Meet the crew of sv nalu

Hi! We're Martijn and Martine, two Dutchies well over fifty, both liveaboards for longer than either of us cares to admit.
We were each already living aboard, solo, when we met. And within about five minutes we'd figured out one important fact about each other: yep, another boat person.

From 2017 until mid-2025 we happily floated apart together. Martijn on his Victoire 1270, Martine on her Moody 346. Two boats, two owners, one relationship that worked just fine with a bit of water in between. Then life happened, adventure came knocking, and we sold both boats and bought Nalu together instead. And moved in together. On a boat. At our age. Oh boy.

[Update September 4, 2026: Fons joined our crew! He's by far the best looking and funniest 🐈]

Martijn

Martijn doesn't just own sailing yachts, he builds them. At 24 he started building himself a steel Danish Rose 42. At 35 he bought a casco Colin Archer type Northern Light 51 and turned her into a proper liveaboard, for himself and his partner at the time.
In 2016 he switched to "plastic" for the first time: a Victoire 1270, built by the well-regarded Dutch yard of the same name.

Professionally, Martijn runs van Beers Yacht Consulting and van Beers Jacht- en Scheepstechniek, working in maritime maintenance and repair. Think construction work, welding (stick electrodes, MIG/MAG and TIG), pipe fitting for cooling, exhaust and hydraulic systems, and maintaining, replacing and installing engines. Mostly on barges and cargo ships, mostly the kind of work that leaves you filthy by lunchtime.

These days he's also gradually shifting part of his work towards van Beers Yacht Consulting, offering buyers guidance and surveys for people looking to buy their own boat.

He's just as handy with polyester and epoxy. Ripping the entire teak deck off his own Victoire? Just another Tuesday for Martijn.

Martine

Martine grew up on both steel and polyester boats, mostly on Dutch inland and coastal waters, and bought her first sailboat at sixteen. She's been a liveaboard for over ten years now, always on polyester sailing boats.

Her father was the technical type, and he made sure she learned how a boat actually works from an early age. She didn't appreciate it much back then. She's very grateful for it now.

Martine is self-employed as a WordPress specialist, and she's generally the one you want around when something involving a screen starts misbehaving. That comes in handy onboard too: she's the one choosing, upgrading and maintaining the navigation setup, from the onboard computers (including a Raspberry Pi or two) to the tablets, apps and hardware that keep us pointed in the right direction.