Stop 1 - Hartog Dish

The return of the Hartog's dish to Western Australia for this exhibition marks the 400th anniversary of the first confirmed European arrival in Australia. Hartog's landing at Shark Bay aboard his ship the Eendracht brings Western Australia into the story of the Dutch in the Indian Ocean. Hartog had been in the employ of the VOC in South east Asia as a navigator prior to captaining the Eendracht. He was an experienced mariner in European waters and interestingly also in the ice bound conditions of Northern Russia where the Dutch traded for forestry and agrarian products.

The 1616 voyage to the Dutch East Indies was initially a fleet of five ships. From the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, Eendracht headed south to somewhere between latitudes 35 and 45ºS, where it caught the strong westerly winds coming off the Southern Ocean known as the Roaring Forties. This route, trialled by other Dutch ships before Hartog, had been first encountered by Hendrik Brouwer five years earlier. The so-called Brouwer Route was officially endorsed in 1617, when the VOC made it the preferred course for its East Indiamen. Ships followed this route for approximately 1000 miles before turning northward with the Southeast Trade Winds, which carried them directly into the Strait of Sunda. This route provided the shortest distance to the East Indies, and decreased the sailing time by several months. It also allowed the ships to avoid Portuguese territory in Asia.

The varying strength of these Roaring Forties, and inability to calculate longitude, meant that ships often misjudged when to head north. Hartog could have simply passed the right longitude, or he may have sailed too far south before running with the Roaring Forties, leading to Eendracht's arrival on the shores of the Great South Land.

Together with Hartog's Eendracht, all subsequent VOC ships that ended up in these waters played a major role in Dutch reconnaissance of the Australian coast—a development that led to the further European discovery and exploration of this vast continent.

“Harthog