Quote:
Originally Posted by Philsmith
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The scheldeschouw is a design by Vermeulen that tried to achieve a compromise between a flat bottom yacht with sideboards and a sideboard less similar yacht. It is quite suitable for the area around the river Schelde, which is obvious from the name, in the SW of the
Netherlands. Schouw is a collective name for a flat bottom yacht that has it's origin in
fishing boats the lake district in the NE of the
Netherlands as well as on the inner sea now IJsselmeer. One can argue that the scheldeschouw has only a distant
family relationship because a schouw tends to have a flat bow and stern. This would be more a dirivation from a grundel but lets not nitpick.
The construction is simple and requires little bending of
steel plates. Tides make a more or less flat bottom easy (mind you the yacht has a box
keel and will not dry our horizontal at all) and no sideboards and somewhat sharper lines would make the yacht more easy going in the open waters of that area. I would not think that this design is
seaworthy but then again people have crossed the Channel on lesser boats. Actually I remember that a scheldeschouw sailed across the Atlantic, I googled and indeed 1981 the Elephant Rock.
The scheldeschouw (skelde skow where "k" is a guttural "g" typical to the Dutch). Quite a lot have been built since the design in 1961 they have a group of enthusiastic owners. There is a bit of a discussion whether these yachts are real flat or round bottoms that can keep purists busy in the yacht club however the "bible" on sailing yachts written by Van Kampen that I got from my father in1986 is categorically stating that this is a transitional design and does not belong in the group of Dutch round and flat bottom vessels.
If you can read Dutch the website of the owner's association will give you a wealth of information
http://scheldeschouw.nl/