The building of the Dutch merchant bark ship Schouwen at Zierikzee, Netherlands according to the Dutch newspaper Zierikzeesche Courant dated Tuesday 8 June 1847

Zierikzee, 5 June. Today was at the Commercie yard by shipbuilder C. Mak the keel laid down and the stems prepared of the bark ship Schouwen of more as 400 Java lasten destined for the Dutch East Indies trade shipping on behalf of the company with as board members W.D. Jonge and F. Keller both of Zierikzee. The edition dated Wednesday 11 October 1848 announced that she was to be launched on Thursday 12 October at 1.30 o’clock from the Commercie yard. The edition dated 14 October confirmed the launching on behalf of the firm de Jonge&Keller and her master was to be R.A. Tange. Her shipbuilder was C. Mak, the yard owned by C. Smit. The edition dated Wednesday 13 December published a tiding dated 12 December according to which she was towed out of the harbour by the steamboat Stad Zierikzee to depart towards Batavia with the first favourable wind. This departure was on 18 December and one day later she was sighted off Dover. She arrived on 14 May at Batavia and returned from here on 27 May towards Rotterdam.

Note

1. In 1826 was the standard to calculate the cargo capacity of a ship the so-called roggelast (rogge=rye) of 2.075 kilo’s. In 1827 made the Nederlandsche Handels Maatschappij a list of all colonial products with their weights corresponding with the space needed for one roggelast. This became known as the Java last. For instance the weight of a Java last tea was 1.000 kilo, of pepper 1.600, of rice 2.000 and of coffee 1.500 kilo (in the practice in fact 1.800).