Royal TESO

The Royal TESO N.V. is a private

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

company operating the only public boat service to and from the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

Wadden island of

Texel Texel (; Texels dialect: ) is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of De ...

. TESO stands for Texels Eigen Stoomboot Onderneming (in English: Texel's Own Steamboat Company). Inhabitants of the island were dissatisfied with price and quality of the ferry service, as operated by the company

Alkmaar Packet Alkmaar Packet was a shipping company that operated scheduled passenger and freight services in the northern part of the Netherlands between 1864 and 1950. The services the company provided were a kind of beurtvaart, which at the time had become ...

since 1882. In 1907 some of them formed an

association Association may refer to: *Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal *Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry *Voluntary associatio ...

, led by local physician Adriaan Wagemaker, to operate a (hired) ferry of their own. In 1908 the association was changed into a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...

and islanders raised 75.000

guilders Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch and German ''gulden'', originally shortened from Middle High German ''guldin pfenninc'' "gold penny". This was the term that became current in the southern and western parts of the Holy Roman Empir ...

to build its first ship, which went into service in August that year. A nearly complete boycott of the services of Alkmaar Packet by the locals made that company withdraw in 1909. 3650 privately-traded shares are held by 3100

shareholders A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal owner ...

, mostly residents of Texel. In 2007, TESO celebrated its centennial anniversary, and therefore was conferred the 'Royal' designation on Texel by

Queen Beatrix Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013. Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husband ...

. Currently, the TESO operates a fleet of two ships, both able to carry 1750 passengers and up to 300 cars. They cross the

Marsdiep The Marsdiep is a deep tide-race between Den Helder and Texel in the Netherlands, and running southwards between sandbanks. That gap connects the North Sea and the Waddenzee. Around 1000 AD and before, much of the modern Waddenzee and IJsselmeer w ...

, a deep-tide race between

Den Helder Den Helder () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Den Helder occupies the northernmost point of the North Holland peninsula. It is home to the country's main naval base. From here the Royal TESO fe ...

and

in about 20 minutes. Ferry companies of the Netherlands Transport companies established in 1907 Water transport in the Netherlands Dutch companies established in 1907