Day 6 - Alkmaar to Pumerend

from Hoorn along the Ijsselmeer to Pumerend

   Thursday Aug 3 (afternoon) from Hoorn to Pumerend

The peloton fights a 40 km/hour+ head wind as they leave Hoorn (1:30 to 3:00 and 4:50 to 5:10 and 5:50 to 6:10 in the video) and Jill takes a video selfie (3:00)

Day 6 - Hoorn

Hoorn was founded in 716 and became a very important base  of the VoC (Dutch East India Company) early in the 17th century.

Hoorn was also the holder of one of the 17 seats (XVII Heeren/managing directors) that governed the VoC.

Many important voyages were launched from, and returned to,  Hoorn.

Cape Horn, the southerly most point of the Americas, was named by Willem Corneliszoon Schouten (1567 - 1625) as he navigated his VoC  ships (Eenddracht and Hoorn) around the cape in 1616 as they explored for Terre Australis.

The VoC traversed the globe and traded in spices, tea, silk, sugarcane, rice, silk, porcelain (china) and metals.

The VoC (Dutch East India Company) was remarkable in so many fundamental ways, including;

- being the the economic engine of the Dutch Golden Age,

- the creation of the modern corporate system with permanent capital, limited liability ownership, broad shareholder classes and capital markets (including the establishment of the world’s first stock market - the Amsterdam Exchange),

- the establishment of the world’s first transnational corporation and the effective creation of modern day globalization and,

- the creation and establishment of the first globally recognized corporate logo

As transformational as the VoC became it was founded as a pragmatic approach to political and economic problems.

In the late 16th century, the Dutch revolted against the Hapsburg rulers and against Catholicism. As a consequence of the Dutch Revolt, the primary port cities of Antwerp and Hamburg were controlled by the forces loyal to, or allied with the enemies of the Dutch. Additionally, another potential competitor and enemy, the English, were establishing the East India Company with a monopoly for its trading interests in the east.

The strategic nature of the VoC required a different form of ownership that would allow the company to sustain itself over the long haul. Previously trading companies had been established as a project, that is to say for the life of the voyage or expedition and the company was liquidated and all proceeds distributed after the ship retuned from its expedition (hence the expression “after his ship came in”).

The VoC introduced the concept of permanent capital and limited liability, both of which allowed the company to mount successive trading expeditions.

Permanent capital required the issuance of “shares” ownership and sale of bonds to raise capital and created “limited liability” in which shareholders only carried the liability of the amount of capital they had invested. For the first time in history owners would obtain returns on their investments via dividends and sale of their shares in the world’s first capital market, the Amsterdam exchange.

The  VoC was founded in 1602 by Johann van Oldenbarnevelt and is, still today, considered to be one of the most successful corporations in the world’s history. It literally eclipsed its contemporary corporate and national rivals. Between its founding in 1602 and 1796 (following the French invasion of 1795), the VoC imported more than 2.5 million tons of goods from Asia using 4,800 ships and sending more than 1 million Europeans to live and work in Asia. By comparison all other European ventures combined imported only half a million tons of goods from Asia and employed about 800,000 Europeans in Asia.

The VoC paid an annual dividend of approximately 18% for almost 200 years.

Pieter Hendrikszoon van Lindhout (1706 - 1727).

In May 1724, just before his 18th birthday,  Pieter H van Lindhout, employed as a deckhand in the emply of the VoC, sailed out of Texel (aboard the sailing ship Luchtenburg  bound for Batavia (Dutch East Indies now Indonesia). When the ship docked at Kaapstad (Cape Town) South Africa in October of that year Pieter was hospitalized until 1725.

In May 1725 Pieter van Lindhout was hired aboard the VOC ship Slot Aldgonde and sailed with it to Batavia where it arrived in August 1725.

Pieter van Lindhout sailed on several ships in Batavia until October 1726 when he left aboard the VOC ship Magdelena to sail back to The Netherlands. When the Magdalena on July 20 1727 it carried a letter for Pieter’s parents (Hendrik Pauluszoon van Linthout and Jannetje Danielsdochter vander Koi) informing them that Pieter van Lindhout had died aboard the ship 10 days earlier on July 10 1727.

Pieter Hendrikszoon van Lindhout is the 5th Great Grand Uncle of HCP.