For a little 60-ton "yacht," as her class ship was then called, the Dutch Half Moon, or Halve Maen, certainly earned her keep for the mysterious Henry Hudson. In 1609 the Dutch East India Company provided Hudson with the little vessel and a crew of 20 to man her. The Half Moon and her half-Dutch, half-English crew took
the Hudson to the American coast off Maine, where a new topmast was cut for the ship, and finally to New York Bay and up what is now called the Hudson River. On reaching the site of present-day Albany, the water got too shallow for the Half Moon, and her captain turned back, disillusioned the he had not found a route to China. But the Dutch has added New Amsterdam and New Netherland to their overseas empire, all for the paltry 800 gulden they had paid Hudson. Furthermore - after Hudson, an Englishman, was detained in Dartmouth by the English and went to work exploring the New World for them in the British Discovery - the Half Moon was taken home by the Dutch and sailed to the East Indies, where she worked hard for another seven years. As for Henry Hudson, his men eventually mutinied aboard the Discovery after he discovered Hudson's Bay, and he was set adrift never to be seen again.