Bataviawerf is home to a replica of a 17th-century Dutch merchant frigate, the Batavia, which took 10 years to reconstruct. The original was a 17th-century Titanic – big, expensive and supposedly unsinkable. True to comparison, the Batavia, filled to the brim with cannon and goods for the colonies, went down in 1629 on its maiden voyage off the west coast of Australia. The replica, however, redeemed its predecessor in 2000 by sailing around the Pacific.
The huge weathered wooden skeleton alongside belongs to the Seven Provinces, a replica of Admiral Michiel de Ruijter's massive 17th-century flagship that's been under construction in fits and starts for years with no completion date in sight. In a separate building, the Netherlands Institute for Maritime Archaeology displays the remains of a 2000-year-old Roman ship found near Utrecht.
