Category Abel Tasman

On December 5th 1642 Tasman and his Council decided that since the wind direction would no longer allow them to follow the coast of Tasmania, they should turn East.

“we could no longer steer near the coast here, seeing that the wind was almost ahead. We therefore convened the Council and the second mates, with whom after due deliberation we resolved, and subsequently called out to the officers of the Zeehaan that, pursuant to the resolution of the 11th ultimo we should direct our course due east…

… we then shaped our course due east for the purpose of making further discoveries”

Abel Tasman’s path to December 13th

For the next seven days Tasman sailed east, and his journal includes only the day’s weather and his routine report of; position, course kept and distance sailed...

Tasman’s expedition was conducted under comprehensive written instructions, and all decisions were taken with reference to these instructions. Tasman didn’t have sole charge of the expedition; he was the president of the ships’ council, on which he held the casting vote.

Their instructions included details on how to proceed when encountering new land, and the method by which they should lay claim to it.

Isaac Gilseman’s drawing of the ships at anchor in Frederick Hendricx Bay.

“All continents and islands, which you shall discover, touch at and set foot on, you will take possession of on behalf of Their High Mightinesses the States General of the United-Provinces, the which in uninhabited regions or in such countries as have no sovereign, may be done by erecting a memorial-stone or ...

24th November.

“… In the afternoon about 4 o’clock we saw land bearing east by north of us at about 10 miles distance from us by estimation; the land we sighted was very high; towards evening we also saw, east-south-east of us, three high mountains, and to the north-east two more mountains, but less high than those to southward; …

… we convened our ship’s council with the second mate’s and represented to them whether it would not be advisable to run farther out to sea; we also asked their advice as to the time when it would be best to do so, upon which it was unanimously resolved to run out to sea at the expiration of three glasses, to keep doing so for the space of ten glasses, and after this to make for the land again.”

It was 48 days since they last saw land, but now that the...

The Council had decided that they should turn east, and in doing so they had avoided potential disaster.

29th October.

“At noon we directed our course to eastward with a north-north-westerly wind and a top-gallant gale; our estimated latitude being 45° 47′, and Longitude 89° 44′; course kept south-south-east sailed 17 miles.”

Tasman’s eastward progress

Having just avoided the French Southern and Antarctic lands they ran eastwards for three days, before again turning south-east.

The foul weather and intermittent fog persisted, as did sightings of weed on the water, and at the latitude 49°S Tasman recorded that

The weather was so bad that it was impossible to convene the Council...

Abel Tasman finally escaped ‘Old Harbour’ Mauritius on 8th October, 1642. He must have had severe concerns about the strength of his ships, as he spent twice his allotted time there. He was to stop at Mauritius for approximately two weeks gathering provisions; firewood, water and livestock. But he remained there until he was satisfied that his ships were properly prepared for the rigours of the Southern Ocean.

His instructions were to sail from Mauritius South, to latitude 52°S or 54°S, and the instructions were remarkably specific.

As before mentioned, your necessities having been provided for, you will about medio October, or earlier, set sail from the Mauritius, shaping your course with the trade-wind nearly southward, as high as wind and weather shall permit, until about the So...

Model of the Heemskerck at the Auckland Maritime museum

Model of the Zeehaen at the Auckland Maritime Museum

In order to appreciate the progress of Tasman’s 14642 voyage it is necessary to understand the circumstances under which he was operating.

The VOC company wanted to find the Great South Land, to see if they was anything there that they could exploit commercially. They also wanted to know if there was a passage between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean through which they could gain access to the gold bearing coast of South America.

These were the two goals of the expedition.

Tasman was provided with two ships for the expedition, the Heemskerck, and the Zeehaen. Both ships carried cannons...

Tasman’s route to Mauritius

Abel Tasman sailed into the old ‘Grand Harbour’ on the South-East coast of Mauritius on 5th September 1642. There, at the VOC fortress of ‘Fredrick Hendrik’ he met with it’s commander Adriaan van der Stel.

Mauritius was a new colony, having only been established in 1638. It was named after the Dutch Prince Mauritius and lay between the Dutch colonies at Batavia and Cape Town. It was a strategically positioned haven for the many VOC ships on that route, and had an abundant supply of a highly prized commodity; Ebony. As well as keeping the colony a secure refuge for VOC vessels, Adriaan van der Stel was tasked with harvesting ebony for shipment to the European markets...

LONGITUDE

Latitude and longitude on a globe.

Longitude was the big issue for Tasman. He simply had no way of measuring how far east or west he was. There wouldn’t be a method to readily resolve longitude until Cook carried the experimental Harrison ‘K1’ instrument on his second Pacific voyage in 1772. The Harrison ‘K1’ was a clock.

The successful resolution of longitude hinges on being able to know time very accurately.

The Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci made an insightful observation during a voyage to the America’s.

“…one night, the twenty-third of August 1499, there was a conjunction of the moon with Mars, which according to the almanac was to occur at midnight or a half hour before. I found that…at midnight Mars’s position was three and a half degrees to the east.”

Gerritsz world map, 1616 (click to enlarge)

Abel Tasman was travelling at a time when the Earth was properly understood to be a globe, and there was a standard method used to represent any position on the globe.

Lines of latitude and longitude

‘Longitude’, or how far east or west around the globe you were, was measured in degrees around a circle located on the equator. Lines of equal longitude continued directly north-south, to the poles. At the time Abel Tasman was voyaging, the Dutch convention was that all longitude was measured as East or West of the Peak of Tenerife. The Greenwich ‘meridian’, the line of 0° Longitude, wouldn’t be universally adopted until 1884.

Similarly, how far north or south you were, ‘Latitude’, was measured in degrees north or south of the equator...

After mounting disagreement with Parliament, Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham castle, beginning the English Civil war. In a few years’ time the Black Death would kill half of London’s population of 460,000. The following year a huge fire swept the city of the Plague, but 80,000 of the surviving population lost their homes to the flames.

In the America’s, the Dutch were forced to abandon their garrison on Staten Island (New York) for the safety of Fort Amsterdam after fierce attacks from the natives.

Isaac Newton was born, Galileo died and William Shakespeare had been dead for 26 years. Rembrandt was at the peak of his career.

The world had not yet seen a thermometer, screwdriver or piano.

 On August the 14th 1642, two ships, the Heemskerck and the Zeehaen, well manned,...