De Nederlander (ship, 1823)
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De Nederlander was the first steamship to operate regularlyon the Rhine .
The ship was built for Van Vollenhoven, Dutilh & Co. under the direction of the Dutch mechanical engineer Gerhard Moritz Roentgen . The hull was manufactured by J. Hoogendijk in Capelle aan den IJssel and two steam engines with 20 HP were ordered from Henry Maudslay for the drive . On May 31, 1823, the first test drive to Antwerp was undertaken, but it was unsuccessful. Too much steam was lost due to leaks, so you had to turn around at Bruinisse .
The ship was overhauled and on June 16, 1823 a new attempt was made, which was successful. On this occasion the Dutch King Wilhelm I was convinced of the efficiency of steam engines. Initially, the shipping company Van Vollenhoven, Dutilh & Co. only had permission to operate between Antwerp and Rotterdam . But with this convincing demonstration, the king also gave permission for the routes from Antwerp to Brussels , Harlingen , de Lemmer and Harderwijk and from Rotterdam to The Hague , Veere , Nijmegen , Arnhem and Den Bosch .
The regular traffic made a repair yard for steam ships necessary. Initially it was planned to have the ship serviced by John Cockerill in Liege . However, it was finally decided to build their own shipyard in Feijenoord . In order to expand shipping traffic, more ships were commissioned. Since these were to be equipped with Dutch steam engines, the de Nederlander was shut down in order to create technical drawings of the machines.
literature
- Evert van der Schee: Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij , Rotterdam 1998, ISBN 90-73235-16-2 ( online ).