The Batavia Shipwreck 1628

 

​History

​Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Built in Amsterdam in 1628. On 27 October 1628, the newly built Batavia, set sail from Texel in the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies its destination, the city and capital that the ship was named after Batavia, now known as Jakarta. The vessel's mission for the Dutch East India Company was to obtain spices and trade good for the return voyage. It sailed under commander and senior merchant Francisco Pelsaert, with Ariaen Jacobsz serving as the ship's captain.

Shipwrecking

​On 4 June 1629, Batavia struck Morning Reef near Beacon Island, part of the Houtman Abrolhos off the Western Australian coast. Of the 322 aboard, most of the passengers and crew managed to get ashore, although 40 people drowned. The survivors, including all the women and children, were then transferred to nearby islands in the ship's longboat and yawl.

Batavia stern Western Australian Museum

Abrolhos Islands

Discovery

​Surveying the north-west coast of the Abrolhos Islands for the British Admiralty in April 1840, Captain John Lort Stokes reported that "the beams of a large vessel were discovered", assumed to be the Zeewijk, "on the south west point of an island", reminding them that since Zeewijk's crew "reported having seen a wreck of a ship on this part, there is little doubt that the remains were those of the Batavia".
In the 1950s, historian Henrietta Drake-Brockman argued from extensive archival research, that the Batavia wreck must lie in the Wallabi Group of islands. The wreck site was later found in 1963 by a fisherman David Johnson and diver Max Cramer.

Bativa pottery

Divers rcovering Batavia frame

​In the period 1970 through to 1974, under the leadership of Jeremy Green of the Western Australian Museum, some of the cannon from the Batavia wreck, an anchor and many artefacts were salvaged, including timbers from the port side of the stern of the ship. These were then conserved by the Museum's conservation laboratories under the leadership of Colin Pearson and his successors Neil North, Ian MacLeod, Ian Godfrey and Vicki Richards.
In order to facilitate the monitoring and any future treatment the hull timbers were erected on a steel frame. The design, and that of a stone arch, or portico, which was also raised form the seabed, is such that individual components can be removed for treatment without affecting those adjacent, or the exhibit as a whole.

Legacy

​A Batavia ship replica was built from 1985 to 1995, using the same material and methods utilised in the early 17th Century. Its design was based on contemporary accounts, recovered wreckage, and other contemporary ships such as Vasa. After a number of commemorative voyages, the vessel is now moored as a museum ship in Lelystad, The Netherlands.

Batavia replica Lelystad

Media

The Mysteries of the Batatvia

​This short but informative film on the Batavia made by the Western Australian Maritime Museum that is housed in their Shipwreck Galleries. The ship has been a key hole into the past and has provided  a lot of vital information about seafaring and shipbuilding in the 17th Century.

Batavia Shipwreck

​Interesting film featuring the late Max Cramer OAM (6 July 1934 – 3 August 2010) who was an Australian scuba diver who became famous as the co-discoverer of the wreck of the Batavia on 4 June 1963. He was involved in a number of maritime archaeology projects pertaining to historic shipwrecks in Western Australia.