Marine Life Society of South Australia
Inc.
Newsletter
August 2006 No. 335
“understanding, enjoying & caring for
our oceans”
Next Meeting
This will be the August General Meeting and will be held at the Conservation
Centre, 120 Wakefield Street, Adelaide on Wednesday 16th August
commencing at 7.30pm.
Our speaker will be MLSSA member Dr Robert Browne. He
will be speaking on his new project. This is the monitoring of estuaries to
establish a record of the species for each estuary, to seek out and identify
new species, and set up an information base for our estuary fish
CONTENTS
The Duyfken (Philip Hall)
Mount Gambier Trip Pictures February 2006 (Part
2) (Chris Hall)
2007 Calendar
July Newsletter Note
An email from
Scoresby Shepherd
Hi Phillip,
A correction to yr latest newsletter. Althorpe I as such was never so named
by Flinders. He called the group of islands the Althorpe islands, but did not
name them individually. However, Baudin did, and called the main one Laubadere
I. A proposal has been before the Geographical Names Advisory Committee to
perpetuate Baudin's name as it is strictly the correct one, due to the rules of
priority. However, it seems unlikely to succeed because Althorpe I is now the
popularly accepted name, and some say it will be confusing to rename it. We
await the decision of the Committee with interest.
Scoresby Shepherd
The Duyfken
by Philip
Hall
Photographs by
Philip Hall
The Duyfken
visited Adelaide between 18th and 29th May 2006. Margaret
and I were fortunate enough to be part of a guided tour of the ship. Following
is a brief history of the vessel.
The Duyfken at Port
Adelaide 23/05/06
The Duyfken,
“Little Dove” in English, was built in 1595, probably on the North Sea
island of Texel for the Dutch East India Company. She was 24 metres long and of
125 tons and was small but solidly built, armed with 2 heavy canon, 3 smaller
canons, two murderers and various muskets and swords and was probably intended
for carrying valuable cargoes or for privateering. She could carry 50 tons of
cargo. There were approximately twenty in the crew plus the captain to sail the
ship. It was a small ship and all daily activities such as cooking, eating etc
took place on the deck. All bodily functions were done from the bow of the
ship. The penalty for urinating or defecating in the hold was death. The Duyfken
was first used as a scout ship and took part in several battles during its
life.
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The bow and the
figurehead.
In 1601 the Duyfken
was selected as the jacht, or scout, for the “Moluccan Fleet” sailing to the
Spice Islands. Then, sailing by way of Tuban, East Java to the Spice Island of
Ternate, cloves were loaded on board and the ship returned to Banda for a cargo
of nutmeg.
The Duyfken
was then sent on a voyage of exploration to the east when the newly-formed
United Dutch East India Company (VOC) was granted a monopoly on trade to the
Spice Islands by the Dutch government. In December 1603 the Duyfken,
with Willem Janszoon as skipper, set out on a second voyage to the Indies in
the VOC fleet of Steven van der Haghen. In 1605 the Duyfken was in the
fleet that recaptured the fort of Van Verre at Ambon in the Spice Islands, from
the Portuguese. She was then sent to Bantam, Java for urgently needed
provisions.
In 1605 the
Dutch East India Company (VOC) sent the Duyfken, captained by Willem
Janszoon, to search for trade opportunities in the “south and east lands”
beyond the furthest reaches of their known world. Willem Janszoon took the ship
southeast from Banda to the Kei Islands, then along the south coast of what is
now known as New Guinea, skirting south of the shallow waters around False Cape
and then continuing east-southeast.
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Weaponry and the foreword
deck under which the crew could sleep.
In early 1606
Janszoon encountered and then charted the western shores of Australia’s Cape
York Peninsula. The ship made landfall at the Pennefather River in the Gulf of
Carpentaria. This was the first authenticated landing on Australian soil and
for the first time all the inhabited continents of the world had been
discovered and recorded by the European science of geography. Janszoon is thus
credited with the first European discovery of Australia.
The Aboriginal
people from the Pennefather River (approx. 40 kms NNW of Weipa), where the Duyfken
made her landfall, have a tradition about this contact and it concerns a large
dove or pigeon. Actually, if you have a close look to a map of the Cape York
Peninsula you’ll discover a “Duyfken Point” near the township of Weipa.
Janszoon was
born, possibly about 1570, probably in Amsterdam, Holland. Nothing is known of
his early life, and he is first heard of in 1598 as a mate on the Hollandia,
one of the vessels in the second Dutch fleet to voyage to the East Indies. He
returned to Holland, and on 21st December 1599, having been promoted
to the position of first mate, sailed again for the Indies. He made other
voyages, but when he left Holland in December 1603 in command of the Duyfken,
as part of a large fleet, the understanding was that this vessel was to remain
in the east for three years, and to endeavour to find new sources of trade.
In 1607 the Duyfken
is believed to have made a second voyage east to Australia. Later in the year
she was sent to Java to get supplies for the beleaguered Dutch fortress on Ternate.
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The stern chasers.
In 1608 the ship
was engaged in a five hour battle with three Spanish galleys. In June she was
sent with larger ships to capture the fortress of Taffaso on Makian Island. A
month later she was brought inside the reef at Ternate for repairs. It seems
that she was hauled on her side to repair the bottom but this caused further
damage and she was judged beyond repair.
The Replica
The full size
replica was built in Fremantle by the “Duyfken 1606 Replica Foundation” jointly
with the Maritime Museum of Western Australia with the aim of building a
sailable ship. Resources included contemporary artwork, old contracts (which
detailed the timbers used), remains of old ships, log books (from which the
ship’s performance could be derived), computer modelling and, last but not
least, a lot of eye work. The lower hull of the Duyfken was plank-built of oak
imported from Latvia. The decks and masts are of pine. In the late 16th century
the Dutch were unusual in building ships plank first like this. The rest of
Europe was trying exactly the opposite and building frame first - placing their
faith in the geometry of arcs and circles to come up with prescriptive plans on
paper.
She is steered
using a whipstaff which is a vertical pole connected through the deck to a
wooden beam connected to the rudder. The original steersman would stand in a
cabin at the rear of the ship with a view ahead and a binnacle containing a
compass, sandglass and a lamp.
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The hold, showing the 400
year old ballast bricks.
The replica
weighs 110 tonnes unladen and 150 tonnes laden and is 24 metres long. The
ballast in the hold is comprised of 400 year old Dutch bricks. Originally these
were carried to the Indies and sold. Their place was taken by spices and other
cargo for the return journey. Many houses in the Dutch East Indies are built
from the ballast of such ships. The crew usually slept on deck as hammocks were
not in general use. The hold was usually full of valuable spices and it was out
of bounds to the crew. The ropes are natural hemp and manilla and the sails are
hand sewn natural flax. The replica carries a crew of 16 as against 20 in the
original. They handle 6 sails, foresail, mainsail, spritsail, fore topsail,
main topsail and mizzen.
The Duyfken
was launched on January 24th 1999 in Fremantle.
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The stern of the
Duyfken.
The stern of the Duyfken.
Willem Janszoon
Born in 1570,
Willem Janszoon was raised and educated in Amsterdam and at just 16, he joined
his first ship as an officer cadet, and sailed the seas of Europe honing his
skills in seamanship. In 1588, whilst on duty in the English Channel, young
Janszoon and his fellow shipmates witnessed the destruction of the great
Spanish Armada by the English navy thwarting the Spanish invasion of England.
In the year 1598 Officer Janszoon, at 28, sailed from Amsterdam on his first
voyage to the distant East Indies. In 1603, Willem Janszoon was given command
of his first ship, Duyfken. In 1605 orders were sent from the VOC
headquarters in Amsterdam to Frederick de Houtmann, Governor of the Spice
Islands for more charting, mapping and exploring of the lands further east of
the Spice Islands and a renewed search for a passage through to the Pacific
Ocean Captain Janszoon was chosen for the hazardous voyage to the unknown. It
was also thought that the small Duyfken, with its shallow beam, would be
ideal for exploring the coastlines in uncharted shallow waters. Janszoon
handpicked his small crew including good friend, Jan Rosengeyn, as the ship’s
administrator. An administrator, or supercargo, was in charge of overseeing and
controlling all new trading opportunities and financial operations of any given
trip. Provisioning the Duyfken with food and water for a journey of
indeterminate time and unknown distance required that every available space on
the small ship was utilised. On November 18th 1605, Janszoon and
Rosengeyn acknowledged the friends gathered to wave them farewell.
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A banner showing the
stages in the construction
of the Duyfken
replica.
As dawn broke on
the new year of 1606 Janszoon raised his telescope to look at a foreboding land
– could it be part of Terra Australis - the Great South Land that scholars
speculated upon? Janszoon believed it was as he commenced to chart his
discovery. He sailed and charted nearly 300 miles of shoreline with provisions
running drastically low. He turned about at a point he charts as Cape Keerweer
– Cape Turnaround. They sailed back up the charted coast, past their original
landfall, eventually coming to a river mouth Janszoon named Batavia River.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1606-2006
Duyfken Voyage booklet - an Australian Government production
www.duyfken.com
geocities.com/SouthBeach/Canal/2682/duyfken.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duyfken
abc.net.au/quantum/stories/s46394.htm
dir.yahoo.com/Arts?Humanities/History/by_Time_Period/17th_Century/Duyfken_Voyage/-7k-
Mount Gambier Trip
February 2006 (Part 2) - some pictures
by Chris Hall
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Neville Skinner
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Southern Pygmy Perch
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Variegated Pygmy Perch
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2 Variegated Pygmy Perch
2007 Calendar
The 2007 MLSSA
calendar has been very well received and had much acclaim. Phill has been
congratulated many times for his front cover design and the graduated colour of
the lettering. The revision of the “Blurb” page inside the rear cover has been
equally well received.
The National
Oceans Office in Hobart contacted me just after the calendar was printed and
asked if they could continue their sponsorship. Unfortunately this was not
possible, I explained, as it had already been printed. However they still
wanted to provide us with sponsorship in return for the use of 30 of our Photo
Index pictures.
I urge ALL
members to take as many copies as possible to sell as we had 1,500 printed this
year. This has enabled us to reduce member prices considerably. So please sell,
sell, sell. They really do sell themselves.
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