A Man's Dream

In the nineteen seventies, Willem Vos, an experienced shipwright of Traditional Dutch ships, was playing with the idea of building an East Indiaman as authentically as possible. During this period, in West Australia, the wreck of the Batavia was excavated. Inspired, Willem chose this legendary ship as his example. Some called him a madman, he had no money in the bank, no place to start this huge project. But, he had a dream!

Willem already had longstanding experience in building traditional wooden ships. These where only smaller ships for the Dutch inland and coastal waters, but many of the techniques used to built those traditional boats wouldn ’t have changed much over the centuries. So Willem was quite confident that he should be able to tackle a huge ship as the Batavia.

The 20th century Batavia had to be identical in every detail to her 17th century counterpart. To realize this, the ship would have to be built by shipwrights and craftsmen in the same manner as they did some 350 years ago. Before the keel was laid, comprehensive research had to be done into traditional Dutch carpentry and particularly into the characteristics of an East Indiaman.

From about 1980 till 1985 Willem searched every VOC related archive and maritime museum he could find. He studied every document available, to gather as much information as possible about a 17th century East Indiaman. There were no historic construction plans available because in those days the ships were built by rule of thumb and experience. His comprehensive research in all those old maritime documents, his visits all over Europe such as to the Wasa in Sweden, made him the most well informed man regarding 17th century ships and beyond.

Once the plans were established, a construction site for the shipyard had to be found. It was the Major of Lely-stad who had the visionary idea to give Willem a large block of land for free, on the Oostvaardersdijk (East Sailors dyke). A brilliant move as we can see today; the Batavia yard became the hub for a great museum-, entertainment- and shopping complex.
Lelystad is one of the newest cities in Holland, situated on land reclaimed in the 1950 ‘s. Where now the Batavia yard lays, the 17th century East Indiamen once set sail in 6 metres deep water.

Looking back at those early days -when Willem had to use all his negotiating skills over and over again, to get sponsors willing to participate in his dream- one can only become inspired by such a persistence to build a dream. With an estimated budget of 8 million guilders (aprox. US $ 4 million) and only a tiny symbolic amount of that in the bank, he started. A new foundation was established: “Nederland bouwt een VOC retourship” (the Netherlands build a VOC return ship). A team consisting of a marine architect, museum curators and 6 young workers, shared the fire of his dream. On the 4th of October 1985 the keel was laid, a basic wooden fence marked the construction site. All around them the land was empty; wind, rain and snow had free play.

That once so barren piece of land -on the former bottom of the Zuyderzee, where Willem started with only a handfull of youngsters- is now one of the most exciting shipyards in Holland.