At the yard of the Commercie Compagnie at Middelburg were on 24 August the frigate ship Wilhelmina Lucia and the steam yacht Zeeland launched on occasion of the birthday of the Dutch king. The first ship of about 450 rogge lasten was build for account of G.C. Bosch Reitz of Amsterdam and destined for the Dutch East Indies trade shipping. The second vessel was build for a company and to be used for a regular line between Middelburg and Rotterdam. Both ships were build by Frederik Haverkamp. Immediately after the launching of the frigate ships was the keel laid down of a similar ship with the same destination.
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).
