Duyfken
At least two ships named the Duyfken (literally, 'Little Dove', alternatively Duifje, Duifken, or Duijfken) sailed east from the Netherlands in the early stages of the Dutch Republic's overseas expansion. All of them seem to have been small — 25–30 lasten (49–59 tonnes). — fast, lightly armed ships intended for reconnaissance missions in shallow water, carrying small, valuable cargoes, conveying messages and provisions, or privateering raids.
The first Duyfken sailed east in 1595 as part of the initial Dutch expedition to Bantam. After she returned to the Netherlands in August 1597, she was renamed the Overijsel and subsequently participated in the second and fourth Dutch expeditions to the East Indies.
A second Duyfken sailed from the Texel under skipper Willem Cornelisz Schouten on 23 April 1601, as jacht, or scout, in admiral Wolphert Harmensz's fleet which defeated a Portuguese force of eight galleons and twenty-two galleys in the Battle of Bantam on New Year's Day 1602, ending the Iberian (Portuguese and Spanish dominance of the spice trade between the East Indies and Europe.
From Bantam, Harmensz took his ships to Ternate and Banda via Tuban in East Java to load cloves and nutmeg cargoes. The Duyfken carried out an initial reconnaissance of the islands to the east of the Malukus before the fleet set out on the return voyage. After a storm off Cape Agulhas in southern Africa separated the fleet, the Duyfken reached Flushing in April 1603, two months ahead of the larger vessels.
A ship of similar size with the same name — probably the same vessel — with Willem Jansz as skipper, sailed east with Stepher van der Haghen's first VOC fleet in December 1603. The VOC fleet reached Bantam on New Year's Eve 1604 after a voyage that took them through the Mozambique Channel — where they captured a Portuguese ship — to Goa, Calicut and Pegu. From there, they moved east, dislodged the Portuguese garrison from their stronghold on Ambon and set about gathering their return cargo while the Duyfken made a flying visit to Bantam to replenish the fleet's provisions.
After the rest of the fleet departed on the return voyage, the Duyfken remained in eastern waters to carry out a number of tasks before the next inbound fleet arrived. The first involved investigating trade opportunities and possible sources of gold to the south and east of the Spice Islands.
Jansz took the Duyfken southeast from Banda to the Kei Islands along New Guinea's southwestern coast and unwittingly crossed Torres Strait after skirting the shallow waters around False Cape and continuing east-southeast. As a result, Jansz's landfall on Cape York Peninsula's western coast at the Pennefather River was the first authenticated European sighting of Australia by Europeans and the first recorded European landing on Australian soil.
