Dordrecht Wolwevershaven with the Pieter Boele Netherlands by Hendrik-Jan Kornelis

About "Dordrecht Wolwevershaven with the Pieter Boele Netherlands"

by Hendrik-Jan Kornelis

About the artwork

The PIETER BOELE is a steamtug which has been given on long-term loan as a sailing monument to the foundation Dordt in Stoom in Dordrecht.

The tug was used after completion by the Boele company, then still with the shipyard in Slikkerveer, on the Rhine. Little information about that period is available on the internet. After more than 30 years the engine room was modernised in 1924 (again at Boele) for W. Tijsen, who had bought the ship in 1920. Because of the power of the tugboat it was called the "Executioner of the Rhine".

Because of the age of the owner and the fact that he had no successor, he sold the ship in 1965 to an American, who had the plan to make movies with the ship. That plan never came to fruition. The ship was laid up and discarded for sale in 1970, when it was bought by the shipyard to keep it out of the hands of the demolition crew.

The shipyard restored the ship in stop work and only in 1972 the ship could be christened PIETER BOELE by the 12 year old Pieter Boele, son of the then director of the shipyard, Geert Jan Boele. After that the tugboat was used as a management vessel for representation and at the end of the year the arrival of Saint Nicholas in Willemstad was broadcasted on television with the ship.

The cost of maintaining the ship in service and the fact that the financial situation of the shipyard continued to deteriorate made the shipyard decide in 1987 to donate the ship to the Prins Hendrik Maritime Museum in Rotterdam