In memoriam: Dinand de Ridder

I’ve just heard that my good friend Dinand de Ridder has died after a hard fight with metastatic lymphoma.

When I joined the Kustzeilers in 2006, I was immediately asked to help organise the 24 Hour Sailing Race. Dinand was already chairman by then. I was welcomed straight into a great bunch of people, and he and I clicked from the start. After I took over the software completely the following year, we kept it going for quite a while. At some point Dinand and I had both had enough at exactly the same moment. We’d been doing our little act for 12 years and it was time for the next generation.

Marion and Edith hit it off right away too, so every year at the end of August it became a more and more familiar reunion. Dinand could tell grand, gripping stories about his past at sea and in politics, and about all the other things that interested him. He was clearly enormously proud of his children, and fortunately he just got to see their daughter inaugurated as professor of paediatrics at the LUMC.

I have wonderful memories of sailing as crew on my first Azores trip in 2015. It was only a week, but we had a fantastic time. Sadly, we weren’t writing this blog back then. The boat has never been cleaner and everything went incredibly smoothly.

After that we saw each other a bit less, but in April 2025 Dinand and Edith were of course at my surprise party. A wonderful reunion. I later understood that he was already ill by then.

A few months ago I heard that the treatment was coming to an end and that he had chosen not to keep on with treatment indefinitely. I sent him a long message and got a long, thoughtful reply. Sadly, that’s how we had to say goodbye. I’m at sea right now, the place he loved so much. And he kept reading along here right up to the end.

Dinand, rest in peace. Arnold and I will raise a beer to you tonight.

”And now you have to stop!”

PS One small addition: I had the night watch last night and there was a beautiful full moon, and I really had the feeling that he, our Great Helmsman, was watching over Merrimac.