ENGINE ROOM LULLABY (52) - Kromhout M2 aboard the Specht

Since 1983, Maarten Henket had been the owner of the Specht, a tugboat of the Amsterdammer type from 1926 with a one cylinder Kromhout M2 hot bulb engine from the same year. De engine is started by hand by ‘rocking’ the flywheel against the compression. ‘Then it should jump away,’ Henket tells. ‘You have to pull back your hand in time. There are all sorts of stories of people breaking their thumb or their wrist or even losing their thumb. I even heard of someone having been thrown completely over the flywheel with his head against the engine room wall. So it’s a job that demands concentration.’ Recently, Thom Koopmans became the new owner of the Specht. ‘I want to restore it and preserve it as a sailing ship,’ Koopmans says. ‘History like this needs to be preserved for the future.’ Henket starts the engine and sails with Koopmans through the Oosterdok and the Oude Waal in Amsterdam.