DREAM BOAT
“I t’s always been my dream to be active in the yachting industry,” confesses Prince Bernhard van Oranje, founder of the Loosdrecht-based company Waterdream. The boatbuilding firm has just launched its second model: the 52’ California. “Perhaps given my background it was predestined, but it’s not how my career began.”
He is, of course, referring to a childhood spent on the water. The second son of Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and Pieter van Vollenhoven, van Oranje is no longer in direct succession to the throne, since his cousin Willem-Alexander became king, but he remains a member of the Dutch royal family. As you would expect in a dynasty with a long-held passion for yachts and yachting, every summer was spent taking part in watersports off the back of boats, cruising the Mediterranean and, of course, the country’s waterways.
“My grandfather had a number of different boats,” he recalls, “I think he started with a 31.3-metre De Vries Lentsch yacht that was made especially for very shallow waters – that was a beautiful boat, and it’s still out there for rentals.” Then, he explains, there was an “ugly but functional” Grand Banks yacht, a sportfisher, a 25.6-metre motor yacht, “like the elephant”, he says.
