NOW: Luxury yachts

For the world’s rich Dutch yacht building is synonymous with quality. Dutch shipyards custom-build hand-made vessels for upwards of ten million euros. For oil sheiks, billionaires, royalty and successful business people who will settle for nothing less than ‘top of the bill’ and are not bothered about paying a million more or less.

These days the Netherlands is internationally renowned for its seafaring prowess and the reliability of its luxury yachts. Roman Abramovic – owner of the English football club Chelsea who earned billions as an oligarch – knows that better than anyone. He commissioned Mastership in Eindhoven to build a giant catamaran 380 metres long and 120 metres wide. Other shipyards like Damen Shipyards, Scheepsbouw Holland and Feadship have also had their share of multi-million orders from foreign sea-loving magnates. But true to good Dutch practice, the names of the buyers are, unfortunately, kept strictly under wraps. 

THEN: Merchant Fleet of the Dutch East Indies Company

Batavia, Concordia, Prins Willem (Prins Willim), Amsterdam, De Duyfken and Eendracht – these are just some of the names from the long and illustrious list of Dutch ships built in the Netherlands for the Dutch East Indies Company. In the Golden Age (17th and 18th centuries), highly skilled craftsmen of all kinds built more than 1500 ships to carry merchandise all over the world.

In those days the Netherlands led the way in shipbuilding. Foreigners flocked to Delfshaven and other Dutch shipyards to spy out the secrets of the trade at first hand. Among their number was the Russian Czar Peter the Great who, upon the invitation of the mayor of Amsterdam, visited Holland in 1698 for a four-month apprenticeship at the Oostenburg shipyard of the Dutch East Indies Company.