The ''Prins Willem'' (), also spelled ''Prins Willim'', was a 17th-century

East Indiaman East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India trading companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. The term is used to refer to vesse ...

of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

. She was their largest ship at the time. The ship made her first voyage to the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

in 1651. After several voyages, she sank near

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

in 1662. A replica of the ''Prins Willem'' was built in 1985, but she was destroyed by fire in 2009.Prins Willem, 1650
''De VOCsite''. Retrieved 6 August 2015.

History

The ship ''Prins Willim'' was built in 1650 in

Middelburg Middelburg may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe * Middelburg, Zeeland, the capital city of the province of Zeeland, southwestern Netherlands ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Middelburg, a former Catholic diocese with its see in the Zeeland ...

in the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

. Curiously, the name on the ship was ''Prins Willim''. Two possible reasons have been advanced: the ship's name is

Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarch ...

or the lack of space for the name caused the "e" to be changed to a shorter "i". The ship was the flagship of

Witte de With Witte Corneliszoon de With (28 March 1599 – 8 November 1658) was a Dutch naval officer. He is noted for planning and participating in a number of naval battles during the Eighty Years War and the First Anglo-Dutch war. Early life and chil ...

in the

Battle of the Kentish Knock The Battle of the Kentish Knock (or the Battle of the Zealand Approaches) was a naval battle between the fleets of the Dutch Republic and England, fought on 28 September 1652 (8 October Gregorian calendar), during the First Anglo-Dutch War near t ...

during the

First Anglo-Dutch War The First Anglo-Dutch War, or simply the First Dutch War, ( nl, Eerste Engelse (zee-)oorlog, "First English (Sea) War"; 1652–1654) was a conflict fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the Dutch Republic, ...

. The ship sank near

in 1662.

Replicas

In the same period as the building of the original ship also a replica in 1:50 scale was built. This model still survives and is on permanent exhibition in the Dutch national museum

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Ste ...

. In 1978 this model was fully restorated and a replica of the same scale was constructed. A full size

replica A 1:1 replica is an exact copy of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without claiming to be identical. Al ...

with the same name was built in 1984–85 at the Dutch shipyard Amels in Makkum for the theme park in Seihi,

Nagasaki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Nagasaki Prefecture has a population of 1,314,078 (1 June 2020) and has a geographic area of 4,130 Square kilometre, km2 (1,594 sq mi). Nagasaki Prefecture borders ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The building cost was 1.4 billion yen. In 2003,

Huis Ten Bosch Huis ten Bosch ( nl, Paleis Huis ten Bosch, ; English: "House in the Woods") is a royal palace in The Hague, Netherlands. It is one of three official residences of the Dutch monarch; the two others being the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague and ...

K. K. Krishnakumar Kunnath (23 August 1968 – 31 May 2022), popularly known as KK, was an Indian playback singer. Regarded as one of the best and most versatile singers in India, he recorded songs in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, M ...

, the operating company of Nagasaki Holland Village declared bankruptcy and the replica was sold to a Dutch company for 130 million yen. In 2004, the replica became part of the theme park Cape Holland in

Den Helder Den Helder () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Den Helder occupies the northernmost point of the North Holland peninsula. It is home to the country's main naval base. From here the Royal TESO fe ...

, the Netherlands. In 2009, the bowsprit of the ''Prins Willim'' replica was being restored. Restanten Prins Willim Den Helder

On the morning of 30 July 2009, the replica was lost to fire, probably due to an electric malfunction. The owner of the ship, the Libéma company, decided on a restoration. In 2014 the ship was dismantled, as the restoration turned out to be too expensive.

References

External links

* Merchant ships of the Netherlands Replica ships Ships of the Dutch East India Company {{Merchantship-stub