Jacob De Graaf's Dutch shipyard is nearly bankrupt, so likely to be bought by rival Max Noordermeer. His wife gets son Marco, a brilliant naval engineer, who always warned they needed to modernize, to return home. Max welcomes his daughter Fleur and astray son Anton, who behind his back uses illegals fro cheap waste treatment. Marco gets a visit from (ex?) lover Fleur, whose husband Maurits is surprised by her pregnancy, but soon welcomes it. Fleur refuses to resume a sexual relationship with Marco, but can't deny still to love him. Charlotte cheats on her husband, corporate lawyer Pierre, with bachelor Turkish apprentice Abdullah.
Fleur finds and rescues Marco passed out in the water, beaten up while intruding the Noordermeer shipyard, where De Graaf plans are used illegally. His father, Jacob, still won't even listen. The Indonesian, Keela Bangor, shows up at Max's claiming Mr. Noordermeer is her baby's father. His wife Sofie doubts his denial, but in fact she meant Anton, whose toxic waste disposal subcontractor's team is experiencing health problems.
Now Marco has exposed the theft of his design by Noordermeer, its lawyer Pierre wants to quit, until his (actually adulterous) wife Charlotte uses sex to make him stay and finds a loophole: reverse engineering. Maurits discovers in bed that his bride Fleur dreams of Marco. De Graaf is down to pawning family jewels to postpone bankruptcy. Marco trust his new engine screw design can save the wharf, but Jacob feels building a prototype is no longer within their means.
Noordermeer now risks losing a major Greek shipbuilding order itself. Charlotte and haughty mother, Iris, finds a way out. Marco can't get a bank loan for his prototype. Sophie has moved out and found a flirtatious friend in Victor Wijndels. Max suspects Marco of helping Keela making the video that drove Sophie away. The pollution victims' condition worsens, but Anton's cahoot locks the illegals up.
Max suspects Marco of helping Keela making the video that drove Sophie away and gets very drunk. Secretary Marleen warns him Charlotte plans to deal with the Portuguese behind his back- too late, their bickering makes Iris pull rank. One of the illegals escapes to seek medical help; the other dies and his corps is dumped. Anton has his cahoot Willem Bakx play a fairly respectable entrepreneur to reassure Max, who smells a rat. Maurits presses Fleur to tell her family. Jacob decides to go for Marco's project, which requires selling personal luxuries.
Now Keela has presented baby Junior to Anton as his son, he's confused and thinks of damage control. Iris tells max to forget Sophie and take control of his life and the shipyard. Charlotte taunts him till he looses his temper and is sent home by Iris. The prototype costs every luxury, but brings Marco back into the family fold. Charlotte tries to seduce Abdullah into spying on Marco, even if that requires making him jealous with colleague Fatih Kazarjan. Instead he resigns, and steals Noordermeer company secrets. Maurits fights to get Marco away from his wife Fleur.
Haughty Charlotte holds a triumphant press conference flaunting 'her' success. Jacob enjoys working with Marco, but his already terminal cardiac condition worsens again. Abdullah joins them, with the stolen Noordermeer PC. Secretary Marleen invites Max for a home dinner, but even a massage can't get him relaxed or romantic. Victor makes Sophie happier, but she still won't go all the way. Now the surviving illegal wants to see a doctor with friends, Backx kills him and maims the corps, but Anton refuses to pay him extra. The publicity changes the price and survival potential of De Graaf's shipyards. Fleur finds out Anton is Junior's dad and makes him confess to Max.
Sofie won't believe Max Anton is junior's dad, and stays with Victor, but when he dares her to follow her heart she refuses to make love. Anton's personal confession makes her return home. Max takes her back but forgives neither, Anton is fired. Marleen discovers her ploy to 'free' Max is undone and beleaguers Keela. Jacob's next cardiac attack nearly causes a fatal car accident. The hospital diagnoses a brain tumor. Maurits's parents insist on paying for a traditional classy wedding, but he fears bride Fleur won't agree with 'medieval'. Max returns to work, to learn the vital De Graaf takeover isn't a done deal.
The press has got wind of the illegal cleaning and bugs ignorant Max. Bakx demands 50,000 Euros to keep quiet, but Anton wants him silenced permanently. Thanks to a professional analysis, Max finds out his enamored secretary, Marleen, made the Junior recording which nearly wrecked his marriage. Jacob leaves hospital to help Marco. Maurits is fed up of Fleur's mood and lack of interest in their wedding preparations. Sofie takes to the illegitimate grandchild and brings the child home, Anton won't have a bar of fatherhood.
Due to Charlotte's greedy contract, Noordermeer desperately needs the extra capacity only buying De Graaf can give them. Max thinks up a way to get it: indirectly pay major creditor Staalenco to demand bankruptcy. Jacob refuses to have surgery meanwhile. Niels is diagnosed in class with concentration problems, but Charlotte refuses to have him properly tested as daddy Pierre wants. Max hires a replacement for Marleen, highly qualified Felix Schippers. Fleur realizes she drove Maurits to pull the plug on their wedding plans.
Pierre comes up with a third way for Noordermeer to finance buying out De Graaf: going to the stock exchange. Max now divulges there's a fourth stockholder even Charlotte never knew about. Sophie flippantly tells Fleur straight-out she's adopted, Max's late sister Myrna biological daughter. Charlotte discovers and tells Max his new secretary Felix is gay. Anton, who is tricked to have a DNA fatherhood test, are furious about over 20 years of secrecy. Pierre has Niels tested, despite Charlotte. Fleur, the mystery no. 4, initially refuses any part in the firm, then simplistically sides with protesters about the missing cleaners.
Now Anton's DNA test confirms his paternity, Sophie demands that he takes care of Junior and even Keela - he grudgingly signs a marriage license. Pierre is furious that Charlotte puts her arrogance blindly before Niels's educational needs. After the boy runs away, Pierre puts him back in Sascha's class. Jacob finally goes to hospital - by stretcher, having implored his family to stick together. At night, Anton intrudes with chloroform for Marco, but forgot Abdullah who chases him before he can damage the prototype crucially.
Openly disinterested and disgusted, Anton weds Keela on parental instigation. Noordermeer celebrates its impending stock exchange quotation (actually lack of capital) in grand style. Alas, Fleur brings Jamila, the shabby widow of Bakx's illegal toxic accident victim Fatih, and keeps twisting Max's arm in her favor. Pierre gets personally interested in Felix. Jacob coaches Marco on how to call a marker in to make master shipbuilder, Richard Popescu, leave Noordemeer and build his prototype. Pierre proves to Charlotte that Niels lost confidence in her. Anton has a drug-addicted prostitute but abandons her having OD'd. Marco and Fleur make love.
Marco's overt business style 'à la Jacob' appeals to Kofferman, but the Noordermeer board is determined to outbid De Graaf, even at a loss, to buy that wharf after all. Charlotte denies her maternal instincts. After Niels finds out, Pierre seeks comfort from Felix. Anton's drug practices become known to Sam. Opinions differ on Marco's rekindled affair with Fleur.
After crazy visions, Jacob has a cardiac arrest, but pulls through. Max and Charlotte are confident they can win over Kofferman to place his order with them. Pierre finds an outlet for his home frustrations in playing squash with gay office colleague Felix, and kisses him in the sauna. By sitting at dad's side, Marco misses a crucial meeting, and probably the ship order. However Fleur tells him Max can't deliver in time, just in time to warn Kofferman.
Suspecting Pierre of adultery, Charlotte catches him in the act, not with Sascha but Felix! She brags about her own discrete infidelity but ends up spoiling their marriage and starting a fight with Niels for nothing. Marco and Abdullah dread telling the family they have the order but no finance to pay staff. Noordermeer suspects their people are being lured away by Popescu, so Anton buys an ambitious welder as their spy. Just now Anton starts acting as Junior's dad and Keel's husband, she leaves.
Charlotte meanly suggests to Pierre and others that Felix should be fired for her sake. Max refuses to miss either fine employee and Emma laughs at her whining about 'neglected' youth. Sam's false complaints get Anton questioned as an abusive drug suspect, but released with an iron-clad alibi. His spy, Freddy, is fired after an arrogant row with Abdullah, but agrees to sabotage. Keela, leaving with Junior, only hurt Anton's pride, but Sofie feels useless and takes to homeless busker-painter-poet Kasper.
Freddy's welding sabotage has caused a major explosion. Foreman Richard Popescu is killed. Kasper also impresses Emma, but hides a drug problem. Felix is not amused that Pierre seems willing to make up with Charlotte on Max's orders, albeit for Niels's sake. Charlotte lies that the boy doesn't miss Pierre. But his absence, and seeing her with a studly one night-stand Bert make him physically ill, curable only by daddy's comforting. Despite a scolding from Marco, Kofferman stays with De Graaf.
Max starts to worry about delivering a vital order in time, until Charlotte finds a Belgian subcontractor. He is none other than her flirtatious holiday friend Raymond Hendrickx, but Pierre finds a body in his closet. After Marco knocked the stuffing out of Anton, Fleur sides against her lover and leaves. Abdel already slept in new lover Sasha's bedroom, but decides he can't love her truly. Kasper steals again to pay for drugs but is caught and evicted. He's beaten up while working as a prostitute; Sofie takes him in again, to Max's anger.
Only Max still resists considering subcontracting, maybe even to De Graaf. Felix is delighted when Niels offers him a drawing of a home with two daddies, but hesitates to commit to helping Pierre raising him. Kasper breaks in to steal from Emma but she and Fleur catch him. He threatens them with a broken bottle until they cancel the police alert. He ties them up, but a patrol sees broken glass and beleaguers the kidnapper. Sofie talks him out of resorting to violence but breaks her promises this time.
Marco is worried sick that the judge may throw him in jail for violent aggression, but Anton and Max hope so. A cellphone-mix-up makes Fleur discover saboteur Freddy's frequent contacts with Anton. Jacob refuses to attend and so does Max, they must negotiate the subcontracting. Both drive a hard bargain, but Max is over a barrel, only Pierre sincerely admires Jacob's cool professionalism. The judge sees trough Anton's arrogance and fake neck-injury and imposes a merely suspended jail term.
De Graaf entertains Karel Fernhout, the Dutch banker in London who financed their last loan, but learns he intends to use the clause that allows him to turn it into a share worth up to 35% at default. His son Edward Fernhout, in English boarding school, meets and impresses fellow swimmer Sam. Pierre has no more patience with Max as Charlotte refuses co-parenting Niels. Fleur suspects saboteur Freddy and tries to trick him into confessing by posing as a journalist, but Anton prevents that. She apologizes to Marco, who feels that changes nothing, and tells her family, which decides to send Anton to therapy.
While Sam entertains Edward in Marco's boathouse and gets frisky, yet not quite, Connie tries to sweet-talk pa Karel into softening his credit terms. She rudely refuses to 'pay' in bed, he caves in. Pierre starts working half-time and risks Felix's love to care for Niels, but the judge awards lair Charlotte temporary custody. Unwilling Anton's therapy takes a bumpy start, but nightmares turn him. To max's horror, Marco unwittingly employs his former secretary Marleen.
Edward takes Sam for a nightly illicit sexy swim. Marco is seduced in his boathouse. Warned by a consultant the stock exchange, where they're launching themselves, favors companies with stable leadership and succession, the Noordermeer board agrees Anton is unfit until further notice. Now Niles is temporarily assigned to Charlotte, Pierre is pressed to work full-time again. Sofie discovers Marleen is stalking them, but has a hard time convincing Max, the police won't do anything anyhow.
To Anton's horror the board excludes him from the stock launch roadshow. Emma suggests Fleur could do business school in New Jersey. After a sneer at Marco for moving in on Ellen, Abdullah accepts their affair. Now Edward must return to his London boarding school, he spends a lavish hotel night with Sam. Jacob is ready to hand over the reigns, but ma only accepts if he formally resigns. Max arranges bodyguard John Bijlsma for Sofie against the stalker, yet she dares wine he 'puts the firm first'. Marleen manages to intrude and stab John. Anton makes an embarrassing scene at the roadshow. Noordermeer looses an independent subcontracting assessment and its hold on De Graaf.
Trough his own crazy fault, vindictive scorned heir Anton gets hurt in an explosion so badly he needs months of plastic surgery. De Graaf successfully completes the ship order. Noordermeer is running out of orders. Marco goes steady with Ellen while Fleur is at business school in the States.
Over a year later, Fleur graduates in America and returns to Rotterdam, hoping to get Marco back, but he isn't interested. Anton hopes to return home and exact revenge on his family, but gets a violent rage when Emma refuses him entry. Noordermeer proudly launches the latest build ship, but is desperate for new orders. De Graaf expects a South African order for 7 container ships, but must then expand, dump regular customer Kofferman's smaller order and subcontract some work to Noordermeer. Max manages to finds out the client and plans to offer them a better price. Abdullah is with Charlotte again.
Noordermeer is stalling the deal negotiations. Charlotte flies to South Africa to outbid De Graaf, but client Pieter Bloemfontein refuses knowing they can't get Marco's patented screw and decides to rat on her. Charlotte kept Fleur in the dark, so her reconciliation attempt with Marco fails disastrously. Abdullah realizes Charlotte only seduced him again to probe for the client. Before and after her trip, Charlotte is played masterly and anonymously by rich seducer Quinten Borgia.
After Charlotte's treachery, De Graaf has canceled the deal, but lacks an alternative. Jacob would turn to Kofferman instead, the others consider even teaming up with Noordermeer after all. Anton visits his family part-time, but clearly still suffers from a fire trauma, yet wants another sports car. Max agrees to a new deal without Charlotte. Quinten keeps toying with Charlotte, which gets her in bed. Fleur refuses to approach Marco professionally; when she tries romantically, he mistrust her and walks away.
Noordermeer and De Graaf receive Bloemfontein in style for the festive signing. Pierre is insulted the prude's prejudice prevents Felix being invited, so he brings him as classy drag queen Felicia. Sofie wines about her hostess effort remaining unmentioned, gets drunk and has sex with waiter Egbert. Sam nearly makes a fatal scene about their parents inviting Edward, who comes study in Holland, staying with them. Bloemfontein invites delegates back to Sout-Africa- Abdullah and Fleur accept. Tired of being kept out of business, Anton sabotages Max's presentation so he can take over. Quentin lures Charlotte away to a love nest.
Max and Connie's visions on doing business clash again, now on how to award subcontracts. This time his 'sophisticated modern' approach wins out. Anton now convinces his parents it's time to allow him back in the family firm, and steals psychiatric drugs to administer to his shrink, and steals Henri Hazelhof's file to make her crazy. Quinten Borgia makes Charlotte wait for him in vain, then arranges an official visit with two colleagues from his employer, Delta Consultants, which is making a study for the city which wharf should cede land for residential buildings. Edward refuses to be cruelly dumped.
Connie antagonizes her staff by accepting Max's proposals for coordinated HR management. She even manages to annoy Jacob by buying a grand company car like Max's. Sam meanly tries to force Edward out of the house. His college friend Trevor, a fellow horse-lover, is eagerly dated by Sascha, until Sam kisses him just to spite Edward. Charlotte enjoys Quentin's next romantic mystery date and hopes a threesome will convince him to doctor the zoning advice- in vain. Anton manages to make his shrink Freja believe former patient Henri, an ex con, is her stalker, not him, even poses as her protector and becomes her lover.
Conny's attitude is about to cause De Graaf's first ever strike, yet she still won't listen to Marco and Jacob. Max offers Sofie a new sculpting studio and a catalog of Dutch models to chose from, nut the first, Stephan, seems slightly too frisky. Marco discovers Ellen stands in for dad Willemminding her dementing uncle Koos, an ex-con for a police homicide in a strike incident, and the truth behind that conviction. Quentin gets Chatlotte's keys. Edward finds the perfect gift for Sam, but mistakes her thank you-kiss for returning his love. Emma promises Anton a wharf position if he gets a clean bill of mental health, just now Freia passed him on as patient, but he finds a drastic solution.
Conny still hasn't learned to trust Marco and Jacob's operational experience. Emma promises Max may get Charlotte's lead chair back if he uses his charms on Conny. He accepts, but cleverly steals a fax, as Marco guess but can't prove, to cause 30,000 Euro damage and win her grateful trust as savior. Sam keeps abusing helpful Edward, who overhears her ridicule his 'doggish' serviceability. Quentin introduces an SM element in his games with Charlotte and seems to make friends with Niels, who hates his new nanny Katelijn because he misses her predecessor. Anton gives lover-therapist Freya a kitten, but also taunts crazy Henri Hazelhof who now really stalks them.
Abdullah is back from South Africa just in time for his ex presenting her present hot lover Carlos Vandevelde, but he's actually a paid escort. Sam sees him kiss another and tells everybody, Abdullah finds out the truth. Max uses a business reservation incident to share a London hotel room with Connie, retreat before she accepts romantic action and copy most of De Graaf's contract with Bloemfontein. Pierre discovers Charlotte hid Niels's bruises for him, and therefore suspects her of abuse, until she confesses her affair with presumed culprit Quentin. In a gallery, Sofie meets real sculptor Borkus Koetsier, who teaches her to feel a model, then passion. Carlos actually makes love to Sasha. Niels has a new bruise, Felix discovers pictures of the undressed boy. Anton poses as a medical supervisor to taunt Henri with bloody results.
Now Edward realizes how loveless ingrate Sam abuses him, he accepts to write her English essay, but makes sure it poetically exposes her, then moves out. Both De Graaf and Noordermeer face delays for lack of electricians. Labor rules, an accident and contract terms below the belt drive both to despair. Jacob saves Marco's bacon, but Max ends up paying dearly from his personal account for the workshop for ingrate Sofie, who is getting seduced by Borkus. Katelijne is turned in for child abuse but released for lack of proof. Niels's attitude to the fired nanny suggests her innocence, an abused teddy-bear points to another suspect. Anton gets in, but only as 'all-round secretarial assistant'.
Bloemfontein's inspector De Swart rejects Marco's untested design improvements: a significant delay and fine, but he allows a demonstration. Tijnnagel's crew accidentally cuts the current at Noordermeer. After a dreary dinner with boring De Swart, Max and Connie decide to collaborate. Now Felix's abuse of Niels is known, Pierre refuses any contact. He moves back in with Charlotte, but Niels senses his parents are not really together. Anton's meeting with old friend Leo drags him into high stakes gambling, for which he needs Freja's ability to see trough poker-faces. Borkus seduces Sofie into financing his L.A. exhibition, which requires scamming Fl. 10,000 from Max.
Emma's P.I. finds prove Anton seduced shrink Freia, who is suspended. Even Max doesn't resist the board firing Anton, who attacks him for not warning in advance and starts setting fire to the office. Charlotte begs to see Quentin again, and gets her wish with a macabre twist. Marco accepts to enter a speedboat race, despite Conny and Ellen's objections he's swamped in wharf work, Jacob and Abdullah help him. Pierre moves with Niels into his new apartment. Sophie lies to Max so she follow her adulterer lover Borkus Koetsier to the States. Anton and Freija bet with his mate Leo on his boat the Arrow, but regret that seeing Marco is the adversary.
Marco's speedboat has exploded during the race when hurting a floating keg, but he will recover. Jacob believes he can take Marco's place as screw engineer, but ignores the sketches are for a rejected version and his health suffers. Anton fails to blackmail Emma with grandpa Antonius's war past, but Freia helps him find out there is more and stage an alternative approach. Missing and hating Felix, Pierre seeks comfort with eager Sasha. Max's uneasy seduction of Conny continues. Adulteress Sofie tells Borkus she can't come to the States, changes her mind and thus catches him with a new floozy, then promises Max an new start and has plastic surgery.
Marco realizes the ship won't be finished on time without him. Even after collapsing at his first attempt, he discharges himself. Freia's boss, Dr. Christiaan de Deugd, accepts to lift her suspension if Anton passes a mental health test with him. Freia coaches him successfully. After Sofie's breasts bleed, she fails to follow Max's advice tu sue Dr. Burghart, rather lets him try reconstructive surgery. Noordermeer sanctimoniously offered some of its staff to De Graaf until they realize Marco may still make its deadline, then call them back and fly in grumpy client Bloemfontein, but it's too late.
Now De Graaf has made its Bloemfontein deadline, it's offered the next six ships order. Marco pleads an independent course anyhow, but soon finds alternative orders are very hard to get. Max and Conny ignore Sam saw them kissing in the car before they get a room to make love. Anton hates being denied the company password, but sabotages the network and gets it. Thus he learns Noordermeer never filed for copyrights worth a fortune. When Max proposes to accept subcontracting with Conny again, Emma decides he has fallen for Connie and tricks him. Charlotte stays CEO, the subcontract is refused and Max blackmailed not to warn Connie.
Noordermeer's triumph is undermined from within when Fleur calls a stockholders meeting, pleading for a Bloemfontein deal with De Graaf she finally convinces Marco and Connie to accept. Emma, Anton -who feels accepted again- and Charlotte believe they can swing the meeting by convincing two major non-preferential stockholders in advance a De Graaf bankruptcy promises better dividend in the long term, but a mysterious stock buyer seems to change the rule of the game. Niels is bullied at school because dad is seen kissing Sasha. Sam tells she saw ma kiss Max.
Now Sophie swung the Noordermeer stockholders meeting her way, moralist Fleur resigns from the board and becomes Conny's administrative assistant. Marco worries about Ellen's jealousy. Emma threatens Max to reveal his infidelity, then actually tells Sophie, who now confesses her own adultery. Conny must tell Jacob, after the anniversary dinner her prepared. He beats up Max, she moves out.
Zoning officer Theo Schopman announces the city is confiscating the Noordermeer real estate, at a ridiculously low estimated value. Max and Connie's known adultery still makes both families miserable. Adulteress Sofie plays the cheated wife, she and Max pretend to have hot dates but she can only get a nightclub gigolo who leaves disappointed. Anton overcomes Emma's objection to commercializing technological copyrights. Connie refuses to continue with Max, Jacob takes her back. Ellen's vicious jealousy of Fleur turns violent.
Only provincial official Huib Verhey can still save Noordermeer from being expropriated. Emma first sends Charlotte to try female charms, then decides he's her generation and takes over. He won't be persuaded but gets drunk enough to betray a guilty secret. Pierre can barely stand Felix long enough for him to retrieve his stuff, announcing he accepted a job abroad. Anton is blackmailed by a mysterious do-owner, and suspect the network system manager. Ellen tries repeatedly to prevent Fleur waking up and telling she caused the 'accident'.
Anton's anonymous blackmailer is back. An ICT specialist traces him to a queer quarter. Seeing Felix there with dogs, Anton makes him an offer leading to a permanent solution. Now De Graaf is the wharf to be expropriated, the city offers them an interesting alternative site. Max appeals to real estate contact Ed Doeselaar to cross them. Freja's conditional loyalty gets her dumped. Marco gathers the courage to get back with Fleur. Having made love, they decide to drop the charges against Ellen, who is released to emigrate.
Now De Graaf wharf is to be expropriated, only Marco still feels like starting over again somewhere else. He ends up accepting the others prefer to sell and enjoy the profit, even Abdullah. max and Charlotte decide to pull together and Emma's power-games- so the old tyrant takes full charge herself. Sasha decides to move to Vienna, in pursuit of her horsemanship ambitions. Marco takes a job in an engineering design firm, but the rigid chain of command stifles his brilliant ideas, so he resigns. Their parents hope to unwind on a long cruise, a plan with a short fuse.
After turning down every possible wharf location in Holland, De Graaf family considers accepting EU subsidies to relocate to Poland. Marco must wait if Fleur would follow. Sam is irrelevant, as she wants to join the Dutch Navy. Appie invests his shares value in a bar, but soon finds he desperately lacks experience, so must rely on a temp.
Now the De Graafs are known to be moving to Poland, Mr. Staal presents his security firm as pricey protection against the Polish mob. Marco gets attacked but expects he can handle the fiends on his own. Sam starts boot-camp in the Dutch Navy, where studly Simon Veghte becomes her guardian angel. Anton starts billing Noordermeer. Appie's pub doesn't work, so he sells it and buys a home. Temp waitress Bob becomes his house-mate. Emma gets another uppercut when Max joins his sons form and sells his preferential wharf shares: the family looses majority control.
Just when the De Graafs board for Gdansk (Dantzig), Fleur tells them there's an alternative: Anton's blackmail has made Noordermeer's stock so cheap they may buy the majority. Sophie's 10% proves decisive, and the lush hates the family business- now Max has defected and tries to help her beat the bottle, she sells to Jacob. Abdullah hits the Turkish nightlife and finds a hot date, but she only wants meaningless sex.
In preparation for Marco's wedding, Fleur makes him 'make up' with Anton. Emma however refuses to witness just because Anton accepted. Fleur's ex Maurits returns after an adventurous world tour, actually hoping to win her back and sabotages Marco's bachelor party go-cart. Abdullah fears he won't succeed his naval navigation exam, but passes.
Marco takes Fleur on a surprise honeymoon, to Rhodes, where they have hot love and ultimately too adventurous outings. Marco's wedding photographer Alex becomes Sam's new lover, but suffers from epilepsy. Jacob enjoys his new job as shipbuilding quality inspector, as his first client is Anton and Max's firm's first ship, in Russia. However his new employer orders him to cut them just enough slack to pass. Their joy proves short-lived. When Charlotte finally tells her rich lover Robert ten Dam she's jobless, he proposes a long trip beyond her means. When she has scraped together the money, he has already booked with another.
The Greek police treats Marco as homicide suspect after Fleur's tragic drowning but releases him for lack of proof. After Anton's Russian-built ship sunk on its maiden voyage, the insurance investigates his and Jacob's possible accountability. Max also worries about the bad publicity, Anton doctors a fake black box but Boris fails to place it before the real one is found. Jacob's niece Tessa moves in and takes charge when client Tjerk de Baedts orders two ships he originally planned to have built by Anton. Emma is finally ready to make up, but Anton refuses.
To Marco's horror Emma has hired a detective supposing he murdered Fleur and makes her lawyer sue for an annulment of their marriage. The Noordermeer family lawyer, Alex van der Bilt, also informs Anton, who realizes he and Max would inherit part of her shares. Conny would grant an annulment to save the wharf, Marco couldn't care less. The surprise crown witness brings her own surprise. Meanwhile Tessa has made Conny accept Tjerk de Baedts's order for two ships without arranging for the necessary temporary staff.
When Anton and Max discover Tjerk de Baedts's order for two ships requires technology they have the right on, setting an excessive fee suffices to force Conny to accept a partnership with them. Even with Marco called to duty from mourning, expert hands are so rare that Charlotte is recruited. The curate persuades even Emma to attend a memorial mass for Fleur and preaches forgiveness, but she contemplates Ed Doeselaar's grim alternative suggestion.
Finding De Graaf no longer their patented inventions, which even decline in value now designer Charlotte is improving some herself, Max makes Anton face facts. They end up offering her a 1/3 raise if she defects, but Anton's attitude makes that fall trough. Marco's trauma has given him aqua-phobia. Emma still contemplates horrible 'revenge' helped by Doeselaar.
Emma's hit-man has failed to kill Marco, who refuses to file a complaint. Later she tries to run him over, can't at the last moment and loses car-control, landing in the port. Marco saves her from drowning. Sofie's Dr. Fabiënne Vermeer goes out with Anton, but tells him she's in love with another. It's Max, who didn't dare hope so. Tessa dates Anton, only to leave him bare-balls in a stripping game.
De Graaf is weeks behind on schedule, so Marco convinces Connie to start building before all his drawings are formally approved, despite Jacob's wise warning. Max tries twice to break off his adultery with Sofie's doc, but each goodbye-kiss rekindles their carnal fire. Anton suddenly plays the protective son. Learning he and Tessa belong to the rival dynasties only seems to add adventure, but his serial infidelity gets the better of that. Even Charlotte laughs at Emma' project to reunite the Noordermeers for a family party, yet late cancellations bring her a surprise bonus.
Pressed for staff, Marco recruits inexperienced macho former schoolmate Nancy (ma's idea) Bosman, who pulls a knife on someone who thinks to know him from jail. Furious Charlotte's improved designs are ruining his firm's patents' value, Anton enlists Ruud Wessels to secretly record his own attempt to bribe Jacob into allowing a fast-track procedure. Jacob refuses, but the recording is doctored for the press. Tessa chooses to believe liar Anton's excuses and dates him although banned from all De Graaf properties. Max shocks Fabienne by asking a second opinion, fearing she doesn't want Sofie to recover. Emma faces her maternal failing as neither kid accepts joining her at the opera.
Max gets Fabienne back as lover and promises to present her as such to the family. Emma is easy, but Anton furious his virtually mindless mother is 'cheated on'. Anton tells dad he accepts their relationship, but also in confidence that Fabienne has 'meaningless' sex with him while already dating Max. The inspection bureau's second opinion is positive for Marco, who forbade Charlotte to bribe Kooijman. Marco now enters a new revolutionary design for speeded-up approval. Conny finds out Jacob blocked approval.
Max gathers the courage to ask Fabienne to move in with him, which she eagerly accepts. Anton pretends not to mind and fails in manipulating them after pushing Tessa so hard she dumps him too. Connie hoped apologies would win Jacob back, but he stays in a hotel to be rid of her manipulative arrogance.
Marco finally finds an alternative propeller design. Fabienne is suspended in the hospital, for misdiagnosing a patient's neurological condition. max even promises to guarantee her possible damage due, although she's under-insured. Jacob's boss Anouk du Mee has a crush on him. She keeps Connie away and arranges for them to spend the night in a double room 'due to over-booking' in Marseilles, for a fake inspection.
Jacob's scorned boss wants him promoted away to Pretoria. After Jacob and Connie admit missing each-other, he moves back home. Marco's unwanted design delay is the last drop for client Tjerk de Baedts, who plans to slap a monster fine, enough to break De Graaf. Charlotte finds out and decides to sell her own stock before it plummets, without telling Emma, but their broker does. Jealous Anton poisons Fabienne's perfume to give her a nasty rash and plants his snake in Max's bed, she ruins his shirts. Jacob finds a solution, but also announces his health is ruined.
Cancer-terminal Jacob and Conny decide to enjoy his last months, without telling the kids yet. Marco tells Charlotte who feels ignored when her firing of Marco's former classmate Nacy is overruled. Marco fires him anyway after the mysterious motor-biker Bobby turns up and pulls a knife. Tessa finds out the men are ex-cons and Bobby refused to return to crime, gets him rehired and becomes his lover.
De Graaf buries founder Jacob. Emma decides to sell her shares to Connie and her house 'to start living' overseas. Nancy asks Tessa on a fancy dinner date, but his car breaking down ruins everything. Anton remains cocky, dreaming of building ships, but Max realizes their antiquated copyright portfolio is a gonner. Nancy borrows 30,000 Euros from a loan-shark for a classy car. Marco fears Noordermeer may be after Schuurmans, a wharf for sale. Anton saves Sam from the even lewder scum she consorted with instead of mourning.
Noordermeer once more has a wharf rivaling DeGraaf. Emma wants Charlotte in too, Anton and Max refuse. Nancy is happy back on kissing terms with Tessa, but the loan shark's repayment is due, and he can't sell the car back at a fair price. Desperate, he helps Terry's gang break in to steal the wharf's computers, but Tessa finds out. De Graaf counts on an order from Indonesian Sukandar, but Tjerk warns selling technology overseas would make them a pariah. Charlotte smells opportunity.
Charlotte has bought her way in as Noordermeer wharf's fourth equal partner waving the Javan deal. The computer theft and Conny's suspicion make it hard to get to the designs needed to sign the contract. Max decides to postpone announcing to Anton his intended wedding to Fabienne and her pregnancy until his formal divorce from Sofie. Just after Fabienne signs the medical certificate of incompetence, Sofie suddenly wakes up shortly, making Max doubt again.
Nancy won a TV as the 1000th customer, but Tessa won't believe him, so they break up. Charlotte seduces him to defect to Noordermeer after giving her notice to De Graaf - she will only miss Marco. Anton is furious to discover that Max has already divorced Sofie, who has recovered enough to return home. Max sets up Fabienne in a love nest, still planning to wed her. Anton is so jealous of Sam's casino mentor, Floris, whom she scorned as too plain, that he leaves his 'rival' in quicksand.
Now she knows Nancy really won the TV, Tessa comes make up, until she hears he plans to accept Noordermeer's job offer. Max and pregnant Fabienne want to get married, but he welcomes recovering Sofie home, without telling her yet, which Emma presses for. After Anton rents a yacht to woo her, Sam leaves home for him. Marco, who suspects Charlotte of design theft, and Tessa convince Nancy -again her lover- to become their corporate spy.
Nancy helps Marco by finding out Noordermeer has stolen the Javan Sukandar's contract. And risks his parole, breaking in together to sabotage Charlotte's machinery programming. Conny locks Sam up in the boathouse, but that only allows Anton to break her free and elope to Miami, albeit without having proposed. Max plays Sofie's dutiful husband, but agrees with Fabienne they must get married before their baby is born.
To the Noordermeers's surprise, Keela arrives as Javan client Sukandar's assistant. Yet tells Anton their son is with her mother in Indonesia, but actually plans with lawyer van Loon to get alimony. To prevent their sabotage being discovered in time, Nancy stays behind at night. Max tells Fabienne Sofie seems to be loosing her memory again. But his love is rekindled. Fabienne finds out and makes him choose when Sofie is declared cured. Rude as ever, Sam has left Anton at the Miami altar, but changes her mind back in Holland and asks ma to attend.
Nancy and Tessa decide to lie together, although the bank refuses him any credit. Keela tries everything to make the Noordermeers care for Junior, so most unwilling Anton would pay generously. It only gets Sofie so maternal again she presses Max for an adoption, adding to pregnant Fabienne's impatience. When Emma tells Sam about Anton's 'family', Sam leaves him. Running for troublesome youths, Connie meets and starts dating gallant old party-animal and businessman Rudi Groeneveld.
Keela's ship specifications nit-picking drives Noordermeer to despair, so Anton puts Junior in danger, but Nancy saves the boy. Max finally gathers the courage to tell Sofie he's leaving her for Fabienne. To his surprise, she seems to take it well and guesses the pregnancy. But she soon breaks down in several ways. Conny brings Rudi Groeneveld home, but her kids can't even stand him till the end of dinner, Marco fears it's a gold-digger. After Junior causes a fire with Anton's left lighter, he rushes in to save his brat. Now Keela believes him ready for a generous ...
Emma's mate Ed Doeselaar enjoys Niels's interest in his hunting and gutting. Afterthe boy practices on his class hamster, Charlotte ignores dad Pierre's advice to find out why. Next he barely arrives in time save her life. Sofie is released back home. Fabienne guesses she simulated a relapse but Max refuses to abandon her. Fabienne schedules an abortion. Anton intends to get custody of Junior rather then pay fat alimony, which is thus reduced to pittance after Keela is stopped from fleeing. Marco still mistrusts Conny's regular date Rudi. He tempts her to invest in ...
After Nancy refuses to flirt with Charlotte, she fires him, so he and Tessa plan a holiday to Portugal. Burglars beat the Noordermeer night watchman to death and steal 100,000 Euros 'off the books'. A municipal decision dooms Ed and Rudi's investment project. Ed flees but is caught at the airport, only Conny is reimbursed in full, also by Rudy. Fabienne has decide against abortion at the last moment. The Portuguese trip turns sour from a Dutch road-check.
Tessa believes in Nacy's innocence and promises in jail to provide a false alibi, but seeing the security camera recording at his trial changes her mind. Both wharfs have a ship ready to launch. Then Marco demands royalties to tell Charlotte which structural error Noordermeer's has, indeed the result of his sabotage. Charlotte refuses and doesn't tell her family partners until an engineer scanned the ship, but Anton pushes the button. Meanwhile Rudi starts sharing 'Jacob's' bed with Conny, who still desperately wants her kids' approval. Nancy is sentenced, but ...
Now their ship has sunk at the launch, the Javans refuse building any more. The bickering Noordermeers are rated as bad credit risks by the bank, just now Anton wanted a mortgage for a dream house as Sam wants him to move out. Charlotte assumes correctly it was sabotage by Marco, but nobody believes her without proof. Nancy, released on account of his girlish Christian name, tries tireless till he wins Tessa back. Pierre wants Charlotte to take Niels while he tries out a promising job offer in Sweden, but the boy causes a terrible accident. Jealous of Fabienne's child, Sofie keeps pushing Max to their baby Mathijs, and seizes her chance to take him in while Fabienne suffers post-natal depression.
Now Pierre has died in the car crash his hyperactive son Niels caused, the boy is totally out of control, unable to understand he can't be with his beloved daddy anymore. After sex with Nancy, Tessa keeps giving confusing signals and stands him up at a romantic dinner. She pretends she's being stalked until her cruel fickleness drives him to come after her grinding an ax and is arrested. The city and national authorities have landed a giant order from the United Arab Emirates, but they require Noordermeer and De Graaf to collaborate again, even if the unwilling partners must be 'blackmailed' by threats. Fabienne still fails to bond with baby Mathijs, so dad Max takes him in again.
Abdullah 'Appie' is in town, as his ship passes by, but Marco can't spend much time with him as the rival wharfs must prepare designs for the huge UAE order. Charlotte misses it, suddenly turning maternally responsible now Niels is obsessed with reviving dear daddy or joining him in the grave, literally. Anton moves into a luxury apartment with Sam. Appie's 'sailor widow' Katja moves in with Marco, in exchange for diving lessons.
Max's insinuation De Graaf's wharf can't handle huge ships is cleverly enough bluffed to make Marco sign over part of the huge order, then hires a diver to wreck in for real. At their housewarming party, Anton presents Sam to his drug dealer, crock-lover Gideon 'White adder' Splint. Rudi beats Anton, threatening with worse if he keeps exposing Sam to such bad friends. Anton visits his designer drugs lab behind her back, with his own solution.
Marco and Appie's mate Katja's attraction grows, a movie leads to kiss. After a nightmare about Abdullah he tries to dump her, but passion wins out. Anton stages danger which he can rescue young Chemokid, whom he discovers to be a shy virgin, from as 'protector', hoping to make him run a drug lab of their own, in stead of Gideon, who lurks around. Courting lessons do the trick. Max has Matthijs back home while Emma's lawyer prepares to get him custody over the 'Noordermeer heir'. He and Anton plan to make Fabienne's post-natal depression last by substituting her pills. She goes so g-crazy she jumps from a window with the baby. Niels can't stand the wining and all attention and gifts being showered on his tiny 'rival'.
Marco finds a design flaw which allows De Graaf a better share. He celebrates by making love with Katja, still behind Appie's back. Matthijs is found asphyxiated in his crib. Charlotte realizes Niels must have 'silenced' the baby. Fabienne charges Max and Sofie with child murder but feels guilty as lousy mother. Emma convinces Charlotte saying so can only make things worse, but the boy betrays his having been in Matthijs's room to Sofie. Anton now deals in drugs designed by Chemokid, even pays a captain to export them to the US. Gideon has his revenge.
Matthijs's death makes the Noordermeers relive Myrna's, actually by fire set by Charlotte. Max isn't informed about El Houssa's whereabouts and Marco neglects him to make love with Katja. But Rudi entertains the fellow horse-lover. Gideon's revenge forces Anton to borrow from Max. He nearly OD's, but Chemokid pulls him trough, only to be abused by both enemy drug bosses. Emma convinced Charlotte to put Niels in Berkhobe, her former boarding school, but at the last moment she decides instead to tell Sofie the truth.
Max scolds Emma for shielding Niels, and unlike Sofie wants revenge on his baby Matthijs's murderer. Charlotte is forced to accept residential drug therapy. El Houssa tells Max about 'impossible design adjustments' which make him suspect military contraband. Max wants a merger with wharf Driessen, promising the UAE contract. Anton uses his vote to demand a department manager position. Emma is against, but depends on Charlotte's vote too. Anton is threatened by his drug client it's time to deliver. He sets up Chemokid in a new, secret lab. Abdullah tells Katja he'll probably be home in a week. Marco decides to come clean, but now both turn on him.
Max proposes to El-Houssa to build him a contraband warship provided he dumps De Graaf, but is told that never was the order. Max now convinces Charlotte the only other way to convince Wim Driessen to merge is a love affair with the wheelchair-ridden billionaire. Now Abdullah is back, Katja claims she never wanted a relationship with Marco and leaves with Appie. Chemokid has prepared new drugs for the US market, Anton smuggles them in double walls on ships Noordermeer repairs. Gideon finds the lab, destroys it, shoots Chemokid and blows up Anton's car. When El Houssa discovers Marco's ma is his superior, the order is revoked.
Driessen goes trough with the merger, so the Noordermeers court him to be appointed directors. He decides on Max and Emma. De Graaf's future looks bleak. The authorities fail to come to the wharf's aid and the Janssen brothers take charge of staff protests. Rudy tempts Conny to give up and start stud-farming with him in America.
Emma laughs away Charlotte's claim she wasn't kept as director because Driessen destines her for 'even better'. At first that's just 'ambassador of the Dutch shipbuilding industry', but ultimately the wheelchair-ridden billionaire proposes to her. De Graaf desperately tries to out-place its staff, without much luck. Conny accepted to join Rudi in his Nevada stud-farm adventure. After Rudy proudly presents a deal for Driessen to take over their staff, Conny decides to stay and fight without him, accepting Bas Jannsen's suggestion their laborers will work a few months without pay in exchange for a share if the wharf is saved.
After a near-accident Juup and Tessa become lovers. He successfully stands against Bas for staff representative on the wharf board. She's appalled to find Juup has both child and pregnant wife. Now the police and press know about Anton's drug contraband, Driessen wants his head. Unlike Sofie, Max refuses to spare their son: the fiend is fired and delivered to the police, but refuses to collaborate, fearing for kidnapped Sam. Sofie gets word to Marco, who solves Gideon's Biblical clues to find his stupid sister, ODed.
Juup had seduces Tessa again, assuring he only stays in his loveless marriage for his offspring. Whne wife Sendy finds out, he's thrown out by her and his own dad Bas. Gideon has trapped Marco on a yacht, later Anton also, who is literally crucified. Marco gets loose, but faces a booby-trapped bomb. Driesses marries Charlotte, despite her confession the flesh may well weaken, but afterward confesses he has terminal MS.
After Gideon's yacht's explosion, Marco and Sam are rescued. Anton is presumed dead at sea, but sends Sofie a package and poetic code. Driessen and Charlotte prepares their honeymoon, while the gardener tends her aesthetic desires and as swimming pool playmate. Emma eagerly points out they inappropriately kissed too, but Wim accepts that 'as agreed'. Hearing Juup's family threw him out, Tessa insists her lover moves in with her. Gideon tracks, kidnaps and in vain tortures Sofie. Anton turns the tables on his ransom trap.
Charlotte found and bought a yacht, modified to make Wim's dream cruise. He announces however his youth friend doctor Victor Vos has agreed to apply euthanasia in 4 days, given his worsening MS condition, which she calls selfish. Max and Emma are desperate to avoid her inheritance amounting to total control, enough to invest 6,000,000 in a new stock issue, if they can trick Wim to allow that. To Tessa's horror, Juup accepts Conny and dad Bas's insistence to try moving back to his wife and children. He secretly triumphs when Wendy wants a divorce and custody. Driessen's testament contains a crucial surprise.
After Bas saves son Juup from an accident caused by a crane he scolds outdated, Marco and Conny insist to promote him technical wharf manager. Jealous Juup stirs the staff behind their back against dad, whom he publicly supports, and sabotages the new crane he has bought on ill-affordable credit. Max expects El-Houssa will demand his return to the Noordermeer board to get the next warships build, but Charlotte gets the contract ignoring what 'the same design' really means. Juup warns Tessa she can't make Sam's xtc and cocaine addiction on her own. Conny makes that her top priority, even if that means stepping back as CEO.
Abdullah 'Appie' is blinded by a torpedo hitting the UAE ship he was sailing on. He bitterly refuses unfaithful Katja and Marco's help, but the crew insurance doesn't cover war risks. Marco works out Noordermeer-Driessen illegally converted El Houssa's 'cargo' ship from which the torpedo was accidentally fired, tells Charlotte and breaks in at Noordermeer with Katja to gather proof they release to the press. Max pretends he was fired because he refused the illegal conversion, backed up by Emma. Charlotte must resign, but probably still hasn't saved the wharf. She pays Appie 2,000,000. Sofie leaves Max.
A judicial inquiry seals the wharf for months. After Sofie uses the family lawyer to launder Anton's drug cash and buy a mansion, Max gets wind and courts her. Emma also finds out, tries to threaten her and ruins everything. Emma also met Louis Donnier, but pushed him away once aware the charming old man is a priest. Sam leaves therapy just when hypnosis was reaching the problem, lies at home and lands with another hardcore junk.
Max is terrified when El-Houssa threatens with huge completion delay fines. Juup solves his problem by offering a commission on top of goop prices to subcontract to De Graaf, where orders are desperately needed. To make Marco and Conny accept, Max's mate Mebius Schalke pretends to be the client. Emma is obsessed with old priest Louis Donnier, whom she wants as lover. Sam has hit rock-bottom, stealing with fellow junkie Herman Scholte.
Sam is noticed among the other drug addicted prostitutes. Marco tries in vain to lock her up to detox at home. Sofie contacts Anton, who arranges for them to visit his tropical American hiding place. There shaman Johnson cures her, but she refuses to stay. Having spotted Emma in a restaurant with priest Louis, Charlotte tells him in confessional about her hatred for her mother from hell's crimes, including the illegal warships. Narcotics traces Sofie to Anton, who stages a fake death.
Marco discovers Schalke is a cover for subcontracting El-Houssa's two remaining warships set up by Noordermeer. Bas and Tessa accept Juup's denial of his part. Marco and Appie finds out the minister and her husband, the UAE consul, arranged it all without even Max knowing the links. Marco and Max take down the corrupt politician but loose the order. Juup is fired and breaks up with Tessa. Bas is rehired as foreman. Sofie breaks down at a memorial service Emma had held for Anton by her lover, priest Louis.
Juup is now Max's HQ deputy. After Tessa tells she's expecting his baby but decided to abort it, Marco beats Juup beastly. Visiting Sofie after her collapse in Fleur's memorial service, Emma bumps into her therapist Raymond de Haas, whom she reminds of her warning to keep far from her family. But Sofie keeps mistaking his daughter Iris on sight with Fleur. Ray tells her, as Emma tells Louis, Iris is Fleur's twin, split up at birth under a deal by them. Emma's patience and open flaws ironically finally seduce Louis in bed, ending his Catholic priestly vocation.
Juup works out the labor inspector is a court intimus, who will advise the royal court about ordering a yacht. He proposes to Emma to pass unsuspecting De Graaf another order so they'll be unable to accept. But Charlotte has chosen to return now Max is in hospital, and turns against Juup. Meanwhile he spies on his dad's treasured yacht model, a son-father project. Marco is inspired by it to a royal design, which Juup gets copied and destroyed. Iris seems to fall for Emma's lies against her dad, but tells him that's a ploy to get lucrative revenge, which starts when Emma hires her as firm medical officer in charge of staff review. Iris and Max's recovery bring him and Sofie together again. Sofie first offers Iris Anton's empty apartment, then suggests to cohabit there.
After the police finds the stuff robbed from Bas's shed dumped nearby, he realizes his own son hired them. Juup responds he only meant to have the model smashed up, which he helped make, but is expelled. Emma wants to make De Graaf lose the race for the royal yacht order by asking Iris to distract Marco. The Fleur lookalike certainly stirs his memories and arouses enough mixed feelings to keep him sleepless. Max and Charlotte are displeased Emma planned this without consulting them.
The crown prince has decided to ate-tend a sailing race between finalists De Graaf and Noordermeer. Marco has a headache preventing him to captain, so Bas takes his place. Juup manages to sabotage their yacht. Crook Ed Doeselaar returns to blackmail Emma for 500,000 Euro or he'll use his court contacts against Noordermeer.
Louis can't keep living in sin with Emma, who only accepts his second proposal. Told that Niels is ready for a foster-family, Charlotte refuses and takes him home. Max forgives his baby's killer, but she can't control the disturbed boy and looses him in the Driessen mansion. After Marco clearly wasn't troubled by seeing his mother kiss Bas, they announce their wedding. Emma eagerly expected Juup would romantically bind Iris, but she soon returns to Marco. Seeing Juup with other girls, Emma fires him. Marco abuses him, so he sets fire to the wharf while Marco and Iris are inside.
Marco managed to escape the burning wharf hall and drag out Iris, but she's badly burn-mutilated. Emma convinces her to leave him, promising best plastic surgery. She coldly tells Louis he gave up everything for her in vain, he's dumped. Bas finds his son's lighter on the site, but believes his protestation of innocence. Arsonist Juup finds a homeless accomplice to commit more arson and take the blame for all. Conny accepts to apologize, give him a job and take him in at home. Tessa moves away. Charlotte has nightmares about the mansion, where only rats are actually found.
Noordermeer wants to branch out into cooling ships for Godfried van Haveren, so Charlotte hires brilliant young specialist design engineer Roland de Wit. He discovers, too late, the Charlotte design Max just signed for is technically impossible. Marco won't accept Conny's plan to marry Bas and make Juup an equal heir, but even the other laborers still hate him. Emma hires top surgeon Dokter Vandersteen for desperate Iris.
Godfried van Haveren refuses a deal about Charlotte's flawed design, invoking a monster fine clause. Max and his lawyer hope they found a loophole, but after an intervention from the attorney general Noordermeer looses the trial. Emma brings Iris to a Belgian private clinic for an expensive and life-threatening experimental facial skin transplant. Sofie and a nurse keep Marco informed, but security is impenetrable. Bas and Connie go ahead with their wedding although not all children can attend. When Marco gets word Iris is dying, they reschedule.
Charlotte hopes to charm Godfried van Haveren out of imposing a huge fine. He becomes the main character in her bloody ritual nightmares. After his accomplice barely manages to remove a slaughtered girl she actually found in the mansion of his friend, her late husband Driessen, she puts the house up for sale. Then Godfried drops his claim. Iris' transplanted face confuses her and Marco, who cancels their first date. But they soon become lovers again.
Emma demands Iris must pay her own facial transplant back or dump Marco. This brings Iris to reveal that her twin split up in the press. Marco dumps her for being utterly unlike Fleur. Sam makes Sofie betray the Siegfried code to contact Anton. The first reaction is a threat from Gideon's gang, but a mystery man deals with that. Sam accepts to join Anton in tropical exile.
Emma and Max ignores Charlotte's theory Godfried and some college frat friends, including Christoffer Deurloo, are after the wharf. Emma even replaces her as design department chief by Roland. Emma engages and tests Iris, who succeeds thanks to Roland's help. Charlotte discovers the 'alumni' run a blackmail racket and accepts a deal with Godfried, who orders her reinstated. She a Juup flirts with his sister Sjouke, but she ignores his warning not to date loser wharf laborer Dennis, who nearly rapes her.
Juup is short of cash to pay his arson dupe's silence, so he steals from Marco, staging a break-in. Ignoring their hostile background, recovering Max and Sjouke bond over ice-skating and race horses, but she wants more, while Sofie is interested in him again. Charlotte can't make head or tail of Godfried's attitude, rude in business, shielding his private life but 'handling' a disrespectful laborer.
After seeing the red cross-symbol from the secret nightmare rite in Niels's drawings, Charlotte has it researched. It links to a sinister sectarian offshoot of the St.John's order of knighthood, banned for human sacrifices. Emma considers her mad and promotes Iris to take over. Teaming up with admirer Roland, she makes a ruthless start, which estranges Marco completely. Godfried promises Charlotte an introduction, which in fact seems to clear her brain. Max admits being enamored in Sjouke.
Juup's greedy arson dupe Erna forces him to be driver at her friend Sjourd's next robbery, but it goes wrong. Juup just escapes arrest and confesses the fire to dad Bas, who gets him to turn himself in and tells Conny. Max feels he needs to dump Sjouke as too young. Iris diagnoses Charlotte's grave memory loss -only Roland prevents disasters- is temporary and physically, but even hospital specialists can't identify the traces from Godfried's order's electric brainwashing.
Despite Conny's meanly hostile attitude, Bas hires top lawyer Adriaan Spelt to defend Juup on trial for the arson he already confessed. Sjouke tells Bas she accepted an au pair job in Brussels and convinces Max to come along for hot hotel fun. Marco is drawn between crazy Iris and his criminal ex Ellen. De Graaf thus ends up losing formerly loyal client Halberstadt to Noordermeer.
Sjouke makes sure everyone notices her with Max at shipping magnate Schimmelpennick's retirement party, to both's parents' disgust. Godfried is succeeding to the maritime empire. Marco is back with saboteur Ellen, but would consider taking Iris back if she leaves Noordermeer wharf. Charlotte and her hypno-therapist discover the secret of the sect's ritual. A fellow victim refuses to expose Godfried, but she convinces him to let her join. Bas's bullish intrusion at Max's and beating him only drives Sjouke further in Max's arms.
Ellen's environmentalist action against pollution by Noordermeer's subcontractor gets even the staff's support. The wharf risks being shut down and bankrupted, but Charlotte gets new sect-fellow Godfried's support so she can arrange a way out, shining in the press and regaining Emma's respect. Marco is sick of working his tail off and saving everyone's bacon. Yes Iris pushes him to even crazier risks, wins him back and turns against Emma. Sofie refuses to help Emma fight Max's choice for Sjouke, although she'ld want him back, instead encourages Max to leave the wharf and offers to buy his shares, so he can enjoy life instead of doing domineering ingrate Emma's bidding. Emma now faces a hostile majority.Marco leaves on a four weeks trip with Ellen's environmentalists. Charlotte pales realizing Godfried blackmailed a judge to suicide in order to save her wharf.
With Marco away and Juup in jail, where no plans may be drawn, Bas and Conny 's technical incompetence means all work is blocked until Marco can fax the solution. Godfried orders Charlotte to entertain Chinese sect tycoon Chin Wou. To her horror, his taste is young boys, and he has nude pictures of her own son Niels. When Emma sees her ready to try threats at gun-point, she brings a Rotary friend, judge van Ostaijen, to secretly start a criminal case against the whole sect. When Godfried finds out, he kidnaps Niels, but Emma does the same with his daughter.
Because the province needs flooding areas, Noordermeer wharf, which planned to expand, will be disowned. Emma wants their older, higher grounds back from De Graaf. The rival must therefore be busted by offering their staff higher wages to transfer immediately, which sabotages completion of the royal yacht. So has an undercover laborer, Ernst Romer. Max's new life included manual labor at De Graaf's, but he makes a bad fall. In prison, Juup is pestered by bully jailer Snoeck. When the warden accepts Juup's complaint, Snoeck arranges for the worst scum to rape him in the showers. Only Nancy takes pity on him.
After jailer Snoeck's further abuse drives Juup to a failed escape, he's in isolation under the fiend's thumb. Nancy and Sjoukje help him escape and flee the country. Marco is delighted when Iris finally manages to inform him she's expecting their baby. Emma ignores an option Charlotte advanced to move the wharf to Groningen. Her plan to break De Graaf by sabotage fails when Ernst Romer, whom she bribes with a motorbike-racing career, chooses a stable career under better HR management.
Emma contacts feared shipping magnate Rudd Kamphuis so he'll place a dangerous order, trough her, with De Graaf. Pregnant Iris decides to warn Marco, who is on an ecologist mission to save the blue whale, also about the provincial site threat. But she stupidly wrecks his radio at sea. During the next storm, this means the rescue arrives late when his boat gets in serious trouble. Emma's plan succeeds in swamping De Graaf, so they loose out on another order, which Noordermeer really wants. Max insists to throw a grand party for Sjoukje's 18th birthday. It coincides with Ernst's celebration of an offer to become a professional motorbike racer. Max, still recovering, insists he takes over in the night-club. Charlotte's new child psychologist for Niels and Sofie are old schoolmates and become lesbian lovers.
Marco is buried, leaving Conny emotionally numb, so Tessa takes charge. Noordermeer and Kamphuis continue their game and succeed in making De Graaf sign a bid likely to wreck them. Juup is back, slips Sjoukje a note to meet him secretly and sort of fake-kidnaps her to demand 1,000,000 Euro, even tries to cut off his own finger as 'proof'. Max can't liquidate that much, so he asks Emma, who insists to bring in two private detectives. They advice a set-up to kill the kidnapper, which Bas and in the end Max himself oppose. Iris decides to hide Marco is her baby's father by agreeing with enamored admirer Roland he'll act as such, without promising him love.
Realizing Max is broke because no insurance covers ransom, Sjoukje contacts Juup, who agrees to meet her but refuses to pay him back. Max nearly dumps her for being Juup's accomplices. He pretends the gun he packs isn't loaded, but driving with a plastered foot proves even more dangerous. Grieving Conny is side-tracked, Bas ignores doctor's orders to rest with a hernia. Tessa isn't up to negotiating a safe contract with Kamphuis, who meanwhile gets Emma to guarantee completion where De Graaf fails pay the down payment in his place.
Marco's baby seems lost in stillbirth, in fact it's twins to Emma's delight. Uncosolable Conny guesses not Riland but Marco is the father. Max wants to celebrate loosing his plaster cask with a sports-car for Sjoukje, but his credit-cards are maxed-out because of the ransom. Emma refuses a loan, so he wants to take a temporary consulting job, but Emma's black reference wrecks that. Kamphuis starts tightening the delivery clause screws on De Graaf.
Because Emma sabotaged him finding a job at his top executive level, Max finally enlists temporarily in De Graaf's accounting to afford a Hawaian holiday. The Kamphuis contract ruins De Graaf after Bas, who stupidly kept working with a hernia, pushes the wrong control buttons and thus wrecks the ship's entire front section. Juup secretly returns however to re-capitalize them.
Max knows about Juup's ransom investment and demands Marco's former 25% share in De Graaf for his silence, yet accepts a buy-back clause in a year contract and wins over the staff. Tessa first refuses to return to Juup 'Diederik De Ridder', then finds Belgium's Burgundian style turned him classy but still dumps him cruelly. Niels's latest imaginary friend, a modeled after fiend Dexter from Sofie's lesbian porn, inspires dangerous games. Charlotte falls romantically for Mark Landers. At a family dinner Emma throws to test Max, he reveals his investment and knowing about the impending flooding.
Emma convinces Kamphuis to declare an arranged bankruptcy, so De Graaf doesn't get paid and is near the same fate. Max acts as broker and convinces all but Connie to sell, yet Emma offers only an absurd low price. Roland's patience with ingrate Iris runs out. Juup 'Diederik' finds Belgian potential ship buyer De Smet, so Tessa must spend time with both flirtatious men. Connie finally guesses the flooding motive and gets confirmation from city official Bart. She goes public, so Noordermeer looses its clients' confidence. Sofie has survived the electrocution, but a nightmare causes a cardiac arrest.
Tessa's 'rapist' ex Nacy is released early on parole and gets a retail shelve-stacker job. There she bumps into him and joins an ultra-feminist committee which persecutes former sex convicts. Only when his new life is wrecked and the bitches beat him to pulp absolutely unprovoked, Tessa remembers her real feelings for him, but he has already left town. Charlotte overrules Emma, who still stakes everything on buying up De Graaf, and starts negotiations to buy a wharf in nearby Delfzijl. But Emma gets the naive staff to oppose leaving Rotterdam and extorts Sofie's shares in exchange for cardiac surgery. Iris runs out of excuses to deny naively romantic fiancé Roland a dream marriage.
Stephan Bakhuyzen allows De Graaf to bid for a new order, but like Noordermeer they are outbid by a young firm. Bas wants to fight, even if that means starting over somewhere else, but Conny is lost is melancholy, like Sofie who waits for heart surgery. Roland is still waiting for his marriage or its consummation. Ernst Romer convinces Tessa and Sjoukje to accept featuring in his brother Arthur's film academy exam documentary 'Love and Sex in the 21st century', but Max is furious when his private video message love declaration is used, actually Tessa's doing.
Juup happens to witness a shooting among criminals and mutually recognizes dirty jailer Snoeck. He escapes by diving, hides in Marco's shed. He finally gathers the courage to testify to the police at Diederik, but is jailed after gangster Duro Kertes identifies him during his own line-up. Emma enjoys making bankrupt De Graaf wriggle. Max discloses the Noordermeer assets to force a fairer bid. Juup sends Belgian mates to fake a rival bid. Charlotte and Iris decide to sign, but Emma finds the foul. Feeling neglected, Sjouke accepts to join the Romer brothers celebrating Arthur's film academy graduation.
Exceptional rain is likely to cause the Noordermeer wharf to be flooded early. Arch-rivals Conny and Emma remain too pigheaded to save either firm by agreeing on a reasonable price for bankrupt De Graaf. Max can't spend much time with Sjouke, so at her graduation party with the Romer brothers she ends up making love with Arthur, but Max is prepared to forgive her. At Charlotte's instigation, Iris abuses her medical skills to make Emma believe she's loosing her mind, like her ma at the same age. Emma ends up signing over her proxy to Iris, who now dumps Roland. Seeing his romantic dream shattered, he tells Emma about Iris's betrayal, including Marco being the unborn twin's biological father.
Now De Graaf has become a shipping company, Bas enjoys seeing Noordermeer grovel for an order and wants to turn it down anyway. Conny makes him accept it as best price/quality, but shows no more interest, still mourning Marco. Iris tells Charlotte Emma seems to be genuinely demented by now. In fact she realizes she was cheated, but continues to act crazy and hires a new male nurse as accomplice for elaborate revenge. She spares neither Max, who offers to take her in, nor Iris's twins, one of which can't tolerate sun light. Roland finally realizes what a loveless monster Iris is.
Conny's mourning for Marco and Jacob makes her attempt suicide, but not go trough with it. Although nearly found out by Charlotte's new lover Ad Bots, Emma continues her dirty games, now even sabotaging Noordermeer's contract with De Graaf, but Bas lets them off easily. Max tries to scare off the Romer brothers. He ends up discovering Sjoukje cheated on him with Ernst during the video recording, to be aired, and dumps her heart-broken. Juup finally makes vindictive Tessa admit she went to far 'punishing' him.
Realizing Sjouke has a sensual relationship with race horse Blue Velvet, Max buys it. First he hoped to win her back, when she refuses risks it racing badly injured. Hoping to disinterest Conny completely from business, Charlotte pushes Ingrid to tell her the twins are Marco's. Instead the news rekindles Conny's taste of life. Bas is confronted with the Korean Jae Shin he left 20 years ago. Failing to commit after a single adulterous night, he learns she left for good, but not her son Toa Shin, aged 20.
After losing his expensive horse and Sjoukje, Max starts drinking with hobo Jucovic. Emma forms a vindictive alliance with Toa Shin. She bribes official Cornelis with the stolen-back Breughel-copy to pass red-tape. He tortures Bert 't Groenloo to sell him a wharf, then cancels its contract with Noordermeer to finish its ship for De Graaf and gets it himself plus the next order. Marcel gets Tessa's number from Juup, waves his warning but experiences she's a literally torturous date.
Juup takes charge of laborers protest against allegedly health-hazardous radiation from a communications mast on Toa Shin's wharf. He must agree to medicals, which Conny confides to Iris, whom Toa manages to buy. yet he gives in so as to appear generous and win Juup's confidence despite Bas. Niels and Ad's daughter Hansje bond while their parents enjoy sharing a sauna. Jealous of ma's lover, the scamp plans to electrocute him, which only fails by coincidence. Juup can't understand why Bas object to Toa teaching him the Korean martial art Bas is a grandmaster in. Emma admits to Max only he treated her humanely. She discovers his wino mate Jucic is a former Nobel prize nominee and shipping engineer.
Juup insists to take Korean martial arts lessons with Toa Shin. Bas, a former international champion, warns him it's too dangerous, but Juup goes on. He even wins his first training fight against Kyum Son, and accepts to fight Tao himself. Then Bas steps in. Meanwhile Max studies the notes Jucovic left about ship propulsion inspired by squid-jets. Charlotte initially refuses to help, but gets so fascinated by the challenge to use it in ship-design that she neglects lover Ad, who falls for temptation elsewhere.
Max gets Charlotte, who enjoys love with Ad again, to help him, behind vindictive Emma's back, design a prototype of Juric's Aquajet, just in time as Emma gave both press and client a flippant deadline. Tessa discovers Jacob co-authored the brilliant design. Taunted by the arrogant Wiegersma sisters, Ernst decides to break their sidecar race record. He enlists initially unwilling novice Juup as passenger, but the girls play dirty in the shower and Sjoukje selfishly scolds their risk-taking.
Juup discovers his children, which he suddenly has trouble to see, are being beaten at his ex Wendy's home. Just after beating up her present partner, slaughterhouse worker Rocky, he learns the truth. Rotterdam is infested by rats. Emma stubbornly goes ahead with a media circus on the launch of Noordermeer's "aquajet"-innovation. Max and Charlotte desperately try to make it work or slow her down, in vain, even reputedly strict inspector Stoelmuller is already bribed-off. Jacob's correspondence proves what Charlotte's tests would confirm hadn't Niels ruined the prototype while she has car-sex with Ad: it can't work. Disaster is waiting to happen.