René Seindal

Its been a rather slow kayaking winter until now, I’ve only been out paddling a handful of times, plus a couple of pool sessions. This weekend I’m going to do a bit about it.

My local kayak pusher Kajakhotellet.dk is organising a weekend trip around the island I live on, Amager. The trip is just over 50km which is split over two days with a night in a shelter at Kongelunden on the southern end of the island.

We’ll start at the shop and paddle south, and stop at the southern end after about 20km where we’ll stay the night.  On Sunday we paddle up the west side, through the harbour of Copenhagen, which I know very well, and around the north end back to the shop.   I guess I could stop at home in the city, but that would be cheating

Its not a very demanding trip, but its often done to give beginners a basic training in touring with packed boats and a night out in the “wild”.

It’ll be good getting out a bit again with others.

My mothers maiden name is Wils. We’ve long believed it was of Dutch origin, without having any proof, but I’ve been in contact with a relative of my mother’s who’ve done an extensive genealogical study of the family, and in fact the name does come from the Netherlands.

Hendrich Wils, born in Luikgestel in 1793, moved to Denmark in 1809 at the age of 16, to work as a travelling tradesman in copper pots and pans. At a later time he settled in Horsens,  where he continued to trade in copperware, employing other travelling traders. He then moved to Faaborg, now under the more Danish name Henrik Wils, and from trading in copperware he extended into the production of linseed oil, and he was among the founders of the local savings bank Faaborg Sparekasse where he also served as bank manager for a period.   He married a Danish women with whom he had four children, and he was granted Danish citizenship by law in 1865. He died in 1866 as a wealthy and respected citizen of his town.

His son Henrik Wilhelm Wils was born in Faaborg in 1841, and took over his father’s business, but apparently he did have his father’t talent in trading, because at his  death in 1894 there were only enough left to cover the expenses of the funeral.  Henrik Wilhelm Wils married Karen Christine Christiansen and they had six sons and one daughter.

The third son of Henrik Wilhelm Wils was Hans Peter Marius Wils, born in 1875 in Horsens. He worked as a shoemaker in various cities, first in Randers, then he moved to Copenhagen and later to Hillerød where he died in 1924.  He married Maren Caroline Sandø who passed the name Sandø on to her children, and it still runs in some branches of the family. They had eight children, three daughters and five sons.

Their fourth child was Harry William Sandø Wils, born in 1909 in Hillerød. He worked as a house painter. He married Mona Etta Christine Milling from Hillerød, and they had six children. Harry William died in 1940 before the birth of his last daughter.

That last daughter is Kirsten Wils, born in 1940 in Hillerød. At the age of twenty she married bookkeeper Svend Erik Seindal and they had three children, one daughter and two sons, before their divorce fifteen years later. Kirsten is alive and well, and is enjoying her retirement between piles of books and CDs.

Kirsten’s second child is René Seindal, great-great-great-grandson of Henrik Wils, a pennyless immigrant from North Brabant in the Netherlands in 1809, two centuries ago.

I got a very nice email yesterday, from a PR represetative of Panasonic Nordic, with an offer of lending me a Lumix DMC-FT1 (TS1 in the USA) camera as soon as they get the first test cameras to the country in late March.

The deal is that I will test the camera in real life paddling situations in Spain and Italy, and naturally supply Panasonic with feedback on the camera, and pictures and videos taken during this  spring and summer.

I find it very exciting that Panasonic now enters the niche market of rugged, waterproof cameras suitable for use while kayaking.  Until now our only choices as kayakers have been various models from Pentax and Olympus, none on which have been that spectacular. It be very interesting to see how Lumix DMC-FT1 measures up.

The basic camera specifications of the Lumix DMC-FT1 is in line with the latest offerings from Olympus and well ahead of what I have seen from Pentax. It has a 12.1 Mpixels sensor (images of 4000×3000 pixels), with a Leica 28-128mm (35mm equivalent) lens, which is approx. 4.6x optical zoom. The display is 2.7″ at 230.000 pixels.

As for ruggedness, the Lumix DMC-FT1 is not top of the class but it is close, and it should be enough for what most of us need when kayaking. It is dustproof, waterproof to a depth of 3m and shockproof up to 1.3m, just like the Pentax Optio W60 and the Olympus Tough 6000.

Where the Lumix DMC-FT1 really distinguishes itself from the other waterproof cameras is its video capabilities. It can record video in 720p HD-TV video quality: 1280×720 pixels, 60fps in AVC HD Lite format in three qualities (17Mbps, 13Mbps, and 9Mbps). The AVC HD video specification is a highly compressed MPEG4/AAC3 format, so it should be possible to get good length registrations on common 2Gb or 4Gb SD cards (of which I have loads).

It uses standard SD memory cards (it has always annoyed me that Olympus has to use a different memory card than everybody else), it has a USB 2 connection for data transfer to a computer, and a HDMI output for playback on HD-TVs or other recorders.

Naturally, the software in the camera has a gazillion different functions,but some sounds useful in a kayaking context, like auto focus tracking of moving objects and a special “Quick AF” setting for impromptu snapshots. It also boasts automatic facial recognitions, that is, automatic tagging of persons in photos when enough photos a single person has been taken.

I can’t wait until I get my hands on this new toy

Links:

• Nyt hybridkamera til udendørs fotografering (Lumix DMC-FT1)
• Panasonic.net – World’s First Waterproof, Shockproof and Dustproof Digital Camera with AVCHD Lite Motion Picture Recording
• Panasonic Nordic on Flickr – DMC-FT1
• DPReview – Panasonic unveils DMC-TS1 rugged compact camera

On Febraury 18, 1929,  80 years ago tomorrow, the lagoon of Venice froze over during a very harsh winter.   It was possible to walk from Venice to Murano and people could go skating on Canal Grande.

Here’s a video with pictures from back then:

When my uncle died last year, Valentina and I were offered the old wine glasses my uncle had inherited from my grandmother. They have been in the family since long before I was born, and my guess is that they were bought in the 1930s or 1940s.

They’re handmade, blown, faceted with an hexagonal stalk,  and all bit different. It is not an industrial product, but made individually by a skilled craftsman.

We have three sizes: red wine, white wine and port, but in different numbers, probably because some glasses has been broken throughout the years. The white wine glasses are green, as were common back then.

Today, for a St. Valentine’s excursion, we went to the Copenhagen City Museum because we’ve never been there and its been on our lists of thins to do for a long time. Now, imaging our surprise when we see this table set on the first floor, with a sign saying “Typical bourgeoisie dinner table, early 20th century”.  The wine glasses are completely identical to ours.

Now, as I remember, these glasses weren’t found on the “typical dinner table” in my family – they were for feasts and celebrations, but then my grandparents weren’t “bourgeosie”, but middle class like most others.

Naturally that experience made me quite curious, and I searched the net a bit to see what it is we have in the cupboard in the kitchen. I discovered that the series is called Derby, and it was made by Holmegaard glassworks from 1891 and later by Kastrup glassworks up to 1950. Both companies are Danish. Holmegaard is the oldest Danish glassworks, founded in 1825 and still working.

There are at least seven different glasses in the series: tall champagne, wide champagne, large glass for beer or water, red wine, white wine (green), port and aquavit.

We have number 2, 3 and 4 from the right, and I know my aunt has a few aquavit glasses as well.

The nice thing about this discovery is that since these glasses are still common in antique shops, we have the possibility of supplementing what we have. Champagne glasses would be nice for New Year’s eve

It has been illegal to drive under influence in Italy for ages, but not in Venice. In Venice they don’t drive, they sail, and in Italy is hasn’t been illegal to sail a boat while drunk or under the influence of drugs.

This is about to change now.

An amendment to a law called “Milleproroghe” (“A thousand deferments”) will make it illegal to sail a recreational boat while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, for the first time ever. Offenders can lose their license to sail and be fined up to €8000.

The senator who proposed the amendment, said:

Finally there will be controls and sanctions to avoid that those who sail any kind of vessel, from a zodiac of a few metres to a large recreational ship, do so in a state of drunkenness or under the effect of intoxicating substances or drugs.

… It is unusual but in our country, in spite of the many and tragic events we read about each summer in the newspapers, until today there hasn’t been any law prohibiting the skipper of a recreational boat to sail in a state of drunkenness or under the influence of drugs.

In most of Italy this is mostly an issue of safety around the many recreational ports, but in Venice boats are a central part of everyday life for a large part of the population, and the impact of the law will probably be felt more there. Also, enforcement of the law will probably be a lot stricter in Venice than elsewhere.

(none of the people on the photos were under the influence of alcohol or drugs).

Like this one – it looks normal – but apparently isn’t. It does help a bit with the discount.

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