History
The DEI ship 'Wapen van Amsterdam' made five voyages to the East Indies between 1654 and 1665. Her sixth voyage began on 21-5-1664. The ship arrived in Batavia 24-1-1665.
She was part of the homeward bound DEI fleet that left Batavia 26-1-1667.
a convoy of nine ships. A record of the total cargo of the nine ships combined still exists, showing that Wapen van Amsterdam was most likely carrying a cargo of various spices, cloth, wood, and dyes.
In September, the convoy was off the coast of Iceland, making it's way west of the British Isles in order to sail to the Netherlands through the North Sea, when it was beset by a violent storm. After drifting away from the rest of the convoy and fighting the storm for two days, Wapen van Amsterdam ran aground on a beach in southern Iceland.
Of the 136 passengers, 52 or 53 reached the shore alive. There, several people died from injuries sustained or from the hardships. With 43 men, the journey to civilization was started in the sloop.
Salvage attempt
In the 1960's, a group of Icelanders undertook a search for the wreck site, which resulted in a magnetic anomaly as well as samples of wood and iron.
Finally in 1983 a excavations revealed a shipwreck on the site. But it turned out to be a German freighter wrecked there in 1903.
The wreck of The Wapen van Amsterdam is still somewhere between the deltas of both the Skeibara and Skaftafellsa rivers.
Description
Armament: 35-40 cannons
Skipper | Reinier Brinkmans |
---|---|
Tonnage | 920 ton (460 last) |
References
- Paauwe, J.
Het Wapen van Amsterdam (1654-1667) a Dutch East Indies' ship, shipwrecked on 19 September 1667, on the south coast of Iceland.
White Oak, Naval Ordnance Laboratory. - Gegevens VOC-schip Wapen van Amsterdam (1653).
- Jacob Bart Hak (2020).
Wapen van Amsterdam. A history. - mission-story.
- Vergeefse zoektocht naar gezonken schip.
IsGeschiendenis. - DAS 5547.5.
- 1.04.02 4932 uitreisboek.