Hollandia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company

Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...

 (VOC) which wrecked on Annet

Annet, Isles of Scilly

Annet is the second largest of the fifty or so uninhabited Isles of Scilly, one km west of St Agnes with a length of one km and approximately 22 ha in area. The low lying island is almost divided in two by a narrow neck of land at West Porth which can, at times, be covered by waves...

, Isles of Scilly

Isles of Scilly

The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...

 on 13 June 1743 causing 276 fatalities. The wreck was discovered in 1971 by Rex Cowan, a London attorney.

History

Hollandia was built by the Dutch East India Company in 1742 in Amsterdam to a new design, as a 32 gun, 700 ton ship with a length of 42 metres (137.8 ft). On 3 June 1743 she left Texel

Texel

Texel is a municipality and an island in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the biggest and most populated of the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea, and also the westernmost of this archipelago, which extends to Denmark...

 as part of a Batavia bound fleet carrying a large amount of trade coin and several important passengers. On 13 June 1743 she became separated from the fleet and struck Gunner Rock near Annet, Isles of Scilly in the early hours of the morning, sinking nearby with the loss of all hands.

Salvage

Rex Cowan began his search for Hollandia in 1968, starting with Dutch and English archives and using advanced (for the time) equipment such as a proton magnetometer

Proton magnetometer

The proton magnetometer, also known as the proton precession magnetometer , uses the principle of Earth's field nuclear magnetic resonance to measure very small variations in the Earth's magnetic field, allowing ferrous objects on land and at sea to be detected.It is used in land-based archaeology...

, finally locating the wreck on 16 September 1971. A large quantity of coins were recovered, as well as bronze cannons and mortars.