Photos of the SAIL-IN Parade dominate the front pages, while planes at Schiphol can expect softer landings in future. Police write a book on traumatic beach party riot. Fewer babies are being born and the generation gap is growing. Hero dad saves toddler from black bear.

SAIL-IN Parade attracts 300,000 spectators
Around 300,000 people visited yesterday’s SAIL-IN Parade, as 50 tall ships and hundreds of historic vessels were escorted by a flotilla of boats of every shape and size. Many of the papers carry photos of the spectacular procession. De Volkskrant prints a bird’s eye view of the flotilla as it left IJmuiden. The Stad Amsterdam, half under sail with Prince Willem-Alexander on board, leads the ships up the North Sea Canal. In the background are the chimneys and smoke from Corus steelworks. De Telegraaf dedicates almost all of its front page to a photo of the Italian showpiece the Amerigo Verspucci. Trouw captures the Indonesian crew of the Darwuci daringly spaced out in the ship’s square rigging.

Each ship was welcomed by two salute shots from a canon as they reached Amsterdam. One skipper was arrested after he ignored a ban on sailing in the wrong direction during the parade. His tug dangerously crossed too close in front of the bows of the Stad Amsterdam and ran over a rubber boat.

The event led to massive traffic jams on Amsterdam’s ring road as punters joined the evening rush hour. The tall ships will be on view in Amsterdam until Sunday.

Softer landings for planes at Schiphol
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is being given more room to grow reports de Volkskrant. Former environment minister Hans Alders was asked two years ago to come up with a new way of calculating the amount of noise nuisance caused by planes landing and taking off at the airport, as parliament found that the old method was too complex.

At the moment 35 virtual measuring points are used, although estimates of noise levels are actually based on calculations. The new method will be based on the total amount of noise produced. This gives the airport more room to manoeuvre. According to Mr Alders, “Local residents will not suffer,” which is just as well because the new method makes it even more difficult than it already is to prove whether or not the airport has exceeded agreed noise levels. Actual noise levels have never been measured. In Trouw a local resident’s organisation says, “Residents are worse off now than before. Schiphol carries on as normal, the rules are being relaxed. There’ll be a two-year experiment. Schiphol will behave itself. After that noise measurements will be thrown overboard.”

A number of measures will be taken to reduce noise pollution: certain runways will be used to avoid residential areas and planes will have ‘softer landings’ by gliding and using noise absorbing wheels.

The experiment, which is due to begin on 1 November, will last two years. It will enable the number of flights at the airport to grow from 420,000 to 510,000 a year.

Police write about traumatic beach riot
It’s exactly a year ago that a riot at a beach party in Hook of Holland led to police shooting a man dead. A number of police officers have written accounts of that night in a book in an attempt to come to terms with the trauma they experienced.

De Volkskrant prints a number of excerpts. “I wanted to get away! I wanted to wake up. I didn’t want to die!” wrote one police officer who described how a group of 45 police officers became surrounded at the Sunset Grooves beach party by hooligans throwing stones and shouting insults. When the crowd failed to respond to warning shots and continued to approach, officers shot at their legs. One man bent over to pick something up and was hit in the head. His parents are now calling for the police to be prosecuted.

Another officer on horseback that night recalls how he took a split second decision to charge to disperse the crowd, in spite of not being adequately equipped for the situation. The crowd which had ignored police gunfire ran in all directions when the horses charged. “A horse weighs 600 to 700 kilos. When an animal like that is in front of you, it makes quite an impression.” Many of the officers have difficulty dealing with the trauma. One says, “I avoided large crowds, because I was afraid of having a panic attack. I had a short fuse and became aggressive.”

Fewer babies born as baby boomers reach pension age
Apparently we are having fewer babies because of the crisis. AD writes that many couples are putting off having children because of uncertainty about jobs and housing. According to Netherlands Statistics figures, only 180,000 babies are expected to be born next year compared to 207,000 in 2000. The effect of the crisis was not yet visible in 2009 as obviously many of them were conceived in 2008 when the economic malaise wasn’t apparent. But in the first half of 2010, 1500 fewer babies were born than the year before.

In the long term, the birth rate will be affected by aging, says a Statistics Netherlands demographer. As the population grows older there will be fewer young people to have children, but “economic prosperity may cause a temporary surge in births”.

Meanwhile Trouw has investigated how much solidarity there is between the generations now that the baby boomers are reaching pension age. Apparently there is little contact between the generations. To remedy this a church in Amsterdam organised a “Valentine’s date” between a group of over-60s and under-30s. One young person remarked, “Harry wasn’t at all old-fashioned. I was allowed to call him by his first name and he knew everything about football.”

But meetings like this are few and far between. Young people do look after their own elderly relatives, but turn their backs on other elderly people. And while young people abandon the institutions built up by previous generations, the elderly don’t taken young people seriously.

Hero dad rescues toddler from bear pit
How about this for a feel good story? AD and De Telegraaf both describe how a Dutchman on a trip to a German zoo didn’t hesitate to come to the rescue, when his three-year old climbed over a metre-high fence and fell into a bear pit. Mike, a 170-kilo black bear, who had already hit the toddler, then dug his claws into the man’s leg. Miraculously, the man managed to pick up the child and get them both to safety. One zookeeper said, “That father was heroic like a Dutch Tarzan. A bear like that can be very dangerous when you enter its territory.”