1st Edition
Shipwreck & Survival in Oman, 1763 The Fate of the Amstelveen and Thirty Castaways on the South Coast of Arabia
By Klaas Doornbos
Copyright 2014
148 Pages
by
Amsterdam University Press
In 1763, the Dutch ship Amstelveen set sail from the Dutch East Indies for Muscat, Oman. Through a tragic combination of human error and rough seas, the ship never made it to port, sinking off the southern coast of Oman. The thirty surviving crew members then faced a terrible trek across a desolate desert landscape to Muscat. Drawing on the logbook of Cornelis Eyks, the ship’s only surviving... Read more
Prologue, The VOC at home and in Asia, A mysterious accident, The Dutch East Indiaman Amstelveen, In the Bay of Sawqirah, Two old letters, At Cape Mataraca (Ras Madrakah), Forsaken in the desert, Along the Gulf of Masirah, Hunger, thirst, rocks and robbers, Trapped by the Bedouin, At a forked river (near Duqm), Saved by some water, The fate of the little Javanese boy, A warmer welcome, Through the high sand dunes, Encounters on the Sharqiyah coast, A cunning merchant captain in Hadd, Arrival in Muscat, Unrest in the Arabian merchant fleet, With the Resident on Kharg, Salt from Bandar Abbasi, A surprising reunion in Muscat, To Batavia by way of Cochin, To Muscat once again, Back in Middelburg at last, Cornelis Eyks, a life at sea, Causes and location of the disaster, Those on board and their fate, Remaining mysteries, ‘The salvaged people’, Acknowledgments, Bibliography
Biography
Klaas Doornbos (b. 1936) is teacher, researcher, advisor in educational policy, and emeritus professor of special education at the University of Amsterdam.
