Who was Tasman, and what kind of explorer was he? How good were his seamanship and navigation skills? Thanks to his biographer and generations of scholars, the exploits of James Cook are well known, and his achievement is fully understood. But Tasman is a much more ambiguous figure. At the time, his voyages were thought to be of no great merit. At best he was credited with making an arms'-length circumnavigation of 'Nw Holland,' the island continent we now know as Australia. Even today our view of Tasman is cloudy and incomplete.
In this ground-breaking book, based on new research, Grahame Anderson tells the story of Tasman'' voyages of exploration, and explains the pivotal role of Isaac Gilsemans, the ''erchant of the Zeehaen.' Who sailed with him in 1642-3. Cartographer, illustrator, editor and explorer, it was Gilsemans who drew the coastal profiles of lands visited during the voyages.
But it wasn't until he did some on-the-water research in 1985, sailing in search of Tasman's anchorage near D'Urville Island, that Anderson discovered something no one else had realized for more than 340 years. The illustrations that formed part of the official record of the voyages were precise cartographic documents, not vague sketches of unidentifiable coastline, as had previously been thought. The fifteen years of research that followed his discovery bring the name of Isaac Gilsemans into the forefront of the history of seventeenth century oceanic exploration, and shed new light on Tasman's voyages around the Pacific - and may eventually enable Anderson to locate and recover Tasman's anchor, lost off the coast of Tasmania in 1642.
Written with the general reader in mind, The Merchant of the Zeehaen paints a vivid picture of Tasman's achievements as navigator and explorer, and reveals the role played in them by his Merchant, Isaac Gilsemans. This book is essential reading for all armchair sailors, and everyone interested in exploration, New Zealand history, voyages of discovery and map-making.
