Batavia Yard

The present Batavia was named after a historic predecessor which was built in 1628 in Amsterdam by order of the VOC, the Dutch United East India Company.

In 1985 a start was made with the reconstruction of the Batavia on a shipyard in the Dutch city of Lelystad. Under the guidance of Master-shipbuilder Willem Vos a group of young people worked on this project.

The keynote has been to achieve the most authentic reconstruction by using traditional materials and following the building methods of the day.

In order to reconstruct the Batavia use was made of a number of historical sources, from archives and museums, like building descriptions from the 17th century, prints, paintings etc. Also archaeological evidence, like the shipwrecks of the Vasa in Stockholm and the Batavia in the West-Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle, Australië, were of great importance.

On 7th of April 1995 Beatrix, Queen of the Netherlands, officially named the ship "Batavia", after which the ship was launched. The Batavia is owned and made accessible to the public by the Batavia Yard.

On the 25th of September 1999 the Batavia had left the Netherlands for more than a year. The ship was taken to Sydney, Australia and was moored near the National Maritime Museum in Sydney.

On 12th June 2001 the Batavia returned to her home port Lelystad near the IJsselmeer, where she can be visited everyday from 10 to 5.