Music, Scenery Spice Life on Oil Barge

Eldert van Dasler’s barge is his life and the Rhine is his home.

He even has a modern church organ on board, its pipes specially shortened to cope with the low ceiling.

“Music is my hobby,” he said. “But I can only really play it when the ship is in dock.”

Van Dasler is owner and skipper of a 2,100-ton oil barge, the Myra--named after his daughter.

The 44-year-old Dutchman lives on the Myra with his girlfriend Margriet, a crew of four and the ship’s dog Dimple. He only has one week away from it in three months.

Built in 1955, it has been refitted recently and freshly painted from bow to stern. It’s “shoes off” for the bridge or Van Dasler’s luxurious apartment at the boat’s rear or the crew’s in the bow.

Van Dasler’s apartment comprises three bedrooms, bathroom with washing machine and dryer, kitchen-dining area and spacious lounge with TV, stereo, potted plants and pictures.

Were it not for the vibration from the engines below and the moving view from the windows, you could be in any spick and span Dutch house.

He plies his trade between Rotterdam and the quays along the 520-mile stretch of Rhine as far as Basel in Switzerland.

With the opening of the Rhine-Danube canal, linking Europe’s two mighty rivers, he will have the chance to go all the way to the Black Sea.

But Van Dasler doubts if he will make the trip--at least not yet.

“There is no point my going to Eastern Europe. I don’t think there will be money to be made there for many years,” he said.

The Myra is a real workhorse. It has to run night and day to make money--Van Dasler paid $1.8 million for it.

A Rhine barge is a rather ungainly, virtually submerged vessel, lacking the grace of a yacht or the majesty of a supertanker. But it has a certain something.

“She’s a beauty, the Myra, that’s for sure,” said Van Dasler.

The engine room is clean but very noisy. New, twin 1,000-horsepower engines mean the Myra can move at 6 m.p.h. to 9 m.p.h. with a full load against the fast-flowing Rhine.

“It is the fastest barge on the river,” Van Dasler said.

“I am quicker than other vessels--two days to Mannheim and 3 1/2 to Basel. The more trips per month you do, the more money you make.”

As the Myra headed upriver into the heart of Germany, it overtook all other barges.

The Rhine, Germany’s trading lifeline, is very crowded. More than 7,000 self-propelled barges, the majority dry bulk, ply their trade on the river.

Of these, about a third are permanently inhabited by their owners. Others are owned by companies and have rotating crews.

There is a whole community of Dutch and Germans living on the water. The Netherlands has a number of special boarding schools catering to “ships’ children” of some of the 6,000 barges on Dutch waterways.

There is even a floating barge library in Rotterdam.

“Any job has its drawbacks. But I think the barge life is a pretty good one,” said Van Dasler, who has been working on ships for 26 years.

He grew up on a ship--his father’s--and went to one of the special boarding schools.

He usually works when most people are asleep.

“I like the night shift. Just me, the river and the Myra.”

His air-conditioned bridge looks out over the vessel’s 350 feet stretching into the distance.

The slow speed gives time to admire Cologne’s cathedral or the Lorelei rock on the beautiful, hilly stretch between Koblenz and Mainz. But it no longer registers with Van Dasler.

“I’ve seen it all a million times before,” he said.