Next to tulips, wooden shoes, dikes and drop, houseboats designed solely for living are also typically Dutch. Student Rainier Duijts reveals what it’s like to live on water instead of solid ground.
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“It feels like living in a holiday resort,” Rainier Duijts (26) says. The recent Civil Engineering and Geosciences graduate lives on a houseboat on the Zuidergracht, a picturesque Delft spot. With a living room view of the Oosterpoort and water, ducks and duckweed all around, Duijts tries to explain that living-on-a-houseboat-feeling. “The location is brilliant,” he says, as tourists and natives stream past his window, staring in with wide open eyes, as if expecting to see two dwarfs sitting down to tea. “It’s especially nice in summertime, when everything’s green on one side of my boat and on the other side is water and the curious onlookers.” Duijts loves the feeling of waking up on a houseboat, the ducks and swans sailing past his window.
Via a small bridge, you enter his ark. “I’m always very concentrated on my keys when I enter my house; if not, you drop them and they’re gone. Although it’s not very deep here, you won’t find them,” Duijts says, speaking from experience.
In Holland there are about ten thousand houseboats, of which a quarter are located in Amsterdam, where the ‘gezellige’ houseboats add to the Dutch capital’s charm. People have been living houseboats for hundreds of years, but living on water was especially attractive for people just after the World War II, when there was a severe housing shortage in the Netherlands. With the Dutch fleet of cargo ships also being modernized at that time, many people saw good and cheap housing possibilities in these decommissioned 25 meter long boats. In the 1960s and 70s houseboat living was very popular, viewed as an alternative and above all inexpensive mode of living. Today, however, it’s no longer cheap: in addition to buying or renting the houseboat, you must also pay for the berth, which provides the boat with electricity, gas, telephone and sewer connections.
Scrap yard
Thanks to the local council, two boats on the Zuidergracht are occupied by students. “For town planning reasons, the council wants to get rid of the houseboats on the south-side of the Zuidergracht,” Duijts says. “Therefore they buy up the berths and houseboats whenever someone leaves his houseboat. But as long as there isn’t anyone interested in this berth, I can stay here.” Duijts pays a very low rent, because the council doesn’t maintain his boat. He must therefor live with minor defects. “The boat is not fastened very tightly to the shore. During calm weather this isn’t a problem, but in autumn, when wind is blowing and there waves on the water, I see my living room one or two meters drift away.” Fortunately, this former hydraulic engineering student is not afraid of a little do-it-yourself work and his boat is now firmly bolted to the shore.
The boat’s window frames are also rotting, especially on the boat’s sunny and windy side, where the paint is flaking off and the big iron frame underneath the wooden planks is visible in certain spots. Using some tape and glue, Duijts has repaired this part of his boat too. Duijts: “I’ve got to make sure that no water comes into the boat, otherwise it’ll sink!” Duijts does only what is absolutely necessary for his ark, which is built on a square hull of steel. “I never know when I have to go. In two months time the council might say I have to leave. But they are very slow, so I hope they won’t make any decisions until October. In autumn and winter it’s too cold to move the boat to the scrap yard.”
After so many months on the water, does Duijts now have sea legs? ”No, I have surf legs,” he says, adding that he’s been surfing since he was ten years old and has recently returned from a surfing trip to Africa. “I never feel sea sick because I’ve been in and on water ever since I can remember. The strangest feeling I’ve experienced is thinking that this boat is sailing, but then I realize that it’s the water that’s moving, not the boat.”
One big downside of houseboat living is the mosquitoes. A large mosquito net is draped around Duijts’ bed. “In the summer it’s so hot in here that you must sleep with the window open. I think a hundred mosquitoes a day is no exception.”
Next to tulips, wooden shoes, dikes and drop, houseboats designed solely for living are also typically Dutch. Student Rainier Duijts reveals what it’s like to live on water instead of solid ground.
“It feels like living in a holiday resort,” Rainier Duijts (26) says. The recent Civil Engineering and Geosciences graduate lives on a houseboat on the Zuidergracht, a picturesque Delft spot. With a living room view of the Oosterpoort and water, ducks and duckweed all around, Duijts tries to explain that living-on-a-houseboat-feeling. “The location is brilliant,” he says, as tourists and natives stream past his window, staring in with wide open eyes, as if expecting to see two dwarfs sitting down to tea. “It’s especially nice in summertime, when everything’s green on one side of my boat and on the other side is water and the curious onlookers.” Duijts loves the feeling of waking up on a houseboat, the ducks and swans sailing past his window.
Via a small bridge, you enter his ark. “I’m always very concentrated on my keys when I enter my house; if not, you drop them and they’re gone. Although it’s not very deep here, you won’t find them,” Duijts says, speaking from experience.
In Holland there are about ten thousand houseboats, of which a quarter are located in Amsterdam, where the ‘gezellige’ houseboats add to the Dutch capital’s charm. People have been living houseboats for hundreds of years, but living on water was especially attractive for people just after the World War II, when there was a severe housing shortage in the Netherlands. With the Dutch fleet of cargo ships also being modernized at that time, many people saw good and cheap housing possibilities in these decommissioned 25 meter long boats. In the 1960s and 70s houseboat living was very popular, viewed as an alternative and above all inexpensive mode of living. Today, however, it’s no longer cheap: in addition to buying or renting the houseboat, you must also pay for the berth, which provides the boat with electricity, gas, telephone and sewer connections.
Scrap yard
Thanks to the local council, two boats on the Zuidergracht are occupied by students. “For town planning reasons, the council wants to get rid of the houseboats on the south-side of the Zuidergracht,” Duijts says. “Therefore they buy up the berths and houseboats whenever someone leaves his houseboat. But as long as there isn’t anyone interested in this berth, I can stay here.” Duijts pays a very low rent, because the council doesn’t maintain his boat. He must therefor live with minor defects. “The boat is not fastened very tightly to the shore. During calm weather this isn’t a problem, but in autumn, when wind is blowing and there waves on the water, I see my living room one or two meters drift away.” Fortunately, this former hydraulic engineering student is not afraid of a little do-it-yourself work and his boat is now firmly bolted to the shore.
The boat’s window frames are also rotting, especially on the boat’s sunny and windy side, where the paint is flaking off and the big iron frame underneath the wooden planks is visible in certain spots. Using some tape and glue, Duijts has repaired this part of his boat too. Duijts: “I’ve got to make sure that no water comes into the boat, otherwise it’ll sink!” Duijts does only what is absolutely necessary for his ark, which is built on a square hull of steel. “I never know when I have to go. In two months time the council might say I have to leave. But they are very slow, so I hope they won’t make any decisions until October. In autumn and winter it’s too cold to move the boat to the scrap yard.”
After so many months on the water, does Duijts now have sea legs? ”No, I have surf legs,” he says, adding that he’s been surfing since he was ten years old and has recently returned from a surfing trip to Africa. “I never feel sea sick because I’ve been in and on water ever since I can remember. The strangest feeling I’ve experienced is thinking that this boat is sailing, but then I realize that it’s the water that’s moving, not the boat.”
One big downside of houseboat living is the mosquitoes. A large mosquito net is draped around Duijts’ bed. “In the summer it’s so hot in here that you must sleep with the window open. I think a hundred mosquitoes a day is no exception.”
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