Schooner · Netherlands
Abel Tasman
A steel schooner of 1913, originally a freighter. Today she sails the Spanish coast.
Technical data
- Rig
- Schooner
- Flag
- Netherlands
- Home port
- Kampen
- Built
- 1913
- Shipyard
- J.J. Pattje & Zoon, Waterhuizen, NL
- Hull material
- Steel
- Length
- 40.05 m
- Beam
- 6.6 m
- Sail area
- 450 m²
- Sailing area
- Spanish coast
Built in 1913 at J. J. Pattje & Zoon in Waterhuizen as a freighter for the North and Baltic Seas. Named Hermann and homeported in Breiholz, she later served as an officers' mess on the Kiel Canal.
Sold to Denmark, her hull was lengthened and she worked as a coastal trader into the late 1980s. In 1988 the Dutchman Sjoerd Faber bought her at Nørresundby as Laksen, converted her for passengers, and had her sailing again in 1990 as Atlantis.
From 1996 Rendert Jan and Ina de Waard sailed her with guests — Baltic in summer, the Canaries in winter. Over the winter of 1998/99 she was refitted at Barth and renamed Abel Tasman. Since 2005 she has been registered in Kampen, the Netherlands.
Today she is a high-standard schooner specialising in cruises in Spanish waters and a regular at sailing events. She carries the name of the Dutch navigator Abel J. Tasman (1603–1659), who reached Tasmania and part of present-day New Zealand in 1642 and, a year later, became the first European to visit Tonga and Fiji.