Aagtekerke (1724)

Aagtekerke (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈaːxtəˌkɛrkə]) was a ship of the Dutch East India Company built in 1724. It was lost without trace during its maiden voyage in 1725–26, when it sailed from Cape of Good Hope in the Dutch Cape Colony to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies.[1]

Aagtekerke
History
Dutch Republic
Name: Aagtekerke
Namesake: Village of Aagtekerke
Owner: Dutch East India Company
Builder: Chamber of Zeeland
Launched: 1724
Fate: Lost without trace in 1726
General characteristics
Displacement: 280 tons
Length: 145 ft (44 m)
Complement: 200

Description

Aagtekerke was built in 1724 by the Chamber of Zeeland of the Dutch East India Company, on their wharf in Middelburg.[2] It was named after the nearby village of Aagtekerke. The ship was 44 metres (145 ft) long and had a load capacity of 850 tons. It had crew of 200 men and 36 guns.[2]

Maiden voyage

On 27 May 1725, the ship sailed out from Fort Rammekens (near Ritthem) under the command of Jan Witboon. The ship first sailed to Cape of Good Hope in the Dutch Cape Colony, where it arrived on 3 January 1726, possibly to load ivory.[2]

On 27 January 1726, the ship left for Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, but was lost without trace. At the time, the ship was carrying silver coins and precious metals with a total value of 200,000 guilders.[2]

There is some evidence from the crew of the wrecked ship Zeewijk that Aagtekerke may have been wrecked on the Abrolhos Islands, because they found some remains of a Dutch vessel that had been wrecked before them.[3] [4][5][6]

References
  1. "The Dutch East India Company's shipping between the Netherlands and Asia 1595-1795". huygens.knaw.nl. Huygens ING. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  2. (in Dutch) Aagtekerke, 1724, De VOCsite. Retrieved 5 August 2015.
  3. Australian Shipwrecks - vol1 1622-1850, Charles Bateson, AH and AW Reed, Sydney, 1972, ISBN 0-589-07112-2.
  4. Henderson, Graeme (1978), "The mysterious fate of the Dutch East Indiaman Aagtekerke: a review of the eighteenth and nineteenth century sources", Westerly, 23 (2): 71–78, ISSN 0043-342X
  5. Henderson, Graeme; Viduka, Andrew; Parkinson, James; Moss, Alexander (2015), "Closing in on the 'Fortuyn': A progress report", Journal of the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, the, 39: 27–43, ISSN 1447-0276
  6. Halls, Christopher (1996), The loss of the Dutch East Indiaman, Aagtekerke, Annual Dog Watch, retrieved 23 January 2020
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