Who are we?
Hi, we are Laura and Gilles
We are Laura (1974) and Gilles (1966). We are a couple since 2013 and when we met, Gilles told Laura, he had a little motorboat (6 meters) that he liked to cruise with in the weekends in the Netherlands. So for a couple of years we explored the waters in the Netherlands. We both have travelled a lot for our jobs, and we wanted to travel the world together. Since we enjoyed being on the water so much, we decided to explore the possibilities of travelling on water. We wanted to create a live that we don’t need to take a vacation from. We wanted to have a lifestyle created around our core values: Gilles – Independence and Laura – Freedom.
Laura van den Ouden (1974) was born in Middelharnis in the Netherlands and she has 1 brother Lendert (1978). Laura has studied Economics and Psychology at the Erasmus University in the Netherlands. She has been a trainer in Train the Trainer for many organizations over the years. She has written 5 books about Learning & Development and won 2 awards (NOBTRA Trainer of the Year 2019-2020 and Develhub Public Award 2020). She is owner of training company Expert Trainers, which helps everyone who has to teach, coach and guide others and need didactical inspiration how to do this professionally.
Laura always loved to be on the water or in the water, and recently she has found out that from her fathers side (van den Ouden family) there have been almost only shippers (owners of boats, fishermen, etc) since the year 1500. So it’s in the bloodline! Besides sailing, Laura loved to discover cities or nature on her skeelers and bikes.
Gilles Leidelmeijer (1966) was born in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands and he has 2 brothers Lody (1962) and Earny (1964). His father was from Indonesia and his mother from the Netherlands. His father was a mechanic technician on a ship back in the days. Gilles has a technical background, has worked for IT companies and is an excellent mechanic, since he was inspired by his father at a young age to build his own technical toys and racing cars.
Gilles joins Laura in her trainingcompany Expert Trainers, and is strategical advisor and takes care of the financial administration and webshop. And he spents much of his time improving the boat, for instance by installing a heating system, designing the solar panel system on the boat himself and building a watermaker.
Together we believe we make a good sailing team: Gilles is captain, navigator and does all technical preparations and repaires. Laura is planning the routes and sightseeing, takes care of fenders/lines/sails as crew member and does all the organization tasks like calling harbour masters, bridgekeepers, lockkeepers, etc.
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