Leonland - Leon Barnard
Chapter 2 > Sail 2000
To say that sailing is popular in Holland would be an understatement. Sail 2000 is the biggest sailing event in The Netherlands (and maybe all of Europe). It takes place every 5 years as is nearly a week of sailing-related activities in Amsterdam. All of the really big ships were on display the day that I was there.
My first view of the event, giant boats and lots of people. There were 900,000 people there the day that I was there.
The Amsterdam harbor isn't that big, it was amazing how many boats were crammed in it.
This ship is called "The Amsterdam" and was modelled after the ships the Dutch East Indies company used to use in the 17th century.
More boats, more people. You could go aboard most of the boats, but the lines were over an hour and I only had 2 1/2 hours there, so I didn't bother.
I thought this was really cool, a huge, free orchestra performance right near the water.
It would have been cool to ride on this so that I could get a view of the whole event, but most everyone else had the same idea, so the line was really long.
The quantity and size of the ships really made me feel small.
A very powerful-looking ship.
And one that was just plain big. This one was over 300 feet long.
Boats of all shapes and sizes, fitting to such a dynamic city.
Posted by Leon on August 25, 2000 09:23 PM [Top of page]