25 June 2021 – Day 5

Good morning!

After our long sunny day on Thursday, we spent the night anchoring near the firehouse ‘het Paard van Marken’. Cosy in our sleepingbags, we watched ‘lichtende nachtwolk’ (shining clouds) and the supermoon on deck. Self-made glühwein and brownies perfectly rounded off the evening and we went back to our bunks happily.

Waking up the next morning, half of the group took a morning swim, while the other half did some morning yoga. Afterwards we prepared the upcoming meeting with the strategic alliance. For this meeting, we planned to re-enact the week and share our experiences. We even included the guitar to create a special atmosphere. While preparing the meeting, we all recognized how much we had developed as a group over the last months preparing the journey. At lunch time, we arrived at Pampus. It is a much smaller island than expected and one of our crewmembers even did a swim around it. We welcomed Freek van Muiswinkel, Jan Haarhuis (both from the Utrecht University), Susanne van Weelden (Technical University Eindhoven) and Arjen Wals (Wageningen University) from the strategic alliance and together with a guide, we visited the island and were updated about the plans to turn the Island of the grid and completely circular.

The meeting offered us an opportunity to explore with the alliance how Sailing for Impact aligns with their strategic vision for innovation in Dutch higher education. The ship functions as an accelerator for developing key skills for collaborative and transformative research. The crew emphasized how important the adaptive planning used during the previous nine months was for the project to succeed. Covid-19 forced us to continually change our plans, we learned that this is also applicable to research where things never go as planned. Also, in that respect sailing functions as a good metaphor for ‘knowing as you go’. The dialogue with the representatives of the alliance allowed us to make an inventory of the soft skills next to academic skills that we gained.

We set the sail and waved goodbye. On our way to Hoorn, some of us stayed at the stern of the boat to learn more about sailing a clipper. Even the slight rain did not stop us from staying on deck asking our skipper and his mate questions. We ended our day with a nice little walk in Hoorn and some music playing as we made dinner.

Written by Jildou Smit, Michelle Cheyne & Ricarda Wenisch