She’s almost on her way: the Duyfken replica begins a historic voyage tomorrow when she sets sail from Fremantle for Bunbury to commence celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Dirk Hartog’s landing on the WA coast.
The 1000-kilometre voyage has the ship leaving Bunbury on September 4 and calling at Mandurah, Hillarys, Jurien Bay, Dongara, Geraldton and Denham before a ceremony at Cape Inscription on Dirk Hartog Island on October 25.
The Mail will be aboard the first leg of the voyage from Bunbury to Mandurah.
Built in Fremantle and launched in 1999, the 3.7-million-dollar vessel is a pinnacle of Australian shipbuilding expertise. Fire-shaped Latvian oak was used in a ‘plank-first’ construction by some of the finest shipwrights in the world. The sails and rig are natural flax and hemp.
The original Duyfken was built some time around 1595 in the Netherlands. She was a small, fast, lightly-armed ship and in the first years of the 17th century was carrying cargoes of nutmeg and cloves from what is now Indonesia and skirmishing with Portuguese adversaries.
In 1606 the Dutch East India Company sent the ship under captain Willem Janszoon to search for “south and east lands” beyond the furthest reaches of the known world.
The ship left from Banda, Indonesia, reached the Cape York Peninsula and charted 300km of the coast – the first historically recorded voyage to Australia. For the first time, all the inhabited continents of the world were revealed to Europeans.
The Duyfken has given more than a million visitors around the world a taste of life at sea in the 17th century. She will be in Bunbury and open to visitors from August 22 to September 4.
Members of the general public will be able to go aboard and discover the challenges experienced by the ‘Dutchies’, the sailors of the time. A special Pirate Day will be held on August 28.
Tickets are available from www.ticketek.com.au/duyfken at $12.74 for those 17+ and $5.10 for 5-16s.
Ticket giveaway
The Mail will be giving away family passes to visit the Duyfken.
Train your telescope on bunburymail.com.au or follow us on Facebook for details coming soon.
