Heil om seil

Speerstra made his debut in Friesian in 1968 with Heil om seil, a successful collection of bargee stories, which would be translated into Dutch three times. In it, he demonstrated for the first time the method by which he would become known: that of a journalist who writes stories, in which the facts he has collected are presented in a literary way. He himself referred to this as “new journalism” during an interview in 1999.

Speerstra has been compared to Geert Mak, who is similarly engaged in chronicling oral history in the Dutch-speaking world. For Heil om seil, he conducted interviews with all kinds of skippers, salvagers, dredgers and tuggers.