TheDuyfken by Marianne Garvey;
In 1997 construction began on a replica of the Duyfken, a Dutch ship of trade and exploration built ca. 1600. The story of her construction in Australia, her maiden voyage, and the recording ofthe story in pictures and words follows. Her full story, with reports from her builders and her crew, has been told in the book To Build a Ship, by Robert Garvey, the photographer who captured the ship in the pictures on these pages.
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En route to Banda on her maiden voyage, the Duyfken steps along nicely under a menacing sky.
During the early stages, the "plank first" method of construction was clearly visible.
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small oak sailing ship arrives in a deep volcanic harbour, its pennants barely stirring in a wisp of breeze. T he afternoon quiet is broken by the beat of drums as several brightly-co loured war canoes approach the square rigger. Nati ve warriors paddle hard and chant a challenge to the foreigners. The ship is the Dutch "jachr" Duyjken, the harbour is in the Banda Archipelago, home of the precio us nutmeg spice, and the rime is the dawn of the 17th century. Or is it? Leap fotward 400 years and the scene is repeated. The weary crew aboard the replica Duyjken has traveled thousands of nautical miles in a cramped vessel to reach this tropical paradise; again, the Spi ce Islands are in turmoil, and the threat of violence hovers like a monsoo n cloud. A fast and sturdy ship, the ori ginal Duyjken (Little Dove) was owned by the Vereenigde Oosr-Indische Com pagnie (VOC), or United Durch East India Company, and in 1606 became the first reco rded European vessel to drop anchor in Australian waters. She was built for trade and exploration in an era of discovery, science, art and trade for the N erherlandsan age when wooden shipbuilding was a thriving industry and shipwrights we re wealthy employers. Nearly fo ur centuries later in the port city ofFremande, Western Australia, the Duyfken Replica Project was set up to preserve the dying art of wooden shipbuilding and to highlight Australia's early modern history. A crew of specialist trades men had been assembled in 1988 to co nstruct a replica of Captain Jam es Cook's ship Endeavour. Anxious that such a fine concentration of wooden shipbuilding talent not be lost to Wes tern Australia after Endeavour's launch in 1993, a gro up of enthusiasts set abo ut findin g and funding a new project. T he Duyfken 1606 Replica Foundation was
SEA HISTORY 102, AUTUMN 2002