When the dead man and his boat were found in July 1995, Dutch police could not identify him.
There were no reports of missing persons, and the police tried for a long time to identify him through his belongings: details of the boat, the sail, his clothes and the fire extinguisher on board, without result.
The man was buried anonymously in a cemetery in Den Helder, not far from the place where he was found.
None of the over 100 tips that reached the police led anywhere, until the summer of 2020.
Clues in watch and label
After it was established that the man's watch was intended for the Swedish market, and that a label in his trousers was of Swedish origin, the Swedish media was contacted with a request this summer.
When the search for the man was published, a Swedish woman contacted the investigators and said that she thought it could be her uncle, Hans.
Investigators contacted the man's two adult daughters, and with the help of a DNA test, it could be determined that he was their father, a 59-year-old man from Sundsvall at the time of his death.
According to Dutch police John Welzenbagh, who worked on the case for six years, the daughters were happy and grateful to receive an answer.
Considering bringing his father home
"All these years they lived in uncertainty about what happened to their father, about why he stopped responding to their contact attempts.
For various reasons, they did not report him missing in Sweden ", says John Welzenbagh in a press release from the police in the Netherlands.
The daughters are now considering picking up their father and burying him in Sweden this spring.