Doorkijkpaneel 3. Oostvaardersdiep

INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND TRANSPORT
The Zuiderzee was of great importance to Amsterdam in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In those days, Amsterdam was the most important trading city in the Netherlands. There were numerous ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the 
West India Company (WIC) at anchor. The mighty three-masters waited to unload or load in Amsterdam or to sail to distant places at the right tide.

DEEP trench
Skippers who left Amsterdam for the Indies used a deep channel that took them in a northeasterly direction past Urk, towards the mouth of the Zuiderzee. This channel was called the Oostvaardersdiep. The water along the IJsselmeer dikes of the Eastern Flevoland and Southern Flevoland polders is named after this route. It is still an important shipping route, both for freight ships and recreational boating.

MANY TYPES OF SHIPS
The Zuiderzee has been navigated by many different types of ships. During the period 1200-1450 you could observe the cog. The cog was often used by merchants from cities that belonged to the Hanseatic League. The Hanseatic League was a partnership of merchants and Hanseatic cities, such as Kampen. The cog had one mast and a transverse sail. In the seventeenth century the VOC sailed with much larger three-masters, such as the 
well-known Batavia (1628). The botter was a fishing ship that you could see sailing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Various ships, such as bucket dredgers, were used during the construction of the Afsluitdijk and the dikes of the IJsselmeer polders.

DANGEROUS
Sailing across the Zuiderzee could be a dangerous undertaking. The inland sea was known for its many shoals and channels that could widen or narrow under the influence of the tides. There were hardly any natural beacons or landmarks along the coast, with a few exceptions. A fire beacon had been placed in Urk and a second landmark was the church tower of Espel on Schokland.

FINDS
Because the Zuiderzee was a treacherous sea, it is not surprising that many ships were shipwrecked. Ships are regularly excavated in the polders. Sometimes part of the cargo is still on board. Furthermore, beacon leads are often found. These are lead tokens that skippers had as proof of payment of the beacon fee. That was a levy that the ships had to pay to finance the fire beacons along the coast.