Halve Maen (Half Moon)

Type

Carrack

Period

17th Century

Nation

Netherlands

Overview: The Halve Maen (Half Moon) was a small Dutch East India Company (VOC) vessel, technically classed as a "jacht" but often likened to a carrack-type merchant ship. It is world-famous for the 1609 voyage in which English captain Henry Hudson, sailing for the Dutch, explored what is now New York Harbor and the river that bears his name while searching for a passage to Asia. Specifications: The ship was built in 1608 on a wharf at Rapenburg, Amsterdam, and had a length of roughly 21 metres. Other contemporary descriptions characterize her variously as a small pinnace or sloop-like trading vessel of shallow draft, reflecting the loose ship-type terminology of the period rather than a strict class designation. Service History: Before her famous voyage, the original ship is thought to have worked timber trade routes in the Baltic and salt trade with Portugal. In 1609, under Hudson's command, she crossed the Atlantic, explored the Hudson River as far as present-day Kinderhook, and helped spark Dutch colonial claims to the region that became New Netherland. She returned to VOC service in Asia afterward and was ultimately lost in 1618, reportedly burned during a sea battle off the coast of Java. Notable Facts: In 1909, the Kingdom of the Netherlands presented the United States with a replica of Halve Maen to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Hudson's voyage; the replica was destroyed in a fire in 1934. Over 50 years later, in 1989, the New Netherland Museum commissioned a second replica, which sailed for several decades along the Hudson River until it was transported in 2015 to the Westfries Museum in Hoorn, Netherlands, where it is permanently moored. That 1989 replica, built by master shipwright Nicholas S. Benton, later relocated to Kampen, Netherlands, and remains a popular reference for modelers seeking accurate early-17th-century Dutch ship details.