This is a relaxing cruise holiday on IJsselmeer in Netherland on one probably most nut usual sailing yacht, Platbodem.

Platbodem, also "Flat bottom" do not have much depth and they can "fall dry" without any problem. In tidal waters, they can lie on a sand bank at low tide and wait for high tide. In the Wadden area and the Siuwske waters, this was often done by, for example, the shell, whelk and oyster fishermen. Their ships therefore had a heavily constructed bottom.

Flat bottoms are very suitable for wading areas and shallow river bottoms. In Western Europe, they therefore occur in an area that extends from the Baltic Sea across the Frisian language area (including Northern Germany), the Low Countries (including Belgium) and South-East England to the mouth of the Thames .

Characteristic of the flat-bottomed ships are the two leeboards and the extremely shallow draft of around one to one and a half meters. You can still navigate large parts of the Wadden Sea even at low tide . This type of ship is usually built with lengths between 10 and 30 m and has one to three masts . Originally built as cargo ships, these ships are now mainly used as charter ships on the Dutch Wadden and IJsselmeer and in the mudflats off Schleswig-Holstein

As such ships are available for rental only on IJsselmeer, oor location is then Netherland, Frysland and Waddenmeer.

By really good weather we would leave IJsselmeer and go to the North sea, find some sand bank and would wait for the lowtide, where we drop on ground and can actually walk on the bottom of the sea. And would collect some crabs.

By moderate weather we would stay withing IJsselmeer and would explore neighboorhood, visit Stavoren or perhaps Amsterdam itself.

If the weather turns really bad, we can explore another highlight of Frysland : SAILING ON CHANNELS! We would then enter Inland and experrience surreal sailing between crop fields and grassing cows.

Approximate route