![]() 19th-century illustration of the Halve Maen
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History | |
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Name | Halve Maen |
Owner |
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Completed | 1608 |
Fate | Destroyed |
Halve Maen (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɦɑlvə maːn]; English: Half Moon) was a Dutch East India Company jacht[1] (similar to a carrack) that sailed into what is now New York Harbor in September 1609. She had a length of 21 metres and was commissioned by the VOC Chamber of Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic to covertly find a northern passage to Asia. The ship was captained by Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Dutch Republic.[2]
In 1909, the Kingdom of the Netherlands presented the United States with a replica of Halve Maen to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Hudson's voyage; the replica was destroyed in a fire in 1934. Over fifty years later, in 1989, the New Netherland Museum commissioned a second replica.