Ed and Christine – in our early 60’s and proud to be unconventional in most things we do! Ed is Dutch nationality and Christine has both Dutch and British nationality – but we travel constantly and make our home and businesses wherever we are. We met in 1996 while working together on a project in the Netherlands and have been inseparable ever since, getting married in 2004.
Our passion has always been boats – starting with a small speed boat, then various motor cruisers before learning to sail in 2012. Our objective in life has always been to save up to buy a trawler style yacht to live aboard and cruise the world. We achieved this objective in 2022 when we took delivery of our Selene 60 Ocean Trawler. Since then we have been developing our technical boat skills into new areas and learning every square inch of the new boat. We hope to actually start cruising full-time in the summer of 2025 after completing the commissioning and warranty work.
We mix business and pleasure – in principle we will be cruising the world until we are too old to live on our boat. We hope that will be many years to come. However, we still need to earn a living and we’re too young and motivated not to keep our minds busy – whatever our intentions might be some days, doing nothing has never been in our song book. We sold the UK based travel business in 2018 which kept us tied to one place with a timetable and a lot of stress! Our priority now is to follow the lifestyle we have promised ourselves since the day we met.
Our careers have been an opportunity for us both to develop a wide ranging set of skills – separately until 1996 and since then, always working side by side in all our ventures. Over the last few years, this learning curve has probably been even steeper than before. Our skills are complimentary and between us there isn’t very much about a small business – or a complex boat – we can’t tackle. We have run our own successful companies in France, the UK, Malta, the USA, BVI and the Netherlands – some of them very small for a very niche purpose and others have turned over multi-millions each year. We have also worked for large multi-national companies and household name brands in our earlier careers so have always applied big company thinking and structure to small company environments.
Our portfolio of business interests now includes a diverse range of work which we take on as and when opportunities arise to spark our interest. We work on general business consultancy projects for small companies – helping with specific projects, advising them how to start up and grow or just to provide an extra pair of hands in a crisis. We offer marine consultancy and support to small boat owners at affordable costs (we don’t do superyachts!). We design new electrical or electronics systems, for example, build or procure a water-maker, decide the specification they really need for a new yacht, set up a maintenance management system or work out spare parts stock and procurement. This service also extends to providing a type of remote hotline service where we’re available to troubleshoot all the things that inevitably go wrong on a boat. We also act for clients looking to build new semi-custom yachts – developing the specification, introducing the client to the shipyard, negotiating the best price, sourcing equipment, supporting the build process and helping with delivery and commissioning. In this particular case, our fees are covered by the shipyard so the service is free to the client.
Through our IT company, we offer web design and development for small businesses or private individuals (such as sailing blogs of course!). Our clients don’t want to pay the sky-high prices normally quoted for this type of work and coupled with our hosting service, ongoing site support, online marketing assistance and social media, our IT company can put together a nice cost-effective packages customised to the client needs. We especially focus on travellers and sailors who need mobile technology and solutions to living off the grid.
Everything we do is carried out remotely for the most part – we were pioneers in homeworking and remote offices as far back as the 1990’s when we worked remotely using dial-up 9600 bit/s modem (yes bit – not gb, not mb, not even bytes!) connections from airport lounges when it would take 15 minutes to transfer just 1mb of data. We were lucky back then to be working for leading-edge technology companies so always got the new kit when it was released, so we love to have the latest technology and to manage it ourselves. Today we cruise oceans with 220mbps speeds without even seeing land. We have been constantly moving between locations, working and running our businesses from our motorhome or our boat since before most people even heard the word homeworking. Today’s technology makes that so much easier. We work using video conferencing, screen sharing applications and internet telephony – if you work with us, you won’t even know we aren’t in the office next door. Of course there are times when a personal visit is needed – such as when we manage a boat build and we have to check quality at the factory. No problem there either.
Ed van Zadelhoff
Ed started his career in the Dutch military service where he served 8 years in Germany in the logistics corps, running the spare parts and maintenance support function for front line military equipment of all types
During this time, he learnt a wide range of technical skills and can turn his hand skillfully to any engineering or maintenance challenge – no matter whether it’s a tank, a boat, a car or a household appliance.
After discharge, he started work with Exel Logistics in the Netherlands – one of the largest worldwide third party logistics companies which is now part of DHL. He joined as a temporary warehouseman at the bottom in Apple’s leading edge multi-rise warehouse and quickly worked his way up the ladder. By the time he left Exel in 2002, he was working at a senior management level running large multi-national supply chain networks for brand name companies with worldwide procurement and distribution. He has managed teams of hundreds of people, mostly in critical start-up situations. He was also responsible for the procurement function of all Exel facilities in the Benelux. Over his time with Exel, he worked at a senior level with clients such as Apple, Food Express, The Gap, NEC, Motorola and Hewlett Packard.
Since 2002, in all our own business ventures, Ed has been the one responsible for all things strategic, operational and technical – the man with the vision and the person to get things done, whatever it takes. He is hands on and works alongside the real people doing the real job but equally gained respect in his role of Managing Director through his natural leadership skills. He leads by example and over the years has been the maintenance man and a driver at the same time as taking control in a crisis and driving the strategy of the companies we created.
Although Ed does not have any formal engineering training or qualifications, he is highly technical and has designed and installed complex systems on yachts as well as building and maintaining several houses, maintaining all sorts of vehicles and installing computer networks and systems. He has followed online courses for specialist knowledge – such as those offered by Victron, for example.
Qualifications:
- Dutch higher level school education in commercial management (MDS)
- Cranfield University UK – Certificate in Advanced Logistics Management
- CPC Passenger Transport International Operations
- French “permis d’exploitation” for a bar and restaurant
- Dutch “horeca diploma” for a bar and restaurant
- French professional drivers’ licence/carte professionelle to drive passenger vehicles
- HGV truck licence
- RYA Coastal Skipper and Yacht Master Theory
- RYA Day Skipper Sail – Tidal Waters
- VHF SRC certificate
- RYA Powerboat Level II
- ICC Power and Sail, Coast and Inland Waterways
- Dutch “Kleine Vaarbewijs” skippers licence
- 50 years of experience on the water with boats of all sizes and types
Skills
- Vision and blue sky thinking – identifying opportunities and sensitive to trends
- Operational management of any sort
- Contract negotiation and procurement
- Logistics and warehousing
- HR and people management
- Crisis management
- Project management
- Systems development and technical support – hardware, servers and networks of all types
- Advanced IT skills across a range of platforms and technologies
- Practical and technical solutions to challenges
- All types of machinery specifications, installation, maintenance and repair
Languages
- Dutch (mother tongue)
- English (as native)
- German (fluent)
- French (intermediate)
Jointly Since 2002
In 2002, Ed and Christine moved to the French Alps for the winters and bought a small ski tour operator. The company had just three chalets and was a lifestyle business. At the same time, they also purchased two related property management companies which owned alpine chalets and created a third, building another chalet for lease.
Over the course of a 15 year period they grew the business exponentially and the company became one of the most successful small chalet operators in the area. In 2015, the company won the “Best Small Ski and Winter Sports Tour Operator” at the British Travel Awards – a credit they won again in 2017.
The business grew 10 fold over this time in terms of revenue and became a very profitable venture with consistent success. Ed and Christine sold 100% of the shares of the tour operator in December 2018 to a private buyer. They retired completely from the company, in order to focus on cruising plans, building their boat and setting up other more flexible business ventures. Since then, they have also sold all but one of the property management companies – freeing up capital for the boat and cruising lifestyle.
Christine van Zadelhoff
Chris left grammar school in the UK after GCE’s and chose to follow further education at college instead of university. She qualified as a bi-lingual secretary with French and Spanish as the secondary language.
Her first work experience took her into the transport and distribution industry where she was assistant to the depot manager of a parcel delivery company and learned to turn her skills to any task needed in fast moving demanding environment.
In her early career, Chris moved through several sales and customer services positions, spent a period of time after maternity leave as an office temp where again she learned to be flexible and adaptable across a range of businesses – working as a legal secretary undertaking conveyancing work, a car dealership, an advertising and graphics design agency then in a financial services company in London.
She joined Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) as secretary to the IT Director in 1989 and moved through the ranks of support staff to become the Divisional IT and Finance Manager, supporting 300 consulting staff. The firm sponsored her to follow a part-time degree course and after gaining her Masters Degree in Supply Chain and Management Studies in 1992, she transferred to the professional staff as a management consultant.
As a management consultant Chris worked for Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte (now PwC), Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and ran her own independent consultancy company, Virgo Consulting, which started in the UK before moving to the Netherlands and is now incorporated in Malta.
Her work has included complex data modelling, risk analysis, environmental impact studies, office systems design and implementation, change management and business process re-engineering. She later specialised in supply chain management where she managed projects and developed pan-European supply chain strategies, centralised distribution networks and warehousing.
Her clients have included the UK Ministry of Defence, Wessex Water, British Rail, Aberdeen Service Company, First Data Resources, Atomic Energy Authority, Athens Sparta Airport (Greece), SmithKline Beecham, Burton Group Distribution, Imperical Tobacco, Exel Logistics (France), Roche Pharmaceuticals (France) and NEC Europe.
In 1996, she was asked by NEC Europe to join them as European Logistics Manager, based in the Netherlands, where she was responsible for implementation and management of the outsourced European Distribution Centre – the concept for which she had created for them as a consultant. In 2000, she left NEC to work as an independent consultant again.
Since 2002, Chris has been the “back office” behind all of our business ventures. Initially we ran our businesses alone with no support staff – Chris has therefore covered all aspects of business administration, company secretarial work, sales and marketing, office systems and IT, finance and accounting, HR and recruitment, legal and planning. Chris is equally as determined as Ed to get the job done no matter what it takes – if it can be done with a computer system, then Chris can find the right system, at the right price and do the job.
Qualifications
- Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Travel and Tourism
- MSc University of Westeminster London – Management Studies and Transport Economics (modular)
- Post-graduate Certificate in Management Studies – business economics, management decision making, systems analysis and design, information processing
- RSA Secretarial Duties (typing to a high speed, shorthand, office procedures) with French and Spanish
- Cranfield University UK – Certificate in Advanced Logistics Management
- CPC Passenger Transport International Operations
- French “permis d’exploitation” for a bar and restaurant
- RYA Coastal Skipper and Yacht Master Theory
- RYA Day Skipper Sail – Tidal Waters
- VHF SRC certificateRYA Powerboat Level II
- ICC Power and Sail, Coast and Inland Waterways
- 30 years of experience on the water with boats of all sizes and types
- Multiple vocational skills training courses and technical IT certificates
Skills
- Sales and marketing including digital marketing
- Financial management and accounting – year end statutory accounts, management reporting, VAT (including TOMS) under UK, Dutch, Maltese and French systems
- Business strategy – market research and evaluation, business plans
- Office management
- Graphics design, web design and development
- Technical IT support – PC and cloud based systems, VoIP telephony
- Systems analysis, software selection and implementation – on-premises and cloud based
- Procedures, processes, manuals and training
- Technical design and documentation of marine systems – electrical systems, marine electronics, data networks, security systems, ships monitoring systems
Languages
- English (mother tongue)
- French (fluent)
- Dutch (fluent)
- German (very basic)
- Greek (very basic)
- Spanish (very basic)
Where are we now?
As of 2025, we are cruising from the Philippines and seeing Southeast Asia first.
Do we miss Europe and the Alps? YES – sometimes it would be nice to see snow when it’s 90% humidity and more than 40C outside! But NO for the most part. Do we miss sailing? ABSOLUTELY!!!! But not when we’re in the monsoon rain and we can sit in the pilot-house and look out through the windscreen wipers in the comfy sofa.
Please get in touch if there is something you think we could help with – we’re always happy to chat!
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