Further, the man Himself could tell readers that he built Ngahue 00 all alone at the tender age of 5. He will probably gloss over the fact that upon its launching in a quiet corner of Hamilton Lake in New Zealand, Ngahue 00 sank (well, kind of; it floated thanks to her wooden construction, and that he was only spared costly salvage fees by a devoted father who jumped into the lake to retrieve his son's noble but now very wet craft and drive it back home.

After the debacle of Ngahue 00, Himself did the only wise thing available to man (boy!) and worked hard to save lots and lots of money to purchase Ngahue (I) & (II) & (III) & (IV) from a reputable Swedish boatbuilder. And believe me, they don't get more serious and reputable than Christoph and Magnus Rassy (the latter describing himself as a true Viking with whom Himself had the honour of having breakfast at the Yard in December 2003 - we were both equally timid so that our exchange limited itself to Magnus saying: "so you're here to see your boat?" and the intrepid Kiwi meekly answering: "Yes, indeed I am" - a delightful experience!).

The charttable of Ngahue IV contains a great many certificates from the U.K., the Netherlands and Belgium attesting to his supposed off-shore and ocean sailing skills and even medical abilities when at sea. But as Himself will modestly explain, most were obtained simply by doing reasonably well at nautical exams. But after more than 30 years and multiple tens of thousands of miles sailed, he's still trying to find an honest answer to that critical question once asked by a Department of Transport Yachtmaster Examiner to the sailing instructor at the Solent School of Yachting (where Himself was probably one of the less distinguished pupils, albeit highly appreciated for his friendly and sociable attitude): "Can he sail?". This question is best left unanswered... Mind you, it has been said that the various numbers of Ngahue boats and Himself occasionally put up a damn pretty good show of pretending to be able to sail well, for instance that occasion when they beat a French boat crewed by 6 sturdy mariners from a famous Brittany sailing institution "Les Glénans" to arrive in Penzance first after a hard afternoon's sailing: Ngahue II (on that occasion) got there first thanks to one (not so young!) man and his Hallberg-Rassy installed pushbuttons versus a full crew of six young and strong crew in the other boat. Proof, as if it were needed, that the Hallberg-Rassy push-button sailing concept can indeed work just fine!!! On the opposite end of the scale, Him- and Herself pride themselves on coming last in most legs of their ARC trips undertaken, thus proving that their Hallberg-Rassy 53 very definitely can be sailed VERY slowly! Oh, and a final point to note aboute Himself: he is vaguely "Disnoid", and very definitely a big fan of Donald Duck...

For the dreamers, here's an aerial picture of the Hallberg-Rassy Yard in Ellös, where the Ngahues I to 4 have been built as well as several thousand other Hallberg-Rassies, all delivered precisely and punctually on schedule (this is a major point of honour for the Yard).

There remains one matter to explain now: how did the Man Himself, who for years was an adept of single-handed sailing (despite possessing two functional hands - he never really understood the logic of that terminology) come to, well, doublehanded sailing with the Lady Herself? It is all to be attributed to this 'could-you-really-find-a- nicer-person' often referred to as "Pappie Louis", pictured here with a glass of something (the content of which is best not divulged) on Ngahue II. In the first weeks of ownership of Ngahue II, the Man Himself and Pappie Louis set off on a sailing weekend and were surprised, like many others that day, by a short and extremely violent summer storm (our anemometer clocked up well in excess of 50 Kts of wind). Pappie Louis will describe this as the one and only time in his life that he nearly sank in a boat (a slight exaggeration the Man Himself will retort); yes, Ngahue II heeled over a bit (we were hit by a sudden hard wind gust with all sails up), but that was it. Suffice it to say that Louis and Marco, who had been good friends before, were even closer friends afterwards. And so it also came to pass that Pappie Louis one cold winter evening in Brussels' Laeken district introduced Himself to the Lady Herself. His reasoning was perfect simplicity: the Lady Herself would like to sail more than she can do at Du Vent et des Voiles and Himself had a boat with lots of extra space. Just to clarify: both Pappie Louis and the Lady Herself hail from the same village near Liège in Belgium, and both currently live in Brussels...

When Himself and Herself were navigating the Pacific Ocean and had loads of time to think about sailing in general and the Hallberg-Rassy Connectie (HRC) in particular, they thought it would be a good thing to propose to their sailing club, the addition of a second award. The HRC at this point already posses the "Poerstamper Bokaal", awarded to members who had made a special contribution to HRC. This new trophy, Him- and Herself thought, could be awarded each year by the HRC committee to a member who, that sailing season, had surpassed his or her usual comfort zone in sailing. The HRC Committee considered this offer very carefully and decided to take the idea on board. Above a photo of the trophy, which for its first year was awarded to HR43 'Flair'; we were honoured to be allowed to co-present the trophy to Pierre Niesten, owner of HR43 'Flair', together with Robbert-Jan Poerstamper, President of the HRC, during the November 2022 Captain's Dinner, where Magnus Rassy was also present. A small silver-coloured plaque with each year's winner will be added and stuck on to the trophy's base. We hope this trophy will continue to encourage members of the HRC "Connectie" to look beyond their traditional borders, whilst of course staying safe and enjoying the pleasure of sailing their Hallberg-Rassy!