Hermine Maria Elisabeth

The first TSHD ever buit in Holland.

Dredger of the ": Drague de St Nazaire" type as designed by Ingenieur Gâche from Nantes in 1858. She had piston pumps instead of the centrifugal pumps

The Dutch government ordered the dredger from the "werf  Fijenoord" yard in Rotterdam for the Colonial Department, to be deployed in Indonesia. The Hemine Maria Elisabeth was the only one built and delivered for the Dutch in those days, as the dredger appeared to be a failure, not suitable for the Indonesian soil, however she was successful in the St. Nazaire regio.

In 1865 the dredger was sold and to be transformed to a coal hulk. But as she was also not suitable for that job, she was scrapped the same year, without ever having dredged one m³. 

Later the Volker company together with the J & K Smit shipyard built more dredgers in the late 1800's  based on this design, like "Adam" and "Maasmond" , but  they did not invent this type of dredger, only improved it.

Sources: "Diepers en Delvers" by H. van Heiningen and www.galiciabnf.fr