Fop Smit
Encyclopedia
Smit International
Smit Internationale N.V. is a Dutch company operating in the maritime sector. The company was founded in 1842 by Fop Smit as a towage company with only the 140 hp paddle steamer tug 'Kinderdijk'....
. His shipyard had a number of "firsts" in shipbuilding and produced a number of famous vessels.
Family life
Smit was the son of Jan Foppe Smit and Marrijgje Ceele. He married Jannigje Pieterse Mak on 29 June 1806 in Alblasserdam.Business history
After the death of his father Jan (on whose yard he had worked before then as a shipwright) Fop Smit took over the management of the yard, together with his brother Jan in 1820. They built a first, wooden, river steamboat, Willem I, in 1825. This design (by the Frisian marine architect Van Loon) was so successful that they soon had orders for another five steamships. After the association between the brothers ended in 1828, Fop Smit received an order for the first Dutch seagoing steamship, Batavier from the Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij in Rotterdam. This ship was launched in 1830. It plied the Rotterdam-London route.Smit built his first ocean-going ship, intended for the trade on the East Indies
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
at his yard in Kinderdijk
Kinderdijk
Kinderdijk is a village in the Netherlands, belonging to the municipality of Nieuw-Lekkerland, in the province South Holland, about 15 km east of Rotterdam. Kinderdijk is situated in a polder at the confluence of the Lek and Noord rivers. To drain the polder, a system of 19 windmills was built...
in 1838.
On 6 November 1842 Smit contracted with 47 Rotterdam shipowners and maritime insurers to build a steam tug and station it in Hellevoetsluis
Hellevoetsluis
Hellevoetsluis is a small city and municipality on Voorne-Putten Island in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland...
for towage work. The tug Kinderdijk was launched on 31 August 1843 and put in service by December of that year. By the time of his death in 1866 the company owned nine paddle steamer
Paddle steamer
A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...
tug boats.
In 1847 his yard built the first iron ship in the Netherlands, the brigantine
Brigantine
In sailing, a brigantine or hermaphrodite brig is a vessel with two masts, only the forward of which is square rigged.-Origins of the term:...
Industrie, for the account of the Rotterdam shipowner Willem Ruys. This was followed in 1853 by the first Dutch iron clipper ship California
California (Dutch Ship)
California is the most famous of four Dutch clippers launched in 1853. An iron-hulled clipper, she was built by Fop Smit and mastered by F.C. Jaski for the company L. Bienfait & sn. On the maiden voyage Jaski sailed her in 86 days from The Downs to Port Adelaide, delivering a hundred English...
, built for the account of the Amsterdam firm Louis Bienfait & Zn. This ship on its maiden voyage reached its destination Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide is a suburb of Adelaide lying about 14 kilometres northwest of the City of Adelaide. It lies within the City of Port Adelaide Enfield and is the main port for the city of Adelaide...
in Australia with British emigrants on board in 86 days under captain Jaski. Other famous clippers, built by the yard, were Noach I through VI. Noach I sailed in 65 days from Anyer
Anyer
Anyer is a town in Banten, formerly West Java, Indonesia, fifteen kilometres south of Merak. It is home of a forty metre lighthouse built by King Willem III of the Netherlands in 1885 as a memorial for the townspeople killed by the eruption of Krakatau, which destroyed the town.It is also the...
on the Sunda Strait
Sunda Strait
The Sunda Strait is the strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. It connects the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean...
to The Lizard
The Lizard
The Lizard is a peninsula in south Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The most southerly point of the British mainland is near Lizard Point at ....
in 1867.
Smit also branched out to naval construction. His Kinderdijk yard in 1856 built two schooner-rigged screw-steam corvette
Corvette
A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...
s: Zr. Ms. Bali for the Dutch navy, and Japan for the Japanese Shogun
Shogun
A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...
. The latter ship sailed with a Dutch naval detachment to Nagasaki
Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...
in Japan under Lt. Willem Huyssen van Kattendijke in 1857. Japan was later renamed Kanrin Maru
Japanese warship Kanrin Maru
Kanrin Maru was Japan's first sail and screw-driven steam corvette . She was ordered in 1853 from the Netherlands, the only Western country with which Japan had diplomatic relations throughout its period of sakoku , by the Shogun's government, the Bakufu...
, the first screw-driven Japanese steam warship.
The last ship Fop Smit laid down was the clipper Nestor, but he died at age 89 before he could complete this. After his death his son Leendert took over the management of the yard.
The Smit shipyard was one of the Dutch shipyards that eventually became part of the IHC Gusto Engineering and SBM Offshore
SBM Offshore
SBM Offshore N.V. is a Dutch-based global group of companies selling systems and services to the offshore oil and gas industry. Its constituent companies started their offshore activities in the early 1950s and SBM subsequently became a pioneer in single point mooring systems...
marine and offshore engineering firms.