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Meet the Crew

You can either scroll through these pages or click on a face to jump directly to that crew member. Check back at the end of the voyage to see our new crew members receive their official (and exclusive) Half Moon crew shirts.

AnthonyDominiqueElisaEmilyJazmineJobJohananJoshMaePaulaRavenYmkje
Captain William ReynoldsScott BeiterKipp van AkenSara DuBoisRobbert FehmersBob HansenMenno de LeeuwDoug LykeJohn W. Mangrum
Henk Morel
Carolyn NiehausDanielle StevensJan de VriesShore Support: Pauli Dangerousli

Student Crew | Senior Crew Student Crew | Shore Support

Senior Crew

William Reynolds, Ship's Captain

William Reynolds: Ship's Captain

Captain William "Chip" Reynolds has been captain of the Half Moon and Director of the New Netherland Museum since 1998. Before coming to the Half Moon, he captained numerous seagoing vessels, both historical and industrial. His background also includes training and work in the environmental sciences. He currently lives with his family in Selkirk, NY, and is looking forward to seeing the new student crew meet the challenges this Voyage of Discovery places before them.

Kipp van Aken

Kipp van Aken

Kipp van Aken is serving as the Half Moon's chief engineer. Mr. Van Aken has a background in history, anthropology, and business, is a graduate of Hope College, and holds an MBA. He is a veteran of the US Navy Submarine Force and is retired from Southern California Edison's San Onofre Nuclear Station. He is a direct descendant of three early Dutch families in New York and is an original shareholder of the ship.

Scott Beiter

Scott Beiter

Scott Beiter is the 8th grade physical science teacher at Rensselaer Middle School.  This will be his seventh Voyage of Discovery. He looks forward to the history/science immersion of the voyage.

"This is what education is about, not textbooks and worksheets."

Sara DuBois

Sara DuBois

Sara DuBois is from Horseheads, NY. She recently spent eight months in Uhkta, Russia teaching English and has previously lived in Finland and Malawi. She enjoys learning languages, singing, using the quadrant, and intercultural exchange programs.

Robbert Fehmers

Robbert Fehmers

Robbert Fehmers was born and raised in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His formal training is in linguistics, having majored in Russian and Japanese in the Netherlands and in the United Kingdom. Since his youth he has had an affinity with sailing, but opportunities to really get involved in it were limited until, in April 2011, he completed a course training for sailing professionally operated sailing ships at the Enkhauzen Nautical College in the Netherlands. He feels honored to have been invited as bo's'un on board the historical and unique vessel Half Moon for the second half of the 2011 season. This is his first extended stay in the United States since working and studying in Chicago and in the Los Angeles area in the 1980s and 90s.

Bob Hansen

Bob Hansen

Ship's mate Bob Hansen started sailing on the Hudson on the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater; later, on two engineless sloops. Since the 1990s, he has served as a volunteer and mate on the schooners Spirit of Massachusetts and Ernestina, as well as other vessels.

Having recently retired from a career as a self-styled "bureaucrat" with the New York State government, Mr. Hansen has now turned his attention to serving as second-in-command on board the Half Moon.

Menno de Leeuw

Menno de Leeuw

Educator Menno de Leeuw lives in Heereveen (Friesland) and usually crosses the shallow Wadder Sea on foot. He's looking forward to his third Voyage of Discovery and hopes that his students are having a wonderful time.

Doug Lyke

Doug Lyke

Doug Lyke lives in Poughkeepsie and works at Dutchess County Community College as an A/V Technician. He first came on board in 2009 during the River Week voyage. His wife asked him to search the Half Moon's website to see when tours were being held during its stay in Poughkeepsie a few weeks before River Week. While searching, he saw where to click to volunteer. The next thing he knew, he was climbing aboard the Half Moon in the middle of the night at Piermont!

John W. Mangrum

John W. Mangrum

Originally hailing from the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA, John W. Mangrum holds one of the most anachronistic positions the crew of a 17th-century wooden sailing ship could imagine: the Half Moon's webmaster. Seldom seen in front of the camera, the self-titled "Ship's Chronicler" oversees the daily updates to this website during our voyages. A roleplaying game designer in a past life, Mr. Mangrum has been sailing on board the Half Moon since the summer of 2004. What started as a simple, impromptu dockside tour of the ship has since turned into a life of adventure.

Henk Morel

Henk Morel

Henk Morel has been a sailing instructor and has organized sailing camps all of his life, usually working with small open boats. His interests include classic sailing, restoration of old ships, and old-fashioned nautical skills. Besides this, he was worked for the Dutch government in location managing and also as a teacher in several practical technologies. The father of former Half Moon bosun Mark Morel, Henk Morel has returned for his third Voyage of Discovery. He is pleased as ever to do so. He hopes to once again have a good time with the youths, to help overall, and to demonstrate some ropeworks and sailmaking.

Carolyn Niehaus

Carolyn Niehaus
Fall 2000 Voyage of Discovery Alumna

Carolyn Niehaus has been an active member of the Half Moon since 1999 when she started giving tours as a docent through her social studies class. Ms. Niehaus is an alumna of the Fall 2000 Voyage of Discovery, as well as other voyages, and is usually found running the New Netherland Museum's home office in Albany while the ship is abroad.

Danielle Stevens

Danielle Stevens

Danielle Stevens is a fresh bosun who’s done a lot of sailing in the Netherlands, but not on anything like this ship. In the Netherlands, she learned to sail on a “Valk,” near Leiden, but lately she’s had some experience on bigger ships and larger waters like the Ijseelmeer and the Waddenzee. She is a social worker in the Netherlands, working with homeless youth.

Ms. Stevens will be here for two months and she hopes to learn lots more about sailing the Half Moon and about the Netherlands.

Jan de Vries

Jan de Vries

Jan de Vries is 64 years old, and as of this year retired as a schoolteacher. He worked with developmentally disabled children the ages of 17-18. He likes traveling, cycling, and skating in the wintertime. He is a friend of Henk Morel, who organized Mr. de Vries’ presence on the voyage. Cooking on a ship is quite a new experience for him, and he wants to do the utmost to make everyone satisfied.

Shore Support

Pauli Dangerousli

Pauli Dangerousli

This is Pauli Dangerousli's fourth year with the Half Moon. He accounts himself a sailor, a musician, a healer, and a philosopher.

Mr. Dangerousli has been assisting the crew with ground transportation, maintenance, and dockside line landing during the Half Moon's stops in Verplanck prior to and during this voyage.

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