Finished blocks lie on coils of hemp line. A bout 155 blocks, dead-eyes and euphroes were made for the Duyfken.
The Duyfken completes her provisioning in preparation for the first leg of her j ourney, up the west coast ofAustralia to B roome, from where she sailed north-east to Kupang on West Timor, then into the Banda Sea.
evolve by practising ancient methods and by following intuition- just like the olden days ." So, like their 17th-century counterparts, the D uyfken shipwrights bent planks over fires, using iron klasses to turn the wood, and pinned the hull together with wooden trunnels (tree nails), guided by the twist of timber as well as historical data. Durin g the Age of Discovery, Durch ships were built shell first, p lank by plank, without using the pre-planned framework favo ured by other European shipbuilders, and th e shipwrights follo wed this practice. Proj ect photographer Robert Garvey began documenting the D uyfken's construction in 1997 as her hull took shape in the shipya rd at the Western Australian M aritime M useum, which is also home to the wreck of another VOC ship, Batavia, which foundered on a co ral island in 1629. "T his was an ideal project for me. I grew up-and still live-on the coast and spent every available moment either in or on the ocean. M y work as a profess ional photographer has taken me all over the wo rld into many different enviro nments. But for me, the ultimate work is to foc us on nauti cal and maritim e photography," says Garvey.
* * * * * In June 2000, M uslims and Ch risti ans were locked in a deadly struggle, and mosques and churches we re being sacked as rel igious violence crackled th ro ugh the province. N obody wanted to be stranded in the midst of a massacre. Duyjken and her Australian crew had cut short a goodwill tour of the region and sailed straight to the Banda archipelago, where the ship wo uld commence her re-enactment voyage of discovery to Australia. Garvey and G raeme Cocks flew to Uj ung Padang on Sulawesi, where they booked tickets to Banda Neira via Ambon on an inter-island ferry. O n the previous visit to Ambon, the fe rry had been strafed by gunfire from a speedboar. "Embarking at Ujung Padang, the docks looked like a scene out of the film The Year of L iving D angerously," recalls Garvey. "Thousands of people we re shouting and pushing in every direction. The ship was preparing to pull out and with every blare of its horn, the crowd surged in a greater fre nzy. In Ambon, the wharf was crammed with refu gees , people searching for their families, and gro ups of armed men." 18
SEA HISTORY 102, AUTUMN 2002