Ships of the late 16th century?

[NAZGÛL]

Hi all!

 

I'm researching for my next project that I'd like to be one of Karl IX (Gustav Adolfs father) ships. Little except basic numbers are known and I think that gives room for artistic freedom.

 

If someone could give some pointers to images or drawings of ships from between 1580 to early 1600 that would be really helpful!

 

I also wonder how different the ships made in the 1590:ies would be in construction and appearence from ships like Vasa, Batavia or Kalmare Nyckel.

If a ship was smaller like 400, would that say anything about how she was rigged?

 

 

Thanks for taking your time!

 

 

/Matti

[flying_dutchman2]

I was reading this post and it peeked my interest. Anything in Dutch ship building is always good. I then Googled this and came upon http://warshipvasa.freeforums.net/thread/78?page=1this page and what I was going to mention on here has already been answered on that page. Lots of stuff I did not know as well. Bookmarked the page and will be reading more. Also, Fredhocker decribed this subject very thorough. Most of the thesis and dissertations on the Texas AMU site are free for the taking. Lots of interesting material on ship building.

 

Both books from Witsen and van Yk have good descriptions about Dutch ship building. The Nautical Research Guild had a 4 part article about Dutch ship building and it was by Hoving. He mentions all the important Shipbuilding literature in the Netherlands (1671-1838).

 

Part 1 is in Volume 58 No.3

Part 2 is in Volume 58 No.4

Part 3 is in Volume 59 No.1

Part 4 is in Volume 59 No.2

If you want this article, I can probably get it for you.

 

You probably know this already, the Kalmare Nyckel has a very interesting website.

 

Forgot to mention the Book by the name of Ships of Abel Tasman by Hoving and Emke is also on this subject. Lots of pictures, plans and the CD-Rom with more plans. I have several books from Hoving and this are is what he knows best. I noticed that many chapters overlap each other in all of his books.

 

Marc

Edited March 13, 2015 by Marcus Botanicus

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks! Yeah the thread linked is made by me. Fred gives a great explanation of the constructions and diferences between dutch tradition and other traditions.

 

Now I am more curious if there is any information of how they looked, or if there are models of ships from this era. Half Moon was made early 17th century, but her look is quite different from how I thought warships looked at that time.

 

Yeah there is much great info of Kalmar Nyckel! It's built later than Vasa and even if the replica is a truly beautyful ship,  she to me seems to have many things that is not historically correct. I still love how she looks though.

 

 

/Matti

Edited March 14, 2015 by NAZGÛL

[amateur]

Igive the same reply here: hoving has a nice book onthe ships of willem barentz. Not warships, but definitely esrlier dutch ships. Around 1600, which is the period you need.

He aslo did, together with cor emke a reconstruction of an early merchant/warship of the east indies companie: the Geunieerde provincien. There is, as far as i know, no englich publication of that one. You could try to get a booklet titled Scheepshistorie, part 1. It has a nice dutch text, and illustrated on the reconstruction.

 

Jan

[flying_dutchman2]

Jan,

All those books of "Scheepshistorie" are great, and there are so many of them.

 

Matti,

I'll check through my library if I have any pictures of 1600 Dutch ships.

Marc

[Tallshiptragic]

What about Duyfken? Built in 1596 so fits the era. Similar to the half moon though only 110 tonnes. Saying that Batavia was 650 tonnes.

Edited March 14, 2015 by Tallshiptragic

[Tallshiptragic]

You then have something like the roter lowe build in holland in 1597 at 250 tonnes

[amateur]

Yes, but the roter lowe is a quite old reconstruction, not at all in line with present knowledge.

duyken fits in with the barentz ships quite nicely.

 

Jan

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks for the input guys! The Duyfken looks pretty close to how I would have guessed the ships looked like. I made a drawing of what I'd like to build. Just to get the proportions and the level of details. The drawing is not very detailed, but just to get the lines set before the next stage.

 

 

What do you think? Could it pass for a small swedish (dutch style) warship made in 1591?

 

 

/Matti

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[amateur]

You should certainly look for that geunieerde provincien reconstruction of emke and howing.

That is a ship of these kind of dimensions and appearance.

There is a pic of this model on a site de-paula-lopes.nl

 

(Page is in dutch, ship is almost at the bottom of the very long page.)

 

Jan

Edited March 14, 2015 by amateur

[amateur]

Do you have acces to segelschiffsmodellbau.com? There is a guy names Bela, who is trying to reconstruct a dutch warship of around 1600, basing himself on the socalled Peller modell.

 

Site is in germna, but i expect tha's not a problem to you.

 

Jan

Edited March 14, 2015 by amateur

[marktiedens]

Looks similar to the Half Moon - maybe you could modify that kit.

 

/Mark

[flying_dutchman2]

Jan,

Thanks for those links.

 

Matti,

Nice drawing which details what you are looking for.

 

Marc

[flying_dutchman2]

The following are some pictures from my book of W. Barents

There are more line plans which will be next.

Marc

 

[flying_dutchman2]

Some more

Marc

 

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks for all the info guys, it's exactly what I'm looking for!

 

Jan, I will look at that site closer when I have my laptop, my phone doesn't like the site.

 

Mark, to me the proportions of the half moon seems more fat if you get what I mean. I have lots of parts left from the Vasa build, as I got my hands on an sparepart billings kit from the local hobby shop earlier. I plan to reshape them totally and scratch the rest.

 

Thanks Marcus for taking the time posting those great pics, most helpfull!

 

 

/Matti

Edited March 14, 2015 by NAZGÛL

[flying_dutchman2]

The last of the lines plans from this book.

 

[amateur]

Marcus shows foure ships

Dunken pictures of the model by hoving,

hovings reconstruction of the barentsship, without the frames

A side view of a 85ft pinas, and finally geralt de weerts reconstruction of the same ship.

The reconstructionof De Weert is being build at full scale in Harlingen.

 

Jan

Edited March 15, 2015 by amateur

[amateur]

The replica has its own site (in dutch)

Www.dewillembarentsz.nl

 

Jan

[Tallshiptragic]

That design was one of the original thoughts for the Duyfken. Though was decided to be too top heavy for open ocean sailing, so will be interesting to see how the replica performs compared to Duyfken.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Tallshiptragic

[flying_dutchman2]

Marcus shows foure ships

Dunken pictures of the model by hoving,

hovings reconstruction of the barentsship, without the frames

A side view of a 85ft pinas, and finally geralt de weerts reconstruction of the same ship.

The reconstructionof De Weert is being build at full scale in Harlingen.

 

Jan

Thanks for adding descriptions to the pictures. I should have done that. Lots of replica's being built. Seems the interest is on the increase.

Marc

[Matle]

There's Storkyrkoskeppet from the main church in Stockholm, a contemporary model of a late 16th century galleon presumably made around 1600. It's a votive ship, meaning that the hull is deliberately more slender than it should have been to enable view from below (it's been hanging in the church). The model is now stored at the museum and a new model is on display in the church.

 

Link to the register card at the musem:

http://www.marinmuseum.se/sv/Samlingar/MarketStore/Foremal1/?msobjid=0012441

 

The new model:

Source:https://www.flickr.com/photos/109551672@N02/15607968081/

Edited March 19, 2015 by Matle

[amateur]

Is this the ship of which peter Kirsch gives kind of reconstruction i his book The Galleons?

 

He draws it as if it were English build.

 

Jan

[Matle]

Is this the ship of which peter Kirsch gives kind of reconstruction i his book The Galleons?

He draws it as if it were English build.

Jan

I haven't read his book but the answer is yes. Björn Landström describes it in The Ship as well. I don't know why hKirsch drew her as English as it is more likely that it's a Dutch construction. Generally speaking the shallow-draft Dutch style was common in Sweden in the end of the 16th century - not until the last half of the 17th century did English influences become dominant (and would remain so until Chapman).

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks for adding more information!

 

The original Storkyrkoskeppet model is a huge inspiration in this project. The wonderful paintjob and aged look of it is just awesome to look at. Thanks for sharing the pic of the reconstruction. There must be a lot of speculations on it as so much of the original is destroyed.

 

 

/Matti

[NAZGÛL]

Hey all!

 

I´m sitting and trying to make some reasonable guesses for the size of the ship Gripen.

 

Being new to this, I'm getting more and more confused. Displacement... did they even use that to define their ships in the 16th century? If so, how could they have any idea how much it would be? Is it something we sit today and guess? And why is it interesting without other information? If I build a wide ship with lots of ballast, it would make the displacement higher right? But it doesn't say much of how the ship would sail, size etc, making the information uninteresting without info of the size. I would be more interested in how big the ship is, how many men it could carry and what armament it had. But still, todays lists focus on displacement. At least the lists I found on the ships of my interest.

 

I'm not even sure how correct the displacement numbers are even if the sources in the matrial seems correct. From my understanding shipbuilding of those days had lots of guesses when designing them.

 

The Batavia replica has the same displacement as Vasa if remember correctly. Is it the engines on the replica? Because they are very different ships.

 

Sorry for a ranting post, but I have a hard time getting the focus on displacement.

 

Edit: Found this this explanation by professor Jan Glete about how he uses displacement in his lists of old swedish ships:

 

 

Yet he makes no ? marks on many old ships like Gripen. But I see no reason at all to think we can give a certain number like 400 in this case. The lists themselves are very well made and use the only sources around.

 

 

/Matti

Edited March 22, 2015 by NAZGÛL

[trippwj]

For ships of the 16th century, it was not a common practice to determine the displacement before the vessel was launched.  Indeed, it was not common to determine displacement after launch.  The common system of measurement used provided an estimate of the burthen or capacity based on volume - tuns (volumetric) was the general unit of measure. 

 

The Dutch and Swedes were somewhat ahead of others in utilizing science to determine the displacement (tons or tonnes - a weight based on volume of water displaced), and in the late 16th century Mathew Baker was apparently using similar methods for his designs, but the calculation of displacement did not come into common practice in most countries until the 18th century.

 

For a very thorough discussion, see

 

Ferreiro, L., 2007: Ships and science the birth of naval architecture in the scientific revolution, 1600-1800. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=173439(Accessed February 8, 2015).

 

If you do not have the book, his thesis that the book is based upon can be found at

 

Ferreiro, L., 2004: Down from the mountain : the birth of naval architecture in the scientific revolution, 1600-1800. University of London, 550 pp. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.411610(Accessed March 2, 2015).

 

If you can read it, there is a Dutch treatise that may be worth accessing from 1671 -

 

Witsen, N., 1671: Aeloude en hedendaegsche scheeps-bouw en bestier. t’ Amsterdam : By Casparus Commelijn, Broer en Jan Appelaer, Boeck-verkoopers, 813 pp. http://archive.org/details/gri_33125008247716(Accessed March 9, 2015).

 

 

 

[Matle]

Gripen had a complement of 30 sailors according to the crew list of 1599 - from that it should be possible to guess her size to roughly 300 tonnes (in Glete's way of calculating).

Edited March 22, 2015 by Matle

[Tallshiptragic]

Remember though displacement is the measurement of the water displaced and not the actual tonnage of a vessel. Batavia doesn't have engines, which is why she's not allowed to make open ocean passages - she came to Australia and back to holland on a lift ship - vasa and Batavia could have the same displacement with vasa fully armed and manned and Batavia's hold full of cargo. As for the historical use of displacement I can't help you there, though VOC ships were listed as what the vessel displaced rather than actual size. Obviously this would give an idea of what these ships could carry as cargo capacity.

[NAZGÛL]

Cheers for the info guys! Lot's of new things to get into my thick head...

 

I have worked more on sketches. I really really like Duyfkens lines and this one has lots of her lines in it but scaled up. Since Gripen probably was a more simple ship compaired to the more exclusive ships ornaments will be sparse and focus will be on the painting. I think that is more correct for the time she was built in also.

 

 

Any feedback, advice or comment is appreciated!

 

 

/Matti