FIT FOR
A PRINCE
54 CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2018
T
all and elegant, Budi slides through the water
in the Loosdrechtse Plassen, a large natural
area between Utrecht and Amsterdam. She
may be 56 years old, but this little ship has the
kind of handsome looks that never fade. Her recent
restoration was of great help, of course. One of the men
responsible for that, Roelof Noteboom, is standing at the
helm and courses away from the Royal Sailing Club
Loosdrecht, where Budi berths. “Take my word for it,
Prince Bernhard drank quite a lot of his favourite
champagne on this extended deck,” he says.
He would have turned 107 this year on 29 June.
However, opinions differ, because according to the birth
certificate of Bernhard Friedrich Eberhard Leopold Julius
Kurt Carl Gottfried Peter Graf von Biesterfeld, he was
born on 28 June, 1911. Oh well, there were moreThe late Dutch Prince Bernhard became a controversial figure,
but on his 50th birthday in 1961, the country’s business
community gave him Budi. Today she’s in grand form
mistakes to come in the life of the man who would later
marry Princess Juliana and stand by her side during her
reign.
He was not universally admired, Prince Bernhard. The
royal rascal, they called him. He loved going fast – fast
aeroplanes, fast cars, especially Ferrari, those that he
had supplied in his own special shade of green, only to
resell them with profit after three years. Royal or not,
he was not averse to a business deal here or there,
perhaps to help finance, among other things, his affairs
and illegitimate children. He invariably asked for
money for cutting ribbons and other princely duties.
In other ways too, he collected great sums.
In the end, he was caught. Prince Bernhard took a
total of $1.1 million worth of bribes, in return for his
advocacy of the Dutch purchase of, among other things,Top: Prince
Bernhard is shown
around Budi on her
launch in 1961
Facing page: Budi
today, after
restoration by
Roelof NoteboomWORDS MARCO BARNEVELD PHOTOGRAPHS KEES STUIP