Dutch Trading Ships in the Hudson

SCHENECTADY — After Henry Hudson's Half Moon left the river that would later bear his name in 1609, someone else did all the heavy lifting of making Manhattan the financial capital of the world.

That would be Dutch traders sailing small ships, such as merchant captain Adriaen Block's Onrust, a 56-foot-long, 29-ton ship.

A replica of the Onrust, assembled by 250 volunteers since 2006 on a farm near Schenectady, was crane-lifted into the Mohawk River on Wednesday to be fitted out for the flotilla of ships coming north June 6 to mark Hudson's voyage.

That puts Onrust — Dutch for "restless" — back on the map. She'll sail as an educational classroom after the hoopla of New York's official quadricentennial plays out this year.

Onrust, pretty with blue paint, red trim, and oiled oak, snarls for action from its blond-maned, leaping-lion figurehead.

Authentically replicated, the Onrust carries six cannons, a pair of huge lee boards that were used to tack and keep a straight course, and sails made in Holland and by Courtney Andersen, who rigged ships in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies.

Few modern construction items operate on board, but the ship does have a motor. "They have to have one to sail the Hudson," said the vessel's captain, Gioia Blix, who has captained the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

Built in 1614 by a stranded crew on Manhattan, the original Onrust was the first covered- deck ship built in New York, and, experts believe, the first one made in America.

She was used for mapping bays and inlets, and trading in furs for the hide-hungry European market, where beaver skins were fetching tons of money for the Dutch merchant captains competing for Native Americans' pelts.

The Onrust sails with a similar mission as the Half Moon replica — making people aware of what organizers say is the very important Dutch history of New York that's been long forgotten.