The text below is a brief summary of a report titled “EXPLORATORY VOYAGE OF THE SHIPS RIJDER AND BUIS, COMMANDED BY LIEUTENANT JEAN ETIENNE GONZAL AND FIRST LAVIENNE LODEWIJK VAN ASSCHENS, TO THE GULF OF CARPENTARIA.” This report was submitted by Gerrit de Haan, the “Master Cartographer” at Batavia, on Read more…
In January 1942, based on this document from the Australian National Archives, Dutch cargo from the Norwegian M/S Høegh Silverstar, destined for the Netherlands East Indies (NEI), was confiscated on orders from the American Government in Sydney. According to the ship’s logbook, it departed from San Francisco on November 24, Read more…
HNLMS Karel Doorman was a ‘Colossus-class’ aircraft carrier of the Royal Netherlands Navy. Formerly the British ship HMS Venerable, she was sold to the Netherlands in 1948 as a light attack carrier. In 1960, she was involved in the decolonisation conflict in Western New Guinea with Indonesia. In 1960, during Read more…
Graeme Cocks. Through Darkest Seas. Inglewood: Motoring Past Vintage Publishing, 2023. E-book. Review by Jorien van Beukering Ever wondered what it would be like to build a replica of a seventeenth-century ship of exploration? If so, look no further than Graeme Cocks’ new book Through Darkest Seas, which tells the Read more…
The DARWIN200 Global Voyage is a two-year voyage that will follow the route of Charles Darwin’s voyage on the HMS Beagle around the world. The voyage will take place from 2023 to 2025 and will visit 32 countries, including the Galapagos Islands, Tahiti, Australia, and South Africa. The voyage is Read more…
Booya was built in Waterhuizen, the Netherlands in 1917 by Gebroeders van Diepen, under her original name, De Lauwers. She was a three-masted auxiliary schooner with a steel hull and a 130 bhp engine. In 1920, she became known as the Argosy Lemal after she was purchased and registered by Read more…
For some three centuries confusion existed among Europeans over the location and name of the Indian Ocean island now referred to as Christmas Island. Maps appeared charting the island with no name, with one of three names, with two names simultaneously, or as two or three adjacent islands. It was Read more…
During the 17th and 18th centuries the Dutch were quite active in exploring the western and northern coastlines of the Great Southland. Of one of these expeditions, conducted by Maerten van Delft in 1705, intelligence is limited and it is infrequently mentioned in the canon of Australia’s exploration. The only Read more…
In 1859 the Dutch historian, L.C.D. van Dijk published a book on the voyages of discovery made by Jan Carstenszoon in 1623 and Jean Etienne Gonzal in 1756 to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The book contains a commentary of the two voyages as well as a copy of Carstenszoon’s journal. Read more…
The history of charting Australia’s coastline is well documented from most perspectives,but not from a toponymic standpoint. Between 1606 and 1803, some nine hundredEuropean placenames were bestowed along the Australian coast. Authors Jan Tent and Helen Slatyer report here on an investigation and analysis of the place-naming practices of the Read more…