Model ship lands in Foxton in time for Big Dutch Day Out (2024)

It may look like it is flying and it has already been dubbed the flying Dutchman, but the model of Abel Tasman flagship De Heemskerck is certainly no ghost ship desperately trying to get home after a big storm.

The model is 2m long and 2m high and presented the museum curators with quite a mission. But they found the perfect spot and a local craftsman managed to construct a cradle for it, so it now sits right above the much smaller model of another ship of Tasman’s, De Zeehaen.

The model fills de Oranjehof’s co-chair Arjan van der Boon with excitement. It is very much a scoop for the museum. “There are other models of De Heemskerck but none are this big,” he said. The Dutch community gifted a model of the ship, the first European ship to have visited these shores, to Auckland’s Maritime Museum years ago and attempts to persuade them to hand it over to the country’s only Dutch heritage museum in Foxton failed. The day he was ready to pick up the model, in Cambridge, he got a bit of a shock.

“When we acquired the Zeehaen, it fitted in my van, but this one was way too big, much bigger than I had expected. We needed a removal firm to bring it here.” It will be officially unveiled on the Big Dutch Day Out on Saturday April 27. Installing it was another matter. “Many people told us it couldn’t be done, but we found someone who could do it.”

De Oranjehof has a drawing on display from 1643 that shows the ship in full flight before the west coast of the South Island. “Tasman mapped 1000km of New Zealand coastline, mostly west coast, where he couldn’t land. He did sail past Horowhenua, though. Based on his mapping work, James Cook knew where to go more than 100 years later.”

De Heemskerck is named after Dutch admiral and Arctic explorer Jacob van Heemskerck, who was part of the ill-fated trip through the Arctic Ocean that ended on Noya Zemlya, one of several trips by the Dutch Navy and merchants to find an alternate route to India. Pirates and ships from other countries such as England, Spain and Portugal made trips down under rather hazardous at that time.

The ship was owned by the Dutch East India Company and launched in 1638. The company ordered its shipwrights to build a “small war yacht, measuring 32m by 7.3m”. It had three masts and a bowsprit. It sailed on April 29, 1639, for Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies, arriving on November 22 that same year after a seven-month journey.

They sailed via the Cape of Good Hope to Mauritius, taking in supplies, then south of Australia, passing Tasmania and New Zealand, and then on to Tonga and New Guinea, also charting parts of Fiji. The ship never returned to the Netherlands and was scuppered in 1649, after serving as a trade ship in the area around Indonesia.

The ship had 60 men on board for this voyage.

The model of De Heemskerck now in Foxton was made by Eric Hill of Cambridge, who donated it to De Oranjehof. Hill is a semi-retired printer who at an early age developed a passion for building models using timber. “Over 20 years I built 12 ships, including the Endeavour, the Bounty, a few 19th century Waikato River boats and a WWII warship. I always had an interest in ships too and built my first model in primary school, a Viking ship. It sort of stayed with me.”

Hill said his model of the Heemskerck is made from kahikatea. “That is a softwood and very pliable when soaked the correct way. It is nice wood to work with.” He said this labour of love was mostly a nocturnal job. “I may be 76 but I am still working as I have an interest in a printing business.

“De Heemskerck took me four years to build and I used very detailed plans provided by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. They didn’t use drawing to build from in the 17th century.

“I searched high and low, went to Te Papa, Tasmania and other museums around the world to inquire if they could help me. One day some suggested this Dutch museum and once I contacted them, I had the complete plans within 24 hours. The museum had commissioned a few people, including a maritime historian, AJ Hoving, to draw up the plans, I think they wanted to build a full-size replica.

“Hoving wrote a book about shipbuilding during Holland’s Golden Age. His drawings very detailed and he help me interpret his drawings. Without his plans I could not have made this model.”

Aj Hoving built the replica that can be found in the Maritime Museum in Auckland.

The Big Dutch Day Out will be held in Foxton on Saturday April 27 from 10am. Most activities will take place around the windmill/museum in the centre of Foxton.