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Saturday 16 August 2014

The condition of the Dutch Zr.Ms. screw steamship 1st class Djambi serving in the Dutch East Indies as described in a letter to the editor published in the Dutch newspaper Java-bode dated 17 April 1873

In a letter published in this newspaper an anonymous  Dutch navy officer described the miserable condition of the Dutch warships serving at that moment in the Dutch East Indies. He was quite cynical in his comment dealing with the condition of the ships ending with the phrase Happy Indies! Happy Navy! Poor Netherlands!
Model Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The boilers of the Zr. Ms. Djambi were in a quite worse condition. If she would not depart on short notice to the Netherlands were extensive repairs needed to be executed by the plant at Surabaya, Dutch East Indies. The plant was cynical called cheap.(1)

Note
1. Screw steamship 1st class. Laid down at the navy yard at Amsterdam, Netherlands on 29 December 1858, launched on 31 October 1860, commissioned on1 June 1861 (?) and finally sold at Simonstad/Cape Town, South Africa for 1.765 pond in 1874. The intention was to remover her engine and convert her into a sailing vessel. With a displacement of 2.030 tons (A.J. Vermeulen) or a tonnage of 1.083 tons (Parliament papers) were her dimensions 58.00-62,84 x 12,25 x 5,50 metres. Wood-built. The coal bunker capacity of 340 tons allowed a range of 11 days. The horsepower was 250 hp allowing a speed of 8,5 knots. With a crew numbering 212-250 men consisted the armament of 8 long 30 pd guns and 8 rifled 16cm guns. The navy budget discussions for 1867 called her a large flush deck screw steam corvette. The ships of her type were suitable in times of war to secure an open connection between the Netherlands and her colonies, to act as commerce raiders and in the colonies successful act against troop transports and joined by our ironclads to prevent enemy landings. The design was described as a quite heavy armament, sufficient horsepower and good sailing qualities.