fastonwater

Going Dutch
The following article by Rosalind Nott, on her visit to the Velden factory in Holland, first appeared in Powerboat and Waterskiing Magazine, February 1980.

Walking through the small Dutch town of Boxtel, it is unlikely that you would pick out three-times World OZ Champion, Cees van der Velden from the other inhabitants. Perhaps the only clue for someone in the ‘know’ would be his Beneteau jacket, but when this inconspicuous man pulls up outside his factory – no-one would guess that this is the birthplace for the season’s OZ catamarans for the Johnson racing team.

There is no marker around – no glaring posters on the exterior walls – but once inside the office, Cees’s world of boating comes to the fore. Old posters liter the walls mingling with cartoons of some of his rivals who in turn take their place alongside dried winner’s garlands. A few boating magazines are scattered on the sofa and the large office desk happily accommodates a glut of paperwork.

Everyone of the townsfolk knows the name of Cees van der Velden, but few would recognise the alter-ego that takes over when he leaves the sleepy town and hurtles around circuits throughout the world risking life at dare-devil speeds.
Cees joins the prestigious and often lonely line-up of only three circuit boat builders for the factory teams at the top end of the scale, and all three have a lot in common. Their knowledge and qualification for building boats comes entirely from their experience and years in the sport combined with a strange desire to build these catamarans but apart from that – not a lot else.

Before racing professionally, Cees was an electronics engineer dealing with television sets and did not make a break from this ordinary occupation to take up with his now busy business until 1974. By this time he had been racing for eight years beginning in the sportsboat class with a V bottom powered by a mighty 65hp Mercury. Mercury had invited him to join their team in 1971 and true to the ‘Flying Dutchman’ adage, he flipped in the first race. But it transpired to be a truly flying start to his climb to success and he took third place in the World Championships.

Powered by a TIIX in 1972 he won that hallowed World title. In 1974 Cees and Renato Molinari were not exactly seeing eye-to-eye and having bought his new Molinari catamaran, Cees picked up his boat and walked over to OMC. ‘I admit that my first boat was a complete Molinari copy, but the boat took me to the World title in Cardiff. I then progressed to my second hull and my win in Rotterdam. OMC were looking for boats at the time and I found guy in Holland who built them to my instructions. It all seemed to grow from there. I won the European Championships in ’76 and then in ’77 I went back again to Mercury. Billy Seebold and I then worked together on the team boats, but for various reasons, I left, and yes, I went back to OMC.’

‘Anyone can build a catamaran, really. The difference between a good boat and a bad one is inevitably the equipment you put on the back. I had no idea what wood to use at the beginning, but the timber merchant soon put me right. There have really been no major alterations in hull designs, just a small change here and there, but nothing revolutionary has happened yet.’

Cees’s factory covers 600 square metres and he employs only three men. He does the spraying, rigging and testing himself – everything except the actual construction. ‘You can tell so much from the testing. I know if there is something not quite right with the hulls – and I should. It’s my job after all this racing to be able to spot the slightest thing wrong with say, the cornering, and it’s also my job to be able to alter it. A lot of the secret is being able to build a horse for the course. The difference between a boat for Bristol and one for Paris is obviously considerable.’

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Cees’s win in Paris last season showed he must be getting the right consistency for the mixture. The water that he uses for testing is twenty minutes drive but Cees is never beaten; I’m waiting for an earthquake to bring the water to my doorstep.’

Cees has no boat building contract with OMC, but he can produce around t 20 hulls a year, taking about two weeks to build one Velden. But Cees has not put all his eggs in one basket. He builds OE hulls as well, and this year at the Paris Show he unveiled some production hulls that he has built in conjunction with his sponsor, Beneteau. There are three models of sportsboat, the 4.60 outboard, the 5.40 outboard/inboard and the 6.40 inboard/outboard.

‘I built the prototypes for Beneteau and tested them until I was satisfied. Beneteau now build them in France. I don’t hope to make my first million from them – I would like to make my second million!’

A squeaky wheel gets the oil, and Cees certainly has made enough noise both when he raced for Mercury and OMC. He believed that he could be the best – and he wanted the best equipment to prove it, and if it meant changing camps, then he did it. For this reason many have missed the lighter side of Cees – and he can be very amusing.

Although his desk may not be the pillar of organisation, his engine room certainly makes up for it. Every spare part is in its labelled box, and the whole room is most workmanlike.

Cees has flipped and barrel-rolled throughout his career and despite many thinking he had lost his nerve in ’78, he came back last season to win the World ON title. Perhaps his best victory was the calculating way he competed in the European Canon series and took the trophy after an amazing series of races.

When you look into the future with Cees it is difficult to decide where this temperamental Dutchman will go next. He adores his family and the style of life in Boxtel. He is the only man to change his colours and win the Worlds, one year with a Mercury and the next a Johnson. He can be dedicated, serious and calculating, as a true professional should be, but the softer side he leaves for only those who will take the trouble to find it and for his family.

‘I believe that we must encourage younger drivers into the sport. This is where the future of racing lies. The present drivers cannot race forever. We have grown with the increase in speed, but we must let the young men take the wheel. You can only learn by experience.’ Cees thinks that he may retire in two years time but when the Dutchman hangs up his helmet, racing Cees style, with all the unorthodox moves, will take a bit of the life-blood of circuit racing with it…

1982 JPS Velden with 3.5 litre Evinrude engine. Cutaway Illustration by Tony Matthews

Three photos of the Velden factory at Boxtel. Taken from the above Powerboat and waterskiing article, February, 1980.

Above: 1981. The three-man JPS team; Tom Percival, Francois Salabert and Bob Spalding in their Velden Cats. Photo by Yannis Argyropoulos.

The Velden safety cell

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The following photos are of a Velden hull, built and raced by Cees van der Velden in 1976, and now owned by Kevin Cross in Australia. He wrote, saying: on your driver profile of Cees van der Velden you have a photo at the bottom of a boat driven by Cees. The boat I have was brought to Australia and raced by Cees then went through several owners here, with great success. I am wondering if the boat in the photo on your profile is the same boat, it has a striking similarity to the boat I am restoring. The boat I have was built in Nov 1976. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated as I am trying to piece together the histroy of the boat I have.

I asked recently how the restoration was going: I'm afraid she is pretty ugly at the moment, after stripping off the fibreglass on the deck and removing additons to the transom I am left with a hull requiring a lot of work. Still I guess this is the same as any restoration project. I've attached a couple of photos to give you the idea. I have cut down the cell to make what will look like a cockpit fitting the era. The hull is a bare shell with no internal fittings, so i'll be starting from scratch with the fitout. I need to replace some stringers and frames immediately in front to the motor bracket (yet to be installed), repair patches on the hull, epoxy the deck and "engine bay", then bogging and sanding, sanding ,sanding- you get the idea.