Sunday 8 January 2017

Sjoelen

No, I haven't gone all Dutch, and this post has little to do with boating (of the narrow variety) but I suspect that Val P, blog reader and commenter extraordinaire, will know what I am talking about.

On a recent cruise my father enjoyed playing a form of table shuffleboard, called Dutch shuffleboard or Sjoelen. It is a game of skill where wooden discs are slid along a 2m board. To score points the discs have to go through four archways more than a metre from where you have to let go of the discs. My dad described the game to my brother David, and for Christmas he presented him with a board he had constructed out of reclaimed timber. The wooden discs are the only thing he had to buy - these are genuine Dutch ones, with slightly concave faces.

The rules are here. We enjoyed playing it at David's house over Christmas. Now it is at my parents' house where my dad is putting in lots of practice.

Being long and thin (the board is 2m x 0.4m) the game seems ideally suited to a narrowboat. Does any reader know of a boat thus equipped?

2 comments:

Ian and Karen said...

Played this game at Christmas too. Great for all ages to join in together. Good fun.

Vallypee said...

Well, well, how clever David is! I've never played it Halfie, but Koos has. It looks fun though!