Petra de Vries - skipper and hydrographic surveyor
On this website, women from the maritime sector share their stories. This is the story of Petra de vries.
What kind of work do you do?
I alternate between working as skipper and surveyor on survey boats. We conduct depth and current measurements, primarily on behalf of Rijkswaterstaat (Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management). Our boats are about seven meters long and can be transported on a trailer, which makes us very flexible. As a result, I rarely work at the same location for more than a few days in a row.
Does being a woman play a role in your work?
I feel like I’m not as strong as my male colleagues. We always have to pick up jerry cans of gasoline at a gas station and then lug them all the way to the mooring. I have a much harder time with that heavy lifting. Plus, I have to remember to bring my urinal, because there’s no toilet on board!
What do you like most about your job?
The freedom and the unexpected. We get our schedule on Fridays, but it almost always changes after that. Sometimes I’m in a different place every day of the week, and I never work a whole week with the same colleagues. We always have to figure out for ourselves how to take the measurements, where to moor the boat, and what our work hours are. We usually sail across the waterway, so we have to carefully assess whether we can safely cross in front of the large ships. I enjoy interacting with those skippers and the traffic control center. And the best part, of course, is being on the water all day.
Since we work all over the Netherlands, I used to have to stay in hotels a lot. After a few years, I’d had enough of that, so now I live in a camper. Sometimes I can stay overnight at the marina and just walk to the boat, and otherwise there’s always a campground nearby where they know me and where I’m always welcome.
I feel like I’m not as strong as my male colleagues
