ss Mohammed Reza Shah
Another photo from the 'fly-by picture taking company' and probably taken in the English Channel. Here the Mohamed Reza Shah can be seen at full throttle and in an unloaded (ballast) position.
The Mohammed Reza Shah was the sister ship of the Reza Shah the Great and as it was my father who took the pictures below of the christening ceremony and launching of the ship. The official launching ceremony recognizing the “floating” of a ship by name and marked with the traditional breaking of a bottle of champagne across the bow. The blessing of ships dates as far back as the third millennium BC, when the ancient Babylonians, according to a narrative, sacrificed an oxen to the gods upon completion of a ship.
The founder of the Verolme Dock and Shipyard Company was Cornelis Verolme. This yard became one of the biggest yards in Holland in rather a short period of time. Cornelis Verolme was a born entrepreneur.
My father's friend Lou Visser was a mathematics teacher at the School for Ship's Engineers in Rotterdam. In that capacity he was invited to most christening and launching ceremonies, this time of the Verolme Botlek Yard in Rozenburg west of Rotterdam. He brought my father along the occasion. Lou Visser, his wife Rie and son Hans are walking towards the happening.
The moment of christening by breaking a bottle of champagne across the bow of the Mohammed Reza Shah. Not very well visible in this small picture.
And here she enters her element, water at last. It looks like she is keeling over, well just a little bit, but all went well. After this the ship would be moored alongside one of the Verolme Yard's berths. Hordes of yard people would swarm over the ship to ready it for its first voyage. That would take at least months.
Rie Visser - see above - was born as Lagendaal and had a legendary soccer playing brother by the name of Wim Lagendaal. He was affectionately called by the public and the press the Dutch Soccer Canon. He had a devastating kick and scored a lot of goals in the Dutch soccer competition and also in the international soccer competition. When asked how he did it he simply answered: "Just before I kick the ball I close my eyes and hope for the best!" Nobody knows whether this was a joke or the truth. Later he became a chief police commissioner in Rotterdam.
Wim Lagendaal is number 23 on the top scorers list with 13 goals. However, he scored those 13 goals in only 15 games. In one game he even scored 4 times! Leading the list is tops corer Patrick Kluivert with 40 goals in 79 games. If he had the same average score as Wim Lagendaal he would have scored more than 68 times! Ruud van Nistelrooy scored 18 goals in 36 games. With the same average of Wim Lagendaal he would have scored 31 times. I suppose that Wim is the real top scorer here! He is more than comparable with today's Gullit, van Basten, Rijkaard en van Nistelrooy.
The Dutch soccer team in 1934 that beat Switzerland at Bern in that year with 4 - 3. Wim Lagendaal is the player kneeling at the left.
Wim Lagendaal played in the Rotterdam soccer club Xerxes which produced many famed soccer players. During WW II Wim Lagendaal, a police lieutenant in Rotterdam then, helped many members of Xerxes to avoid the ill famed 'Arbeidseinsatz' of the German occupiers. It meant that all able men from 18 to 50 years had to report for work in Germany. He succeeded by appointing them to assistant police officers. The unlucky ones, who were in fact deported to Germany, were put to work in factories producing all kinds of war material. Those factories were subject to continuous bombardments especially at the end of the war. Many were killed also in my neighbourhood. My father, like many others, did not report to the Germans and hid in a especially created small secrete space built in the cellar of my grandparents' house. My grandfather was a man of many skills who got the idea and also created it.
For an overview of all the other ships on
which I sailed please visit the Marine
page.