Step aboard the moored, faithful reconstruction of the Batavia, a three-masted sailing ship of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (United East India Company), and imagine yourself en route to the fabled Spice Islands. Launched in 1628 at the V.O.C.'s Amsterdam yard, the original Batavia sailed in 1629 on her maiden voyage to the East Indies, but struck a reef off Australia and broke up. The survivors' subsequent experience of mutiny, murder, rescue, and retribution electrified Dutch society. This replica, 50m (160 ft.) long, cluttered with spars, sails, and rigging, was constructed here between 1985 and 1995 mostly by unemployed teens using 16th- and 17th-century tools and construction techniques. Clamber over her and stand above the bowsprit, entertaining visions of the cruel sea and the romantic age of sail, and visit the onshore workshops where the ship pieces were assembled.
Taking shape at the wharf, amid a clattering of hammers on wood, is a man-of-war, a replica of the 80-gun ship-of-the-line De 7 Provinciën (The 7 Provinces), launched in Rotterdam in 1665 and later the flagship of Adm. Michiel de Ruyter. During a 30-year career, the original ship saw action in many a hard-fought sea battle in the wars against England and France. Construction of the replica began in 1995.
The Batavia Wharf museum exhibits ships and relics from ships that went to a watery grave in the Zuiderzee as far back as Roman times. Their remains were revealed as water was pumped out to make way for polders. The process of reconstructing old, sunken ships, after finding and recovering them, is made both visible and accessible to visitors.
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