The history of Dutch shipbuilding is alive in Batavia Yard

June 24, 20182min read

Batavia Yard (Batavia Werf) is a Dutch shipyard with extraordinary ambitions. Here are restoration of the vessels of the Golden age who left a significant mark in the Maritime history of the Netherlands. Heritage, destroyed or found sad fate in the depths of the sea, finds on the stocks of the Batavia Yard second life.

In April 1995, the shipyard has completed a decade of work on a unique reconstruction of 56.6-metre 17th-century ship “Batavia”. The same name the original was built in Amsterdam in 1628 for the East Indian Campaign and in the first voyage were killed off the coast of Australia. In 2000, his exact replica, built by the Batavia Yard team, led by Willem vos (Willem Vos), was the flagship Team of the Netherlands at the Olympic games in Sydney. Since 2001, the ship is moored in Lelystad and gathers many tourists.

Today Batavia Yard carries out a linear reconstruction of the ship “De 7 Provinciën”, which in the second half of the 17th century commanded the battles of the legendary Dutch Admiral Michael de Ruyter Adriaanszoon. The original 80-gun a 46-metre battleship “De Zeven Provinciën” – was launched in 1665 in Rotterdam and took an active part in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch wars. In 1694 in the Battle of Barfleur and La Hogue – one of the largest battles of the Nine years ‘ war (war of League of Augsburg) 1688-1697 from the ship was badly damaged, abandoned by crew and sank.

Work on the battleship “De 7 Provinciën” demanded Batavia Yard more efforts, human and financial resources. To this end, the shipyard received the status of a charitable Foundation, and now all the work is done at the expense of the budget generated solely through sponsorship support. Great interest in the project manifested by the state, various organizations and individuals. Collected through the charity Fund gives you the opportunity Batavia Yard play an important role in the lives of several dozen professional shipbuilders, which for various reasons were unemployed for a long time, and today are constantly engaged in the reconstruction of sailing ships.

The uniqueness of the project is Batavia Yard is in the methods with which the Builder approaches the construction of ships. Work here take place solely on the technology of the 17th century, without any modern means of manufacture of materials and design elements. The entire construction process at its core is a deep historical research, or “experimental archaeology”, as they call it yourself boat builders.

The opportunity to plunge into the vibrant atmosphere of the Batavia Yard is ready to provide almost always. Daily from 10 am to 17 PM there are tourists of all ages from different places of Europe. Rare exceptions are holidays and days of filming a historical movie: here, for example, the shooting took place recently in cinemas in the Netherlands “Admiral” (“Michiel de Ruyter”, 2015, IMDb 2544766).