National Maritime Museum

This guide to the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam follows the Amsterdam, a VOC East Indiaman that left Texel on her maiden voyage on January 8, 1749, carrying twenty-seven chests of silver and 335 people bound for Batavia. Within days westerly storms pinned her in the English Channel, fever spread through the crew, mutiny broke out, and the rudder snapped, leaving her thirty-three-year-old captain, Willem Klump, fighting to keep her afloat. A full-scale replica, built by three hundred volunteers, floats moored outside.