The story
Skutsjesilen in Friesland
SKS Skutsjesilen is Friesland's iconic traditional sailing championship, held each July across the province's lakes. Organized since 1945 by the Sintrale Kommisje Skutsjesilen, it features fourteen historic skutsjes, century-old wooden cargo barges once used to transport peat and soil, racing eleven times across ten different Frisian towns.
Long before they became racing vessels, skutsjes were working boats, broad, flat-bottomed wooden barges built to haul peat, soil and cargo across the shallow lakes and canals of Friesland in the northern Netherlands.