The Arnhem, named after the city of Arnhem

Arnhem

Arnhem is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Nederrijn as well as near the St. Jansbeek, which was the source of the city's development. Arnhem has 146,095 residents as one of the...

 in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, was a Dutch East Indiaman that entered the Gulf of Carpentaria

Gulf of Carpentaria

The Gulf of Carpentaria is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the Arafura Sea...

 and recorded having sighted Groote Eylandt

Groote Eylandt

Groote Eylandt is the largest island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northeastern Australia. It is the homeland of, and is owned by, the Anindilyakwa people who speak the isolated Anindilyakwa language)....

 in 1623. The vessel was shipwrecked off Mauritius

Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...

 on 12 February 1662. Volkert Evertsz

Volkert Evertsz

Volkert Evertsz was a Dutch mariner who was shipwrecked on the island of Mauritius and was the last human confirmed to have seen the dodo alive in 1662. A survivor of the shipwreck Arnhem, Evertsz and other party members waded ashore an islet off the coast of Mauritius in 1662 and found Dodos and...

 and other survivors of the wreck came ashore on an islet and are thought to have been the last humans to see live dodo

Dodo

The dodo was a flightless bird endemic to the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. Related to pigeons and doves, it stood about a meter tall, weighing about , living on fruit, and nesting on the ground....

s. The ship was captained by Captain Pieter Anthoniszoon
The Arnhem was one of seven VOC

Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...

 ships that left Batavia on 23 December 1661, homeward bound via the Cape of Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope

The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...

. The other vessels were the Wapen van Holland, Prins Willem, Vogel Phoenix, Maarsseveen, Prinses Royal and Gekroonde Leeuw.

On 11 February 1662 the fleet was scattered by a violent storm. The Wapen van Holland (920 tons), Gekroonde Leeuw (1200 tons) and Prins Willem (1200 tons) disappeared without trace. The following day Arnhem ran aground on the Saint Brandon Rocks (also known as Cargados Carajos), a group of atolls and reefs some 200 kilometres north-east of Mauritius.