Photos

The last three pictures in this mini-serie about the rebuilding of the Batavia, an ill fated Dutch merchant ship of the 17th century lost on the Great Coral Reef and whose replica was built near Amsterdam, mainly by unemployed people as you will see in the extract of Wikipedia below.

Here, part of the stern with already some of the very nice sculptures decorating the poop.

In workshop :
- a view of one of the lower masts,
- and a side view, with the upper parts of the masts lying on the ground before being installed, and which gives an idea of the future aspect of the ship.

PS Elements 5.0 + Neatimage

And the extract from Wikipedia about the rebuilding :
The replica
A replica of the Batavia was built at the Bataviawerf in Lelystad in the Netherlands. The project lasted from 1985 to 7 April 1995, and was conducted as an employment project for young people under master-shipbuilder Willem Vos. The shipyard is currently reconstructing another 17th century ship, which, in contrast to the merchant ship Batavia, the new replica is a man-of-war, the Zeven Provinciën; Michiel de Ruyters' flagship.

This Batavia replica was built with traditional materials, such as oak and hemp and using the tools and methods of the time of construction of the original ship. For the design, good use was made of the remains of the original ship in Fremantle (and of the Vasa in Stockholm) as well as historical sources, like 17th century building descriptions (actual building plans were not made at the time) and prints and paintings by artists (who at the time generally painted fairly true to nature) of similar ships.

On 25 September 1999, the new Batavia was transported to Australia by barge and moored at the National Maritime Museum in Sydney. In 2000, the Batavia was the flagship for the Dutch Olympic Team during the 2000 Olympic Games.

On 12 June 2001, the ship returned to Bataviawerf in Lelystad and is currently on display to visitors.