Willem Barentsz

When looking at the arctic map you find the Barents Sea, named after an illustrious Dutchman born on the isle Terschelling, who set out to find a way north to the spice islands. He got his ship stuck in the ice near Nova Zemlya, where he built the 'Behouden huis'. The sad part is that he only became famous because his trip ended so badly; the house was found completely intact in the nineteenth century.


Because Willem found many whales in the arctic, whaling started to become serious business in the early 17th century with Smerenburg ("Blubber Town") on Amsterdam Island in Spitsbergen as one of the main centers. The Northern Company, a combination of trading cities in Holland, Zealand and Friesland, had the monopoly until 1642. Oil at that time was scarce and expensive. Also the herring fishing was not doing well so many fishermen started whaling.
This lead to the Dutch virtually monopolising the Whaling industry in Europe. In 1600 the Dutch had over 10,000 merchant marine vessels. The Basques had invented deep-sea whaling and the Dutch had trouble with knowledge management! The Basque didn't want to teach the Dutch how they did it.

Years later a whaling company 'Vinke&Co' named two factory ships after him (1946-60). The last was sold to Japan and broken up in 1966 as the 'Nichei Maru'.
When whaling ended, Vinke& Co bought Bulkcarriers which were managed under the Company Oostzee.
In 1980 a young Frisian apprentice, straight from the nautical college 'Willem Barentsz' on Terschelling, made his first voyage on one of these ships, the rusty Britsum. [Amsterdam - Newfoundland].
You can guess who that was....

[note: Click on the image of Willem Barentsz and you will get a nice view from the top of the nautical college, built on the island where he was born.}