History of the ship

For a very long time there is a close relationship between the Dutch Royal Navy and the Dutch Merchant Fleet. Many sailors have worked with both or were educated. One of the main tasks of the Royal Navy is the protection of the Merchant Fleet. When World War II was over, many seamines were found in our coastal waters. It is obvious that the Royal Navy started their job to clear these mines as soon as possible to secure safe waters to the merchant fleet (ocean-going and coastal trade), fishing fleet, navy and pleasure fleet. The Dutch Royal Navy and the Belgian Navy worked very close at the North Sea coast. To defuse the seamines, special ships were needed, called minesweepers.

The AMS60-class is one type of ships which were used to sweep mines (AMS = Adjutant Mine Sweeper). Between July 1953 and November 1954, fourteen of these wooden minesweepers, which were financed by the U.S. Government as part of the rearming of its European allies after the Second World War, entered service with our Royal Navy. Also the Belgian Navy did have a number of these ships. As far as is known, only one of these ships is still sailing in Western Europe and is owned by the Stichting Paradijsvogel (Bird of Paradise Foundation). During active service the crew consisted of 4 officers, 5 non-commissioned officers and 29 sailors.

Our ship, the AMS 60, has been built in Belgium by anology with the sister ships built in America. It exists from oakwood hull and ditto advancement. Beside wood, exclusively not-magnetic metal has been used such as purchaser, bronze, aluminium and a special type stainless steel. This ship had equipped with acoustically -, magnetically - and mechanical minesweeping-equipment.