The Amsterdam is a replica of the original East Indiaman Amsterdam, built in 1748 at the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) shipyard at Oostenburg in Amsterdam. An 'East Indiaman' was a large, armed merchant sailing vessel used by European trading companies between the 17th and 19th centuries for the long voyages between Europe and Asia, carrying high-value cargoes, including spices, textiles, and tea.
The original Amsterdam was designed to carry cargo between Asia and the Netherlands and her complement on her maiden voyage comprised 334 people: the captain and 191 officers and sailors, as well as 128 marines being posted to Dutch East India Company forts in South Africa, and 11 artisans and three women passengers travelling to company settlements in Asia. Amsterdam departed the Texel (largest of the West Frisian Islands) on 8 January 1749 and, on 26 January, encountered a violent storm in the North Sea. Losing her rudder, Amsterdam ran aground off the English coast, near the port of Hastings. Although all of the crew were saved, the ship was immobilised and sank into the sand. The wreck of the Amsterdam can still be seen at low tide and archaeologists have been excavating the wreck since 1984, learning much about the ship, its construction, and life on board.
It was the Portuguese who spearheaded European maritime trade with Asia following Vasco da Gama's arrival in India in 1497. In 1511, the Portuguese captured Malacca (Malaysia and Sumatra). The first Dutch ships departed for Asia in 1595 and the Dutch East India Company was formed in 1602 to coordinate trade between the Netherlands and Asia; combining the various Dutch trading enterprises in a single organisation reduced pressure from domestic competition. In 1619, the company destroyed the Javanese city of Jacatra and, on its ruins, built Batavia, its new company trading hub in Asia. Taking over the extensive existing trading network in Asia, the Dutch established trading posts and forts at key locations and traded between these territories. In 1621, Dutch East India Company forces under Governor Jan Pieterszoon Coen killed, enslaved, or exiled over 10,000 inhabitants of the Moluccan Banda islands with the aim of establishing a company monopoly in the nutmeg trade. Although not established as a slave trading enterprise, the Dutch East India Company did buy and use slaves at company settlements, with Batavia being the region's biggest slave market and the company taxing the transport and sale of slaves.
With the Dutch Republic at war with Spain and Portugal and the Dutch East India Company authorised by the Dutch parliament to fight on its behalf, the company captured Fort Galle in Sri Lanka from the Portuguese in 1640. Indeed, the Dutch East India Company acted as a sovereign entity in Asia, signing treaties, building forts, and subduing local populations. Dutch East India Company shareholders invested money in these military campaigns as the company would take over the trading network from a defeated European adversary, with the increased profits being returned to the shareholders as dividends. By expelling its European competitors from Asia, the Dutch East India Company was able to control production and pricing in Asia and the prices of spices, tea, and porcelain in Europe.
With the signing of the Treaty of Münster in January 1648, the Dutch Republic was recognised throughout Europe and the Dutch East India Company and the Portuguese ended their conflict in Asia. From 1730, the fortunes of the Dutch East India Company began to decline, due to growing competition from other European states, corruption, and financial mismanagement. In 1795, the company lost its Cape Colony settlement in South Africa to the British, followed the next year by the loss of the Banda Islands, also to the British. In 1799, the Dutch East India Company dissolved.
After treasure hunters discovered the wreck of the Amsterdam off Hastings in 1969, archaeologists began organising to carry out an excavation. The Amsterdam was declared a protected archaeological site in 1973 and excavation commenced in 1984. In 1985, construction began on a replica of Amsterdam in Amsterdam, which was completed in 1990. After participating in the SAIL 1990 festival, Amsterdam was moved to the National Maritime Museum and has been moored at the museum's jetty and open to visitors since 1991. A major overhaul of Amsterdam was carried out in 2020.
Photos taken 28 April 2026
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| The 150-foot (45.7-metre) replica East Indiaman Amsterdam moored at the jetty of the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam. In the 1740s, Dutch East India Company shipbuilding became standardised. Shipwrights no longer relied on their own measurements and experience alone. Charles Bentam designed new ships for the company based on this standardised approach. Both the original Amsterdam and the 1990 replica were built according to Bentam's designs. |
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| A closer look at the ornate stern decorations on Amsterdam. Such decoration was typical on 18th century Dutch East India Company ships, with elaborate and colourful carvings and gilded scrollwork often depicting figures from mythology or related to the ship's name. The stern of Amsterdam features the city's coat of arms at the top centre, as well as large carved figures on either side of the two banks of stern windows, representing the personification of the ship's namesake city and its maritime heritage. |
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| The Amsterdam's three tall masts tower over the ship. Large ships like Amsterdam were known as 'return' ships, as they were designed to sail back and forth between the Netherlands and Asia, a voyage that took over eight months. Most East Indiamen left from the roadstead at Texel, stopping halfway at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa to replenish their food and fresh water supplies. |
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| The carved wooden figurehead of the East Indiaman Amsterdam, in the shape of a fearsome lion. |
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| Visitors enter and exit Amsterdam via gangways connected to two clamshell doors in the starboard side of the hull, at the level of the orlop deck. |
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| Visitors enter the orlop deck, the principal gun deck and accommodation space for sailors. It was here that the sailors slept, spent their spare leisure time, played music, secretly played cards or dice, told stories, or read if they were literate. Some sailors read from their own Bible, a free copy of which was given to each sailor by the Dutch East India Company. There are stories of women who posed as men and signed on as sailors aboard Dutch East India Company ships, perhaps to earn money or to escape unhappy marriages. In 1770, Margereta Reymers dressed as a man and, posing as Hans Hendrik Reymers, joined the crew of the East Indiaman Schoonzicht for a voyage to Asia. Discovered two months into the trip, Margereta was put ashore in Cape Town and soon found herself pregnant by a man who abandoned her; she managed to find passage aboard a ship returning to the Netherlands and gave birth to a daughter while at sea. |
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| A panoramic theatre in the bow end of the orlop deck plays a looped animated film depicting the bustling Amsterdam harbour of the 17th century. The view, seen from a bird's eye perspective, swoops through the harbour, showing East Indiamen under construction, others moored offshore, and still others loading and unloading cargo from exotic, faraway lands. |
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| Looking aft along the port side of the orlop deck. Construction of this replica Amsterdam began with the laying of the keel on 1 May 1985. Jointly financed by the VOC-schip Amsterdam foundation, the city of Amsterdam, two government ministries, and sponsors, the shipbuilding project was designed to create jobs for unemployed youth and produce a typically Dutch tourist attraction for visitors from the Netherlands and abroad. The National Maritime Museum bought Amsterdam in 1989 and the ship participated in the SAIL maritime festival on the River IJ in 1990. |
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| Cannons sited at the gun ports on the port side of the orlop deck. The original Amsterdam and ships like her were armed with 36 cannons to defend against pirates and privateers on the long voyage between Asia and the Netherlands. Loaded with valuable cargoes from Asian ports, Dutch East India Company ships often sailed in convoys to protect each other. Armed merchant ships often had more gunports than actual guns, a clever ruse to fool potential attackers into thinking the ship was more dangerous than it actually was. |
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| Another view aft on the orlop deck. When the Amsterdam replica was built in the 1980s, it was seen as a celebration of the Dutch East India Company's achievements, representing Dutch enterprise and ingenuity. However, even then, some woke killjoys objected to the project, labelling it a 'floating provocation' and 'a glorification of theft, oppression, and the slave trade', and calling for the Amsterdam to be sunk. Thankfully, the city of Amsterdam and the National Maritime Museum did not cave in to these hysterical demands in the 1990s, though recent museum curators have added displays on the Dutch East India Company's less savoury aspects. Displays now reference the Dutch East India Company's 'involvement in oppression and slavery aboard ship' and 'the inequality that colonial trade fostered'. Signage onboard indicates that even this concession to the critics is not enough and that the museum is 'reorganising the ship and presenting new stories'. |
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| Looking forward in the gun room at the stern of the orlop deck. The project to build a replica Dutch East Indiaman chose Amsterdam as the ship to recreate, as the name aligned well with the goal of promoting the city and, additionally, because detailed drawings and designs of this type of ship were available. Despite some criticism that a replica ship did not belong in the collection of a museum and that it might glorify the Dutch East India Company, the Amsterdam proved to be a major attraction: the National Maritime Museum saw twice as many visitors as it received before the ship's addition to the collection. |
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| The gun room at the stern of the ship. The gun room was where the vessel's midshipmen (officer cadets) lived. Also located in the gun room is the ship's tiller, the large wooden beam connected to the rudder and controlled by ropes leading up to the ship's steering wheel. |
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| The gun room also houses a workshop for repairing shipboard equipment, such as the wooden blocks seen here. |
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| Stairs lead down to the cargo hold. |
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| Amsterdam's cargo hold. On outward voyages to Asia, an East Indiaman's hold carried ballast and objects for use in the Dutch East India Company's settlements. Cheap bricks were loaded in the hold to balance the ship during the voyage and were then used in the Asian settlements to build warehouses, forts, and churches. As the hold was crammed with Asian luxury goods on the homeward voyage, no ballast was needed. These luxury goods included spices (pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg), Chinese and Japanese porcelain, Indian silver, Sri Lankan tea, and Chinese textiles. |
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| The bow end of the cargo hold, showing the large curved timbers used to construct the ship's hull. |
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| Looking aft along the port side of the cargo hold. In addition to the ballast loaded for balance, crates of silver and gold were also loaded onto Dutch East India Company ships headed toward Asia, to be used to purchase more produce to sustain the company's trading network. During her ill-fated maiden voyage to Asia in January 1749, the original Amsterdam carried 28 crates of silver, which were hidden in the captain's cabin. |
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| The bread, cheese, and gunpowder room. |
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| The staircase linking the orlop deck and the main deck. |
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| The main deck was a busy place when an East Indiaman was at sea. It would be stacked with boxes and cages with live pigs, goats, and chickens to provide fresh meat, milk, and eggs during the voyage. Cannons were also fitted on the main deck, in addition to those on the orlop deck below. Ladders lead up from the main deck to the forecastle. |
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| A typical sailors' mess under the forecastle depicted at mealtime, with a folding wooden table and wooden benches. The crew took their simple meals in shifts, eating in groups of seven. |
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| Under the forecastle is the galley, where the ship's cook and his assistants would have prepared meals for over 300 people daily. Food and drink was stored in barrels, though this had a limited shelf life and fresh water was taken aboard whenever the opportunity arose. Sailors' meals typically consisted of barley gruel and peas or beans with meat, bacon, or dried whitefish, all served with water, beer, or gin. Some Dutch East India Company ships had a garden onboard to grow fresh vegetables, though this practice was discontinued in 1677 when it was found that the soil ruined the ships' timbers. The shortage of fresh food during long voyages led to vitamin deficiency and this, combined with poor hygiene, allowed diseases like scurvy, flu, typhus, and dysentery to spread throughout the ship. |
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| Looking up at the forward mast and rigging on the forecastle. Working aboard an East Indiaman on the long voyage to Asia was monotonous, hard, and dangerous, with about 15-20% of the crew typically not surviving the journey, due to accident or illness. Despite the risk, many poor and uneducated men still sought work on the Dutch East India Company ships because a contract offered food and shelter for the foreseeable future and allowed the men to send money to family back home. |
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| The forecastle deck, above the galley, was where the sailors congregated when not working and when the weather was pleasant. The base of the forward mast is visible, as is the bowsprit. The ship's heads, or toilets, were located on either side of the bow, and consisted of little more than boards with a hole in the centre, positioned precipitously over the sea below. Everyone cleaned themselves with the same length of knotted rope that hung in the water, nicknamed 'the bitter end'. |
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| The ship's brass bell, mounted on a frame on the forecastle. The bell displays the intertwined 'VOC' logo of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company). |
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| The ship's capstan is located here, in this covered section of the main deck. Wooden handles would be fitted into the square holes in the drum-like capstan and used to turn it to raise or lower the ship's anchor, hoist or lower the sails, or raise cargo from deep in the hold. Two green bilge pumps fitted with long wooden handles are located just aft of the capstan. |
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| The saloon, where the ship's captain, officers, and passengers dined, enjoying fancy meals and drinking wine from nice glasses, at least when the sea was not rough. While there was never enough fresh food aboard for all of the crew, the best items were reserved for the officers and passengers. In the background, against the hull, are racks containing the officers' muskets and pistols. |
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| The Master's cabin served as the captain's office. Nautical instruments stored in cabinets here allowed the captain to check the course of the ship against his charts and record progress in the ship's log. |
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| The crews of Dutch East India Company ships were a mix of nationalities. The captain of the original Amsterdam, Willem Klump, was Latvian, and many of the sailors were German and Scandinavian, as well as Dutch. |
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| One of two small rooms, on either side of the Master's cabin, that contain the captain's 'conveniences', or toilets. These protrude out over the side of the hull, with waste falling into the ocean below. |
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| Looking forward from the half-deck, just aft of the main mast. The main deck is immediately below and, at the forward end, is the raised forecastle. Aboard Dutch East India Company ships, there was a strict hierarchy: officers lived behind the main mast and sailors lived forward of the main mast. |
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| The ship's helm, located on the half-deck. When turned, a cable attached to the wheel would pull the tiller (in the gun room on the orlop deck below) to the left or right; the tiller in turn would push the ship's rudder to port or starboard. Located forward of the helm is a large wooden box, the binnacle, that housed the ship's two compasses and a lantern for illuminating the compasses at night. |
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| Through a set of doors, aft of the helm, is the sleeping accommodation for the ship's captain, officers, and any passengers. The surgeon's cabin is on the left, while the passengers' cabin is on the right. Officers cabins are on either side of the passageway heading aft to the Master's sleeping cabin. Although the original Amsterdam's sleeping cabins had a higher ceiling, the builders of this replica Amsterdam made the deck below a little higher and so this deck is a little lower. |
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| The cabin of the ship's surgeon, who cared for the sick or injured crew and any passengers. In his cabin, the surgeon kept a stock of ointments, powders, oils, and bandages, as well as an amputation saw. |
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| The spartan passengers' cabin, used by any wives, children, and/or servants brought along on the voyage by Dutch East India Company officials, merchants, and chaplains travelling to a new appointment in Asia. On her maiden voyage in January 1749, the original Amsterdam carried three passengers: Pieternella Schook, travelling with her husband, a company assistant merchant; Schook's sister; and Maria Monk, the wife of a company lieutenant. Women were only allowed aboard as passengers, as sailors had a superstitious distrust of women at sea, many believing that women brought bad luck. |
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| The Master's spacious sleeping cabin, spanning the entire width of the aft end of the half-deck. As with the captain's office cabin on the deck below, the sleeping cabin also features toilets in small rooms protruding from either side of the hull, as well as a curved banquette in front of the stern windows. |
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| The captain's comparatively comfortable bed, bolted to the deck and secured to the deckhead by thick timber uprights. |
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| The poop deck at the stern. |
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| A fine bow view of the replica Amsterdam in the bright April sunshine. |
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