5 minute read
Amsterdam II
Bumps and high holds on board Amsterdam II
A tour in the Dutch National Maritime Museum.
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text and photos Päivi Seppälä
The National Maritime Museum is one of the top tourist destinations in Amsterdam attracting more than 300,000 visitors each year. As one of them, I managed to escape the late-November rain outpours by entering the museum building that once housed the main storehouse of the Amsterdam Admiralty. Originally built in 1656, the building was completely reconstructed in 2011. The finest result of the reconstruction work is the inner courtyard glass roof which connects the four exhibition wings of the museum. It was the maritime gems of the four exhibition wings I set out to discover.
As someone coming from as far north as Finland, the most natural starting place was for me the northern wing. This meant that I had to step outside the museum building on an outdoor wooden pier to face again the moist and the wind of the city. The step proved to be worthwhile. Next to the pier, I encountered the most impressive wooden merchant sailing vessel that I had ever seen. It was Amsterdam II, a real-size replica of Amsterdam, an United East India Company (VOC) vessel. The original Amsterdam was finished in 1748 as one of the 1,700 East Indiamen
long-trade vessels that sailed between the Netherlands and the East Indies.
The story of the original Amsterdam is a tragic one, since it was during her maiden voyage in January 1749 that the vessel lost her rudder in the English Channel. The 33-year old Captain Willem Klump tried to save the vessel by running it aground. All the passangers and most of the 330-head crew were saved. However, at least fifty crew members either died ashore or were too ill to leave the ship and died on board. In the end, Amsterdam was buried about six meters below the mud surface of the shoreline, and it was not before 1969 that the wreck was discovered near Hastings on the coast of Great Britain.
The replica Amsterdam II was built between 1985 and 1990. The wood used for building was iriko, a tropical hardwood, and it replaced oak that comprised the
Amsterdam II and the late-November weather in Amsterdam’s Oosterdok neighbourhood. Over 400 volunteers participated in building the replica of the original VOC East Indiaman vessel, Amsterdam.
frames and the backbone of the original vessel. Like the original, Amsterdam II has a hold, an orlop deck, a main deck, and an upper half deck. The most striking feature of the half deck is the height of the captain’s rear cabin which seems only to be around 130 cm. As a 163-cm person, I had to get on my knees and crawl to move around in the cabin. Since the average height of a Dutch men of the 18th century is speculated to have been c. 166 cm, Captain Willem Klump has needed to be a real shortie also back in his days if he were to appreciate the dimensions of his private cabin. Unfortunately, the sources do not reveal how tall the captain really was, nor how many times he bumped his head on the ceiling of his cabin while getting up in the morning.
It seems that the designers of Amsterdam had sacrificed the comfortability of the captain’s cabin for something more valuable: hold space. The height of the hold is at least 3,5 meters. For visitors who have first crawled around in the captain’s cabin, the hold offers plenty of space to roam around and explore the various small winches and cranes that were used to move the wooden cargo boxes. The visitors are also encouraged to test their strength by lifting a 80-kilo cargo box with a help of a winch.
After disembarking Amsterdam II, I took some time to marvel at the Dutch Royal Family’s richly decorated Royal Barge and then continued my voyage inside the museum. I navigated west and visited the permanent exhibition on the
The main entrance of the museum can be easily reached by foot, by bus, or by bike which is the favorite transportation form of the locals in Amsterdam. The building was originally designed by Daniel Stalpaert in 1656 and the glass roof was added in the restoration of 2011.
AMSTERDAM II
built: 1985–1990 manning: 357 crew members or soldiers and 5 passengers length of the keel: 42.5 m length from stern to bowsprit: 48 m width: 11.5 m draught: 5.5 m height: 56 m water displacement: 1,100 ton number of canons: 16
Dutch Seafaring Golden Age of the 17th and 18th centuries. The exhibition was carefully and skilfully curated: it included only the essential elements, stories and objects that were needed to give a visitor an understanding of the seafaring life and trade relations of the 17th and 18th centuries. The exhibitions of the east wing were similar in this respect: maps, navigational instruments and yacht models were laid out in a clear manner in well-designed surroundings that highlighted the individuality and story of each object. This way of displaying objects is far from the overabundant collections of random maritime objects that one might encounter in some other maritime museums.
Before leaving the museum, I wanted to visit two more places : the maritime library and the interactive exhibition ´Life on Board´. The library houses over 60,000 books and the oldest of pieces of the collection are more than 500 years old. I could not imagine a better place to lead a life of a maritime historian than this library and spending all working days browsing through the diaries of Captain James Cook. To me, the library’s vast collection of maritime journals had only one shortage: the issues of Vapaavahti were missing!
I concluded my visit with playing a lifesized board game ´Life on Board´ where the idea is to answer questions on the culture and social norms of trade vessel crew members. By answering correctly, one gains points, and in the end of the game one is given a rank. I managed to score well enough to become a ship doctor - a rank that pleased me since I still had a sore bump on my head after hitting it onto the ceiling of the captain’s cabin aboard Amsterdam II. At least on that vessel the ship doctor, as well as the other crew members from ordinary seamen to the first mate had been blessed with bunk spaces high enough not to bump their heads all the time. A feature of a trade vessel that a crew member might truly appreciate while sailing for months towards the East Indies. ò
