The ''Prins Willem'' (), also spelled ''Prins Willim'', was a 17th-century

East Indiaman East Indiamen were merchant ships that operated under charter or licence for European trading companies which traded with the East Indies between the 17th and 19th centuries. The term was commonly used to refer to vessels belonging to the Bri ...

of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

. She was their largest ship at the time. The ship made her first voyage to the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

in 1651. After several voyages, she sank near

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

in 1662. A replica of the ''Prins Willem'' was built in 1985, but she was destroyed by fire in 2009.Prins Willem, 1650
''De VOCsite''. Retrieved 6 August 2015.

History

The ship ''Prins Willim'' was built in 1650 in

Middelburg Middelburg may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe * Middelburg, Zeeland, the capital city of the province of Zeeland, southwestern Netherlands ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Middelburg, a former Catholic diocese with its see in the Zeeland ...

in the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

. Curiously, the name on the ship was ''Prins Willim''. Two possible reasons have been advanced: the ship's name is

Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or , there was no overarching sta ...

or the lack of space for the name caused the "e" to be changed to a shorter "i". The ship was the flagship of

Witte de With Witte Corneliszoon de With (28 March 1599 – 8 November 1658) was a Dutch States Navy officer who served during the Eighty Years' War and the First Anglo-Dutch War. Early life and childhood De With was born on a farmstead in the hamlet of ...

in the Battle of the Kentish Knock during the

First Anglo-Dutch War The First Anglo-Dutch War, or First Dutch War, was a naval conflict between the Commonwealth of England and the Dutch Republic. Largely caused by disputes over trade, it began with English attacks on Dutch merchant shipping, but expanded to vast ...

. The ship sank near

in 1662.

Replicas

In the same period as the building of the original ship also a replica in 1:50 scale was built. This model still survives and is on permanent exhibition in the Dutch national museum

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museumplein, Museum Square in the stadsdeel, borough of Amsterdam-Zuid, Amsterdam South, ...

. In 1978 this model was fully restorated and a replica of the same scale was constructed. A full size

replica A replica is an exact (usually 1:1 in scale) copy or remake of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without ...

with the same name was built in 1984–85 at the Dutch shipyard Amels in Makkum for the theme park in Seihi,

Nagasaki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan, mainly located on the island of Kyūshū, although it also includes a number of islands off Kyūshū's northwest coast - including Tsushima and Iki. Nagasaki Prefecture has a population of 1,246,4 ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The building cost was 1.4 billion yen. In 2003,

Huis Ten Bosch Huis ten Bosch (, ; ) is a royal palace in The Hague, Netherlands. It is one of three official residences of the Dutch monarch; the two others being the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague and the Royal Palace of Amsterdam. Huis ten Bosch was th ...

K. K., the operating company of Nagasaki Holland Village declared bankruptcy and the replica was sold to a Dutch company for 130 million yen. In 2004, the replica became part of the theme park

Cape Holland A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used thr ...

Den Helder Den Helder () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Den Helder occupies the northernmost point of the North Holland peninsula. It is home to the country's main naval base. From here the Royal TESO fe ...

, the Netherlands. In 2009, the bowsprit of the ''Prins Willim'' replica was being restored. Restanten Prins Willem Den Helder

On the morning of 30 July 2009, the replica was lost to fire, probably due to an electric malfunction. The owner of the ship, the Libéma company, decided on a restoration. In 2014 the ship was dismantled, as the restoration turned out to be too expensive.

References

External links

* {{Commons category-inline, Prins Willem (ship, 1649) Merchant ships of the Netherlands Replica ships Ships of the Dutch East India Company 1660s disasters 17th-century maritime incidents 1662 in transport History of Madagascar 1660s in Africa 1650s ships 1650 beginnings First Anglo-Dutch War