For years we have seen dairy farmers doing more than just produce milk – now the diversified fisherman is making his appearance. Louwe de Boer from Urk has converted his fishing vessel, the PD 147 named Enterprise, into a training ship for future generations of fishermen.

On a late Sunday afternoon I took a look in the harbour of Scheveningen where the finishing touches are being put on the conversion of this Dutch-owned ship whose home port, intriguingly, is Peterhead in Scotland. Louwe treats me to a guided tour through a maze of corridors, flights of steep narrow stairs and no less than four different decks. I soon find out that modern fishing is an extremely technical affair, involving such arcane concepts as square meshes, Fishfinders, escape panels, Dyneema nets, hydraulic winches and generator sets. It’s a fascinating world of technology, but my mind boggles.

Fortunately the tour also takes us to more familiar territory – at least for me: the accommodation that has been specially built in for the intermediate vocational students training on the boat. The splendid cabins are equipped with all sorts of facilities so that the students can do their school work. There is also a luxury cabin for the teacher from the fisheries school.

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Until now, traineeships on board fishing vessels were nothing other than a cheap source of labour for the shipowner. But the philosophy of this fisheries school (the Berechja College) is that students aren’t on the boat to work, but to learn – and must therefore have modern online workstations on board to do all sorts of focused assignments out at sea.

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The training ship’s showpiece is the dual control bridge, allowing the trainee to steer the ship entirely on his own from the co-pilot seat while the skipper sitting in the seat beside him can keep an eye on things…and take command at a press of the button whenever danger lurks.

The ship’s conversion was paid for by the Province of Flevoland with support from European structural funds. Starting from next school year the fisheries school can, upon payment, send a maximum of six students out to sea on the ship to learn all the tricks of the fishing trade. I see this as a great example of marine entrepreneurship, where a fisherman branches out into new activities, in this case education. Louwe de Boer has shown how an innovative idea can be made reality.