Jan Lels rescue museum

Hoek van Holland is closely linked to the sea and the mouth of the New Waterway. Since the opening of the New Waterway in 1872 are countless ships aground at the mouth. The call of the New Waterway required many steerage, especially in strong or gale-force winds.

Since 1986 in the Lifejackets and Ferry Museum the fascinating history of shipwrecks and rescue work shown in an old ammunition bunker on the Badweg in Hoek van Holland. In 1990 the board of the foundation Reddingmuseum Jan Lels a portion of the space in the bunker made available to the board of the National Museum Ferry. In 2008, the two museums merged into the Lifejackets and Ferry Museum Jan Lels. The museum is managed exclusively by volunteers and maintained.

The museum Jan Lels manages an impressive number of objects, books, paintings, photographs and other tangible memories. Memories that the rich heroic and sometimes sad story illustrating the rescue in the North Sea from Scheveningen to the Belgian coast.

The museum also displays the history of the former Zeeland Steamship Company, which is more than 100 years the ferry service between the Netherlands and England maintained. The museum manages a large number of objects that tell the history of the Ferry and makes it touchable. It is also so intensely connected to the Hoekse society.