this is a great opportunity to make contacts. That’s how we got talking to Rob Sijbers. As a GP and sailor, he has developed first aid courses for those setting off on voyages and sea sailors. These are practical courses, meaning that after some theory, you receive mainly physical training in, among other things, basic CPR, wound dressing, splinting fractures, and so on.
As a few members had already expressed an interest in such a course, we will look into whether we can organise this this autumn or, failing that, next spring.
Rob Schrijvershof
HR Resist
Rob Sijbers heeft ook voor de Kustzeilers in voorbereiding voor de Noordzee Driehoek vorig jaar een cursus gegeven. Uitstekende cursus en uiteraard vooral gericht op mogelijke situaties aan boord. Absolute aanrader!
Veel aan gehad, de meteor cursus van Henk Huizinga. Daarna ben ik ook gaan werken met Ruud Kattenberg. Hij vertaalde de weer theorieën heel helder naar gribs en routering. Fantastisch, de combinatie van wat deze twee mannen me leerden. Ruud helpt nog steeds bij oversteken en langere trips. Maar zeker ook dank aan Henk voor de theoretische basis. Jan Willem van der Graaf