Dutch Houseflags of Shipping Companies [d]

Last modified: 2010-01-30 by jarig bakker
Keywords: daanen | damhof | van driel | dock express | defais & verschure |
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• Scheepvaartbedrijf Van Dam
• Damhof, Delfzijl
• Dammers & van der Heide, Rotterdam
• Defais & Verschure
• De Kaap Scheepswerf
• Dekker BV
• Delta Bunkerstation
• De Schutter Groep
• De Waal Shipbuilding
• Van Diepen, Waterhuizen (no image)
• BS Dintel
• Dock Express
• Dockwise
• van Driel

• Daanen, Nijmegen
• Damen
• Doeksen
• Dredging V.O.2
• Dredging VO 2 International
• Dubbelman Shipping

• The Netherlands
• The Netherlands - Index of all pages
• Houseflags of Dutch Shipping Companies
• Houseflags of Shipping Companies

Scheepvaartbedrijf Van Dam

‘Scheepvaartbedrijf Van Dam’ or Van Dam Shipping Company at Delfzijl (province of Groningen, NE of Netherlands) is a young firm owned by Jan van Dam, son of a barge owner, and his wife Ankie, active on Europe’s waterways since 1991.
New ships have been bought since 1996; the current fleet consists of eight units named after Ms Ankie and the various daughters. The vessels - all Multipurpose Dry Cargo Carriers - sail in European waters, most of them under the Dutch flag; a few are registered in Antigua.  Delfzijl is base of operations since 2006.  Van Dam is also active in ISM i.e. international safety management.

Company website, English version: An interesting section is ‘Trip reports’ (texts, photos) on current business of several ships: see left menu.  (In one instance some boat people are rescued.) As we might expect the flagoid prominently shown on above pages is really the house flag: blue, a small red stripe on top and a white stylized steering wheel in the centre in front of which is placed a red initial ‘D’ (no serifs).   National colours.

The real item is shown flying on ‘Susanne’ alongside Groningen Province and Wagenborg (company logo on the bow); In a Finnish setting.
Jan Mertens, 23 Feb 2009

Damhof, Delfzijl

H. Damhof, Delfzijl - Spanish style BWB, black "D".
Source: Brown's Flags and Funnels of Shipping Companies of the World, compiled by J.L. Loughran, Glasgow, 1995.
Jarig Bakker, 17 Nov 2005

Dammers & van der Heide, Rotterdam

Dammers & van der Heide's Shipping & Trading Co., Rotterdam - blue flag, red "D".
Source: Brown's Flags and Funnels of Shipping Companies of the World, compiled by J.L. Loughran, Glasgow, 1995.
Jarig Bakker, 17 Nov 2005

Defais & Verschure

Jan Mertens reported this link. Defais & Verschure, 's Hertogenbosch - red flag, white "V.D.".
N.V. Defais & Verschure’s Scheepvaartbedrijf voor Handel en Industrie - Share of 500 Hfl. Jan. 1922. Edited: 01.01.1922
Place: ‘s-Hertogenbosch - Shipping Company founded 1918
Jarig Bakker, 9 Mar 2005

De Kaap Scheepswerf

Scheepswerf (shipyard) De Kaap (“The Cape”) is located at Meppel on the Meppelerdiep, a waterway leading into the Zwartemeer and ultimately into the IJsselmeer. Building small coasters, light inland vessels and sightseeing boats since 1939, De Kaap also specifically mentions the lengthening of ships. Company website (in Dutch).
The ‘Producten’ (“products”) section shows the various sorts of vessels De Kaap is able to build, and ‘Actueel’ (“current”) what is being undertaken at the moment.
On the website, De Kaap’s logo looks like a ribbed triangle rendered in green, white, and dark blue.

Yet another flag offered on German eBay, item no. 6623520355 (auction end 30 April 2006) shows a related but different design: a white flag bears a green triangle, top down, made up of stripes getting gradually thinner towards the base (i.e. upwards), and interrupted by the words ‘DE KAAP’ in a rather nice font (serifed, but which one?); in the lower fly is the place name MEPPEL rendered in a simpler font without serifs.
Size of flag is given as ca. 95cm x 145cm.   By the way… surely this kind of green has a specific name?
Jan Mertens, 7 Jul 2006

Seafoam? Or, less poetically, 0:153:102.
Eugene Ipavec, 10 Jul 2006

Dekker BV

The Dutch firm Dekker BV at Papendrecht (on the Beneden Merwede River, to the north of Dordrecht), had its flag offered on German eBay.
Actually the offer still stands (till 15 Sept. 2006) and bears item no. 230025810677.  Of simple design, the flag is green bearing a large white initial ‘D’, without serifs in the centre.

Whether the company was a ‘Reederei’ (shipping company) as the offer maintains remains to be seen, all I could find was this snippet on the Boskalis website:
(paraphrasing from Dutch version) In an effort to strengthen the firm’s position on the home market, a number of companies, Dekker at Papendrecht among them, is taken over in 1990. (Takeovers in that period typically concern dredging or construction firms.)

BosKalis, of course, is the well-known Dutch dredging and building contractor known abroad as Royal Boskalis Westminster. (Dekker is not mentioned in the history section of the English version which is admittedly oriented internationally.
Jan Mertens, 6 Sep 2006

Delta Bunkerstation

A bunkering firm established at Dordrecht, Bunkerstation Delta BV has apparently not looked very hard for a distinctive house flag.  See it as a design on the company site, and on one of many Vlootschouw pages (vessel ‘Calanda’).
It consists of the town flag with ‘DELTA’ in black placed in a white vertical stripe near the hoist and ‘DORDRECHT’ in black in the central white stripe.  The design is based on the flag of the city of Dordrecht.
For a photo showing two tiny house flags (and another drawing),  see the ‘Delta III’ on the Binnenvaart site.

Some history provided by the site: founded in 1955 by Gerrit Bernouw, dealer of Esso lubrication oils for inland navigation; Gijs van Loon having become a business partner, the firm was renamed ‘Bunkerstation Delta’.  Not counting a tiny boat, the first vessel was bought in 1958 to become a floating supply shop. One large supply vessel replaced two smaller ones and two bunker vessels were bought from Esso; a third bunker vessel was built in 2000. Due to changes in ownership, the firm is now named ‘Bunkerstation Delta Stolk & Berends BV’.

Apart from the usual services offered by bunkering stations (i.e. oil supplied at site and - mostly - via boats, shop, drinking water), Delta sells motor boats and offers a recycling service.
Jan Mertens, 10 Jul 2006

De Schutter Groep

An unusual house flag is flown by Schutter Group, a multinational firm with head office at Capelle aan den IJssel, east of Rotterdam. See it on the Company homepage. It is white bearing two blue vertical stripes in front of which an orange, and rather tortuous, initial ‘S’ appears (within blue holding lines). For good measure, the words ‘DE SCHUTTER / GROEP’ are added, in blue, to the right of this logo.

Quote from home page: “Schutter Group, founded in 1847, is a privately owned and independent Group of companies involved in quality inspections and the rendering of logistic services, mainly in the field of Food and Feed commodities and products. (…) Schutter Group maintains a global network of offices (and works) in compliance with a number of Quality Standards and accredited by (inter)national Trade Organizations, Accreditation Institutes and Governmental Organizations.”
Further exploration of the site tells us what this means. The ‘Products’ section of the ‘Company’ chapter for instance shows a number of products, mainly foodstuffs, but also steel, oil, and forest products.
As to ‘Activities’ (same chapter), these range from inspecting and testing to warehousing and transport (a barge fleet is mentioned), and numerous related services.
Schutter has a number of branches in four continents, being represented for instance in Argentina, Russia, Ivory Coast, China, India, etc.
Jan Mertens, 27 Jul 2006

De Waal Shipbuilding

The house flag of ‘De Waal BV’ at Werkendam (on the Nieuwe Merwede river, East of Dordrecht) is really a variant of the Dutch national flag (photo of push boat ‘Riad’ plus logo lower down this page).
Company site:
Founded in 1938, De Waal (named after yet another river, in fact) builds and repairs “everything which concerns propulsion and manoeuvering of inland vessels”, also coasters and fishing boats.  The ‘Producten’ (products) section shows what this means: screws, rudders, steering systems, automobile cranes, etc.
Another important activity is outfitting casco’s or hulls built elsewhere. To give an example, the hull of the ‘Riad’ mentioned above was built in Romania whereas another Dutch firm, Hoogendijk admittedly outfitted the casco but De Waal furnished the screws, the steering system, and the rudders.

The flag can be described: on a white field are placed the national colours RWB,  the white stripe containing  the company name – seemingly in the same font as used on De Waal’s site – with the words ‘DE’ and ‘WAAL’ interrupted, again, by the national colours.  In both cases, the Dutch flag is truncated at the right side, in the second case neatly paralleling the ‘W’. (Perhaps ‘BV’ follows the name, but that I cannot see…).
Jan Mertens, 17 Jul 2006

Van Diepen, Waterhuizen

BS Dintel

A locally famous bunker boat operator, BS Dintel is a Dutch firm established at Dinteloord, a village where the River Dintel joins the Volkerak, a part of the large estuary in South Holland/Zeeland.  Homepage, Dutch only: Founded in 1967 by A.M. van der Kolk, Bunkerschip Dintel now operates a little fleet of bunker vessels-cum-floating supermarkets.  All this time the main supplier has been BP mineral oils whereas the shop offers hardware, food, clothing, paint, etc.

See the ‘Personeel’ page for the vessels ‘Dintel 2’ and ‘Dintel 3’. While discussing this firm with Jarig in the summer of 2006, following links came to light: 1, 2, 3, showing, more or less clearly, a green house flag (mostly a pennant) not to be mistaken for the BP flag with a green field.  (The second photo shows a white flag, too, and Jarig spotted a white Van der Kolk flag bearing a logo.)
A Vlootschouw page shows a drawing: green pennant, white letters ‘BS DINTEL’ and company name ‘A.M. van der Kolk B.V.’. See list of suppliers below photo of barge ‘Variatie’: at the time I had found a clear photo only to lose its location again...
Well, thanks to Marktplaats (Dutch auction site) this is no longer a problem. Offer no. 173241227, accessed today, shows a nylon pennant measuring 40 cm by 105 cm, pic attached as < nl~bsdi.jpg> .  Put up by Ghis of Westdorpe, Zeeland. The green looks rather dark but it is safe to assume these are the BP green & yellow colours.
(Marktplaats offers another pennant, of the same size, under no. 176393781 - accessed today - put up by “skipflag” of Maastricht, Limburg.  The photo is of better quality but there is some perspective.)
Jan Mertens, 2 Jul 2008

Dock Express

Jan Mertens reported this link with mainly Dutch houseflags. Dock Express - white flag, orange ship, charged with black "DOCK EXPRESS".
Jarig Bakker, 3 Mar 2005

Dockwise

Dockwise is an important maritime heavy goods transporter which does a good job of informing the public through its website, full of interesting facts, for instance in the ‘History’ section. Dockwise is the result of a merger, operative from 1 January 1994 on, of the Dutch companies Wijsmuller at IJmuiden and Dock Express at Rhoon, establishing itself at Meer, just over the Belgian border.  In 2001, Offshore Heavy Transport was acquired and in the same year, company headquarters moved to Breda, back to the Netherlands.  There are several offices and agents on other continents.

As to the Dockwise fleet, this is necessarily versatile.  Quote from the ‘Fleet’ section: “Five open-deck heavy transport vessels and four heavy transport and product carriers are mainly deployed for marine transportation of drilling rigs and offshore platform components. Two dock-type vessels are primarily used for transporting port and industry-related cargo. Four other vessels are permanently deployed as luxury yacht carriers.”

This last activity is assured by Dockwise Yacht Transport, an earlier common venture of Wijsmuller and Dock Express.  And according to Dockwise, it operates the world’s larges heavy transport vessel, the ‘Blue Marlin’.  More on various loads – including some improbable ones – in the ‘News’ section.
Furthermore, an important engineering department works for customers as well as for the Dockwise fleet itself.

See the July, 2004 article concerning the ‘Transshelf’, formerly Russian and now registered in the Netherlands Antilles, plus the photo showing the house flag hoisted to mark the acquisition:
This photo shows the flag of a vivid blue and bears a large white disk with a black initial ‘D’ in it.  Compare the Dock Express and Wijsmuller flags on FOTW-ws, and you will see that a Wijsmuller variant was the wiser choice.
Jan Mertens, 16 Apr 2006

van Driel

Van Driel, Rotterdam - vertical triband BWB, countercharged "WVD".
Source: Brown's Flags and Funnels of British and Foreign Steamship Companies, compiled by F.J.N. Wedge, Glasgow, 1926 [wed26]
Jarig Bakker, 26 January 2005