Jan van Amstel-class minesweeper

The Jan van Amstel class was a class of nine minesweepers of the Royal Netherlands Navy, built to serve in the Dutch East Indies and Dutch territorial waters in Europe. The class was originally planned to consist of 12 ships, but because of the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War, three of the four ships that were still under construction were never completed.

Description
The Jan van Amstel-class ships were 55.8 m long, with a beam of 7.8 m and a draught of 2.2 m at deep load. They displaced was 450 LT at normal load, which increased to 585 LT at deep load. A pair of Yarrow boilers fed steam to two triple-expansion steam engines that each drove a single propeller shaft. The engines were rated at 1690 ihp which gave the ships a speed of 15 kn. They carried up to 110 LT of fuel oil and had a complement of 45 officers and ratings.

The ships could also be used as minelayers. The construction of the ships took place in two different shipyards, four by Gusto, Schiedam and five by P. Smit, Rotterdam.

Ships in class

 * HNLMS Jan van Amstel (1937) : Commissioned 1937. Sunk 8 March 1942.
 * HNLMS Pieter de Bitter (1937) : Commissioned 1937. Scuttled 6 March 1942.
 * HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen (1936) : Commissioned 1937. Royal Australian Navy 26 August 1942–5 May 1943. Decommissioned 1961. Museum ship July 1997.
 * HNLMS Eland Dubois (1937) : Commissioned 1937. Scuttled 8 March 1942.
 * HNLMS Willem van Ewijck (1937) : Commissioned 1937. Sunk 8 September 1939.
 * HNLMS Pieter Florisz (1937) : Commissioned 1937. Scuttled 14 May 1940. Kriegsmarine 1940–1945. Recommissioned 1946. Struck 1961. Sold for scrap.
 * HNLMS Jan van Gelder : Commissioned 1937. Royal Navy 26 March 1943–1946. Struck 1961. Scrapped.
 * HNLMS Abraham van der Hulst (1937) : Commissioned 1937. Scuttled 14 May 1940. Kriegsmarine 1940–1944. Destroyed 20 August 1944.
 * HNLMS Abraham van der Hulst (1946) : Captured before commissioning. Kriegsmarine 1940–1945. Commissioned 1946. Struck 1961. Scrapped.