Wooden Boats and Canal Boating With Vince Casalaina
Bay Area Snipe sailor and videographer Vince Casalaina sent in this photo of canal life in the Netherlands, saying, “In July I was in Friesland on Kim Paternoster and David Parker’s canal boat with my partner Debbie Dille. The four of us traveled for seven days to a new city every night. Below is my driving on an easy stretch of a canal — not much traffic and lots of room on each side.”
“My favorite part was driving their boat through a tiny fixed bridge with two feet of clearance on each side and just over a foot clearance under the bridge. Lots of deep breathing as we motored through.”
Vince is currently organizing a documentary called Wind in Their Sails: Preserving History on San Francisco Bay, about the caretakers of the Bay Area’s classic yachts, with shooting planned for May through September next year and the film’s premiere in summer 2025. More on the movie can be seen in the Master Mariners e-zine The Shellback, or you can email Vince here. An example of his classic video work below is from a documentary he produced in the late ’80s.
Life on the canals of Friesland looks pretty nice, and we look forward to seeing more on sailing classic yachts on San Francisco Bay.
Made a similar 7 day trip round trip from Amsterdam in a 30 footer on the canals in 1998. Fascinating trip. Loved the bridge tenders holding out their wooden shoe at the end of a fishing pole for tips. Amazed at all the large commercial traffic in some sections. Scariest part was sharing a lock with a 700 footer and have ing the lock master yelling at me in dutch to move up to the front of the lock to make room. Half a dozen office workers eating their lunch on top of the lock got a lot of enjoyment watching us fumble our way forward in the lock. we nicknamed the boat “pig boat” as that’s how it steered! Great scenery, nice people, Good memories