The Rede van Texel, formerly Reede van Texel, was a roadstead off the Dutch island of Texel. It was of considerable importance to Dutch long-distance shipping between roughly 1500 and 1800. [1] The Rede van Texel was located off the east side of the island, near the town of Oudeschild.
At the roadstead ships from cities around the Zuiderzee safely anchored and waited for favourable sailing conditions, hired pilots and picked up provisions and sometimes additional crewmembers. A lot of transloading was done at the Rede van Texel, as the shoals of the Zuiderzee prevented most ships from sailing to and from their ports fully laden.
The ships anchoring at the Rede van Texel, sometimes up to 150 together, were mainly merchantmen, most notably from the Dutch East India Company, but also whalers and war ships. For the island of Texel the roadstead meant a substantial source of income.
The safety that the roadstead provided was only relative. Frequently storms would damage or sink ships, sometimes dozens in one day. [2] Some 44 fully laden merchantmen were lost on Christmas Eve 1593, littering the east coast of Texel with bodies and wreckage. [2] The Dutch merchant and poet Roemer Visscher suffered a sizeable loss that night and named his third daughter Maria Tesselschade (Texel Damage) after the disaster. In December 1660 upwards of 100 ships may have been lost in a storm at the Rede van Texel. [2] It is estimated that a total of between 500 and 1000 ships were sunk at the roadstead. [2]
In 1574 William the Silent had a fort built near Oudeschild to protect the Rede van Texel, which must have been one of the busiest ports at the time. [1]
In the course of the nineteenth century the Rede van Texel lost most of its purpose. Both the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and the French occupation had already been disastrous for Dutch merchant shipping, with a decline of activity at the roadstead in its wake. This was followed by the opening of the Noordhollandsch Kanaal in 1824, bypassing Texel to some extent, and the introduction of the steamship, which didn't have to wait for favourable winds. The opening of the North Sea Canal finished what was left of the roadstead, as ships from the mainport of Amsterdam bypassed Texel altogether.
The Amsterdam was an 18th-century cargo ship of the Dutch East India Company. The VOC was established in 1602. The ship started its maiden voyage from Texel to Batavia on 8 January 1749, but was wrecked in a storm on the English Channel on 26 January 1749. The shipwreck was discovered in 1969 in the bay of Bulverhythe, near Hastings on the English south coast, and is sometimes visible during low tides. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England. Some of the findings from the site are in The Shipwreck Museum in Hastings. A replica of the ship is on display in Amsterdam.
The Zuiderzee or Zuider Zee was a shallow bay of the North Sea in the northwest of the Netherlands, extending about 100 km inland and at most 50 km wide, with an overall depth of about 4 to 5 metres (13–16 feet) and a coastline of about 300 km. It covered 5,000 km2 (1,900 sq mi). Its name is Dutch for "southern sea", indicating that the name originates in Friesland, to the north of the Zuiderzee. In the 20th century the majority of the Zuiderzee was closed off from the North Sea by the construction of the Afsluitdijk, leaving the mouth of the inlet to become part of the Wadden Sea. The salt water inlet changed into a fresh water lake now called the IJsselmeer after the river that drains into it, and by means of drainage and polders, an area of some 1,500 km2 (580 sq mi) was reclaimed as land. This land eventually became the province of Flevoland, with a population of nearly 400,000 (2011).
Texel is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of Den Helder, northeast of Noorderhaaks, and southwest of Vlieland.
The Downs is a roadstead in the southern North Sea near the English Channel off the east Kent coast, between the North and the South Foreland in southern England. In 1639 the Battle of the Downs took place here, when the Dutch navy destroyed a Spanish fleet which had sought refuge in neutral English waters. From the Elizabethan era onwards, the presence of the Downs helped to make Deal one of the premier ports in England, and in the 19th century, it was equipped with its own telegraph and timeball tower to enable ships to set their marine chronometers.
Ridderschap van Holland was a large retourschip, the largest class of merchantmen built by the Dutch East India Company to trade with the East Indies. In 1694 the ship sailed for Batavia on her fifth voyage, but did not reach its destination and was never heard from again. She is now thought to have been shipwrecked off the west coast of Australia.
The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval battle that took place on 5 August 1781 during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, contemporaneously related to the American Revolutionary War, in the North Sea. It was a bloody encounter between a British squadron under Vice Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and a Dutch squadron under Vice Admiral Johan Zoutman, both of which were escorting convoys.
Oudeschild is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the island municipality of Texel, and lies about 12 km northeast of Den Helder.
Noorderhaaks, also called Razende Bol, is an uninhabited Dutch island in the North Sea, a few kilometres west of the Marsdiep which separates the island of Texel from the mainland of the Netherlands. The island covers an area of around five km², although the exact area varies due to tide and the dynamic nature of the area.
A roadstead is a body of water sheltered from rip currents, spring tides, or ocean swell where ships can lie reasonably safely at anchor without dragging or snatching. It can be open or natural, usually estuary-based, or may be created artificially. In maritime law, it is described as a "known general station for ships, notoriously used as such, and distinguished by the name".
Holmes's Bonfire was a raid on the Vlie estuary in the Netherlands, executed by the English Fleet during the Second Anglo-Dutch War on 19 and 20 August 1666 New Style. The attack, named after the commander of the landing force, Rear-Admiral Robert Holmes, was successful in destroying by fire a large merchant fleet of 140 ships. During the same action, the town of West-Terschelling was burnt down, which caused outrage in the Dutch Republic.
Willemsoord is a large former Naval base of the Royal Netherlands Navy in Den Helder. It is now connected to the city center of Den Helder, and focuses on entertainment and tourism.
The action of 22 August 1795 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars between a squadron of four British Royal Navy frigates and two frigates and a cutter from the Batavian Navy. The engagement was fought off the Norwegian coastal island of Eigerøya, then in Danish Norway, the opposing forces engaged in protecting their respective countries' trade routes to the Baltic Sea. War between Britain and the Batavian Republic began, undeclared, in the spring of 1795 after the Admiralty ordered British warships to intercept Batavian shipping following the conquest of the Dutch Republic by the French Republic in January 1795.
The Capture of the Dutch fleet at Den Helder on the night of 23 January 1795 presents a rare occurrence of a tactical interaction between warships and cavalry, in which a French Revolutionary Hussar regiment surrounded a Dutch fleet frozen at anchor between the 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) stretch of sea that separates the mainland port of Den Helder and the island of Texel. After a charge across the frozen Zuiderzee, the French cavalry captured all 14 Dutch warships lying at anchor. A capture of ships by horsemen is an extremely rare feat in military history.
The Capitulation of Saldanha Bay was the surrender in 1796 to the British Royal Navy of a Dutch expeditionary force sent to recapture the Dutch Cape Colony. In 1794, early in the French Revolutionary Wars, the army of the French Republic overran the Dutch Republic which then became a French client state, the Batavian Republic. Great Britain was concerned by the threat the Dutch Cape Colony in Southern Africa posed to its trade routes to British India. It therefore sent an expeditionary force that landed at Simon's Town in June 1795 and forced the surrender of the colony in a short campaign. The British commander, Vice-Admiral Sir George Elphinstone, then reinforced the garrison and stationed a naval squadron at the Cape to protect the captured colony.
Alkmaar Packet was a shipping company that operated scheduled passenger and freight services in the northern part of the Netherlands between 1864 and 1950. The services the company provided were a kind of beurtvaart, which at the time had become a forerunner of modern public transport. At its height Alkmaar Packet owned more than 20 ships.
John O'Gaunt was a merchant ship launched in 1809 that traded with the West Indies. The French frigate Clorinde captured and scuttled John O'Gaunt in 1813.
HNLMS Wassenaar, was a unique ship built for the Royal Netherlands Navy.
HNLMS Adolf van Nassau was a unique ship built for the Royal Netherlands Navy.
HNLMS De Ruyter, was a unique ship built for the Royal Netherlands Navy. She first served as a heavy sailing frigate. Next she was rebuilt as a steam frigate, but she was never finished as such. She was finally rebuilt and served as a Casemate ironclad comparable to the CSS Virginia.
Nieuwediep was a canal and harbor. In about 1800 the major naval base Willemsoord was constructed west of it, soon followed by a major commercial port. After World War II, Nieuwe Haven Naval Base was built on reclaimed land east of the Nieuwediep, and the Nieuwdiep's source and mouth were dammed off.