Description: Sailing Dutch waters since 1928
Bries is a double ender steel boat designed and built by Max Oertz in Hamburg, Germany in 1928. The vessel was called a Küstenjollenkreuzer, with a slender V-shaped fore section that gradually flattened out and exhibited the typical light-displacement lines that are now common so many years later, giving ships greater speeds.
After the end of the second world war, Mr. P.J. Soetens bought Bries from the survivors of Mister Otto Verdoorn, who died in Germany in 1944, by that time well-known as Fantasia II, maybe her original name. Soetens rescued Bries from a miserable state, with the interior full of water, that had destroyed the entire beautiful wooden mahogany interior paneling. It was a 2 year rebuilt project. Little is known about Mr. Soetens sailing activity during this period.
In 1950, Mr. Olifiers bought the boat. The deck house was painted in white. He sailed Bries to Skagerrak, Norway in 1951 where they faced a severe storm that affected compass and navigation due to a lightning strike, and they were later assisted by a Swedish fishing boat.