Qualla: J. & K. Smit Shipyard https://qualla.com/j-k-smit en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:33 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/r/j-k-smit-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: J. & K. Smit Shipyard https://qualla.com/j-k-smit J. & K. Smit Shipyard: Introduction https://qualla.com/j-k-smit/ Photo credit Michiel1972, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1847, two brothers named Jan and Kornelis Smit broke ground on a new shipyard along the Lek River at Kinderdijk. They were not the first Smits to build ships here, and they would not be the last. The family had been at it since 1785, with cousins and uncles and brothers spinning off rival yards up and down the Alblasserwaard. What set Jan and Kornelis apart was a brother-in-law: Murk Lels, a Frisian sailor turned shipping magnate who had married their sister Ottolina the year before they started. Murk needed ocean-going barques to haul cargo to the Dutch East Indies. The Smits could build them. Within a year their first ship slid down the slipway, named with cheerful confidence: Eersteling, 'the first.' She sank on her maiden voyage. Murk ordered another.

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Image: Michiel1972 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/r/j-k-smit-wp/u15r-j-k-smit-shipyard-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full J. & K. Smit Shipyard: The Lels Connection https://qualla.com/j-k-smit/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Murk Lels arrived in the Smit family with a sailor's eye and a merchant's ambition. He had gone to sea at fourteen, swallowed the anchor at twenty-two, and by his twenties was managing nine ships totaling 7,248 tons on the Dutch East Indies route. Marrying Ottolina Smit in 1846 p...

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]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/r/j-k-smit-wp/u15r-j-k-smit-shipyard-the-lels-connection.mp3 0:06 2 full J. & K. Smit Shipyard: The Pivot to Dredgers https://qualla.com/j-k-smit/ Photo credit Wikifrits, Public domain. By the 1880s the great age of Dutch ocean sail was ending, and J. & K. Smit had the sense to see it coming. In 1878 they delivered Adam I, the first Dutch self-loading suction dredger, to the contractors building the new locks at IJmuiden. It was such a hit that Adam II followed ...

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]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/r/j-k-smit-wp/u15r-j-k-smit-shipyard-the-pivot-to-dredgers.mp3 0:06 3 full J. & K. Smit Shipyard: Greenpeace's Tugboat https://qualla.com/j-k-smit/ Photo credit S.J. de Waard, CC BY-SA 3.0. Among the hundreds of tugs J. & K. Smit launched into the Lek, one carries a second life worth pausing over. On October 14, 1958, the yard launched the Elbe, a sister to the seagoing tug Clyde delivered the previous year. She was the thirtieth tugboat off the line for the family'...

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]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/r/j-k-smit-wp/u15r-j-k-smit-shipyard-greenpeaces-tugboat.mp3 0:06 4 full J. & K. Smit Shipyard: Tin Dredgers for Bangka https://qualla.com/j-k-smit/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The dredging specialty branched in unexpected directions. In 1926, J. & K. Smit built a tin-bucket dredger for the government mines on Bangka Island, off the Sumatran coast. More followed. The Sergang and the Soerabaya went to the Singkep Tin Company in 1927. The Weltevreden was ...

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]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/r/j-k-smit-wp/u15r-j-k-smit-shipyard-tin-dredgers-for-bangka.mp3 0:06 5 full J. & K. Smit Shipyard: Absorbed https://qualla.com/j-k-smit/ Photo credit Lucas Hirschegger, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the Second World War, six dredging shipyards in the Netherlands looked at each other, looked at their post-war order books, and concluded they could not afford to compete with one another. They formed the Industriële Handels Combinatie, IHC for short. J. & K. Smit was in. S...

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Image: Lucas Hirschegger | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/5/r/j-k-smit-wp/u15r-j-k-smit-shipyard-absorbed.mp3 0:06 6 full