Prins Willem
The 1985 replica of the Prins Willem in 2005
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| History | |
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 Dutch Republic
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| Name: | Prins Willem |
| Owner: | Dutch East India Company |
| Launched: | 1649 |
| Fate: | Sank, 1662 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tons burthen: | 700 tons |
| Length: | 42 m (137 ft 10 in) |
| Sail plan: | Full rigged ship |
| Armament: | 32 guns |
The Prins Willem (Dutch pronunciation: [prɪns ˈʋɪləm]), also spelled Prins Willim, was a 17th-century East Indiaman of the Dutch East India Company. It was their largest ship at the time. The ship made its first voyage to the Dutch East Indies in 1651. After several voyages, it sank near Madagascar in 1662. A replica of the Prins Willem was built in 1985, but it was destroyed by fire in 2009.
The ship Prins Willim was built in 1650 in Middelburg in the Dutch Republic. Curiously, the name on the ship was Prins Willim. Two possible reasons have been advanced: the ship's name is Middle Dutch 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 in the Battle of the Kentish Knock during the First Anglo-Dutch War.
The ship sank near Madagaskar in 1662.
A replica with the same name was built in 1984-85 at the Dutch shipyard Amels in Makkum for the Nagasaki Holland Village ( Nagasaki Oranda Mura?) theme park in Seihi, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. The building cost was 1.4 billion yen.
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Wikipedia