Those wicked IT people in Canberra have blocked my access to the wild, carefree lands of blog. Now, I have to work for a living, and, by golly, that's what I'm doing.
The bosses keep giving me 'little' jobs to do that take me hours - as if I don't have enough to do in the week left.
Okay, whinge out of the way. Time for a bit o' history:
This beautiful ship is the Duyfken. It sought shelter in Jervis Bay on Tuesday after the open seas turned reallyrough and didn't leave until Thursday. I took this photo from the boss's window that overlooks the bay.
The original Duyfken (little dove) sailed from Indonesia in 1606 looking for gold and trade. Under the command of dutchman Willem Janszoon, they bumped into Australia instead and became the first Europeans to map a part of this continent. This ship marks the beginning of Australia's recorded history.
The replica, which you see above, was built at a cost of $3.7 million in Fremantle, Western Australia.
The website, Duyfken 1606 Replica Foundation describes the materials as: Duyfken's hull is European Oak from Latvia, her sails and rig all natural flax and hemp. She was built and fitted-out in Fremantle using "plank-first" construction. Fire was employed to bend the hull planks and inside frames were added afterwards. The hull was launched on 24 January 1999 and she was able to sail for the first time on 10 July 1999. Soon afterwards, work began to prepare the basic ship for the Chevron 2000 Duyfken Expedition.
How amazing that such a small ship could sail from Europe to Australia? This replica did the return journey in 2001.
We were fortunate to have the ship in the bay; Jervis Bay was not on its list of ports of call.
And on Thursday, I watched it sail out of the heads, but it was too far away to photograph. Maybe it will return one day, and I can get a better shot of it.
3 comments:
Wow, that's really cool. Too bad you couldn't get a shot of it as it was leaving, that would have made a neat picture, but that ship made it all the way to Autralia? Wow! That's cool!
Yes, it was. A couple of Park Rangers were doing a boat patrol and went out, but they didn't have a camera with them!
Fire was employed to bend the hull planks and inside frames were added afterwards.
I've watched that done when they rebuilt the Poeler Cog in Wismar. Very tricky because the heat must be enough to bend the wood but not burn it.
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