It was an exciting moment in town when one of the rarest ships in the world had come to lay anchor at Snug Cove, Eden.
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On Monday January 30, the Duyfken replica and her crew decided to drop anchor at the Eden wharf and open their top deck for public viewing.
Duyfken is part of the Australian National Maritime Museum fleet and a 23 year old replica of the first European ship to reach Australia in 1606.
The ship's visit offered people the incredible opportunity to climb aboard and experience what life was like for the 20 Dutch sailors who crewed the original vessel over 400 years ago.
Captain of the ship, Andrew Rourke, said they had been inundated with visitors as soon as they arrived and received a very warm welcome from the community.
"A common response we've had, is that people were fascinated that a ship like this had come to visit and would come to see it again," he said.
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The ship was en route to Tasmania for the Australian Wooden Boat Festival, when they decided to stop in Eden.
Mr Rourke said it was the ship's first ocean passage in six years, however due to the level of interest shown during this particular trip, there was a good chance they'd return.
"I think we can expect to see tall ships like Duyfken come again because we're trying to bring the museum to the people that aren't in Sydney," he said.
Journey back to the past
Watch leader of the ship and crew member for over a decade, Andrew Bibby was all too happy to tell the tale of Duyfken's arrival in Australia in March 1606.
"As far as we know they were the first Europeans to land in Australia in far north Queensland and charted 300km of coastline before coming ashore where they met with the local Wik tribe," he said.
Mr Bibby said the captain of the ship Willem Janszoon had discovered Australia after deciding to sail into unknown territory south of Banda, to seek out potential trade opportunities.
Mr Bibby said the crew had come ashore looking for fresh water and built a water well in a place shown to them by the Wik people, who then made use of it after the Dutch left.
At some point during their visit a clash with the Wik tribe broke out and led to the death of nine crew members which caused the captain to set sail for the port of Banda in present-day Indonesia.
"The original reason the Dutch were out in Indonesia at all was to operate the spice trade, primarily they were coming out from the Netherlands all the way to Indonesia to the Banda islands where the nutmeg was growing," he said.
"At that point in time nutmeg was worth more than its weight in gold".
Several centuries later, a replica of Duyfken was built in Freemantle, Western Australia from 1997 to 1999, put together by many of the shipwrights that built Captain Cook's Endeavour replica.
The ship's construction was led by the Duyfken 1606 Replica Foundation, jointly with the Maritime Museum of Western Australia and made possible thanks to the generous support of the Kailis family.
The ship was owned by the Duyfken 1606 Replica Foundation, for the first 20 years of its life until funding ran out and she was passed into the care of the National Maritime Museum in December 2020.
What lies below deck
Mr Bibby also took the Magnet below deck for an exclusive tour of the ship, where we discovered the crew sleep in hammocks - like sailors used to in the 1600s.
One of the differences between the modern day crew's lodgings and the ones who sailed to Australia in 1606, is that no one was allowed below deck in the past, due to the small size of the ship and the value of the goods that were stored down there.
The ship has also kept with using bricks instead of rocks for their ballast which helped to weigh the ship down and ensure its stability.
"Historically the bricks were chosen because they were so useful ashore," Mr Bibby said.
The ship was also equipped with a small modernised kitchen, the size of one person with their arms outstretched. There were also two small bathrooms, which were installed in a space that used to store their weaponry.
Duyfken is a particularly small ship and was known as the scout ship of the Dutch and was three times smaller than the other ships owned by the Dutch East India company.
Typically the Duyfken was sent ahead of the fleet to make sure the ports were safe and to reconfirm navigation before heading back to the bigger ships.
The ship was also heavily armed with 10 deck guns that could fire a shot the size of a tennis ball at a distance of 400 to 500 yards. Along with 4 personnel guns which fired a fistful of musket shots each time.
In 2001 the replica ship sailed from Sydney to the Netherlands, the trip took them 11 months one way. The ship returned on a cargo ship in 2003.
Since its return in 2003 the ship has circumnavigated the country to a total of around 100,000 nautical miles.
Almost everything has been kept with the authentic design of the original Duyfken ship, albeit the necessary modern touches, which helps provide a unique experience while aboard.