““Nico” my Mother screamed as my Father tossed me off the back of a small sailing skiff, (not unlike the one below) into the freezing water of Spaarndam. That was my earliest memory of boats. It was 1951, not long after the war, life was probably less precious in Holland in those days than it is today. I was five years old, with the end of a rope tied around my tiny waist. I sometimes wonder why such a frightening memory, such a rude introduction to sailing, was the start of my lifetime obsession with boats.”   I guess that my fascination with boats also has something to do with my Mother’s genetics and not my Father’s idiotic compulsion, to teach me how to swim. Not that seafaring is unusual for any Dutchman. About half the country lays below sea level and Holland was once one of the great seafaring nations, the Dutch charting the oceans of the world.   Z eeman , was my mother’s maiden-name, translated from Dutch, it m