Doreltomin

Hi Jules, 
 
Thank you for continuing your lesson on Dutch shipbuilding techniques, it is very much appreciated! Also, while I can't really add anything on the subject as all period sources are written in Dutch, and even 17th century one, which I can't read,  just a few thoughts on the general topic of "building without plans". I have seen various kinds of professionals at work, from carpenters to blacksmiths, to furniture restorers, scissormakers or jewellers. I believe any good blacksmith with good experience on it would do a horseshoe without any plan, based on his own experience. Also it takes only one master plus an apprentice to do it, so virtually everything comes of a single mind. It may also be true for cartwheel makers, who generally speaking work in a team, or even the makers of the carts themselves, when all the details are traditional and known to all workers in the shop.
 
This may also be true even for small traditional boats. I lived part of my life in a city by the Black Sea shore here in Romania, which also used to have a small fleet of fishermen boats. I never saw one of these fishermen boats being actually built, only repaired (this is sadly a dying art) yet it is obvious they only follow a known pattern. Even more, some time  ago while being in a small city in neigbouring Bulgaria I saw the structure of a traditional boat half finished and thrown away to rot in a backyard. It was absolutely the same "blueprint" so to say, despite the fact that it was some hundred kilometers south and in a different country. So these traditional makers are completely able to do a traditional thing in their own way without any plan, following only a standard procedure. The old people a talked with, which did still remember the old days when you could visit a boat shop and order a traditional boat told me the first question a boat builder would pose to the customer would have been "how many (frames) the boat you want to be?"- this is just another way to say the length of the boat, considering the distance between frames is already known and "traditional". Now, the problem is in a boat shop would probably work up to four to five people, all led by the master boat builder, which would take them a reasonable amount of time in building one boat - several weeks for instance.
 
But this would have been not possible for larger ships, which would need much bigger teams to build them, not only because a small number of people would take a completely unrealistic time horizon to do all the tasks, but also because bigger ships would need bigger pieces of wood which are simply not possible to move and to put in the right place just by a handful of people. So, when a master builder has to lead a bigger team, he can divide the tasks and give pieces of the ship to different builders, which may then be brought together. But to make sure the pieces fit, they have to be DESIGNED in some way, otherwise they would NOT fit. This is where design becomes compulsory. You can make a perfect horseshoe with no plan, if you have already done five to ten horseshoes a day for several years. It may also be true for traditional boats or cartwheels.
 
But all blacksmiths I have seen make a small plan, even if it's only scribbled in chalk on their table, if they want to make something different, which they have not done before. This is also true for jewellers, which usually do a small sketch just for themselves before starting to cut gold or silver. This also applies for our modeller fellows which would do a careful planning, which would often include a small sketch, before starting to cut an expensive piece of exotic wood. So making a plan is a natural thing - it comes probably of our way of thinking. Also, if a plan may not be necessary when working alone, it becomes crucial if you have to work in a team with someone else. Otherwise, how could a team member understand the piece you need? 
 
So I come here to some conclusions:
 
Firstly, doing a plan is a natural way of our brain to imagine something new. This plan doesn't necessarily need to be done with a pencil on a piece of paper. It can be done in various ways. Remember that paper was not always as available as it is today, nor were pencils, quills, ink, rulers, compasses and various other drafting tools. It may have been that shipbuilders traditionally used wax tablets for their draft, or a flat piece of plank on which you do your lines in chalk or a piece of coal. Moreover, having a plan done on paper or even in parchment would NOT help too much if brought on the shipyard, which is usually outside in the rain and aside some water.  You can imagine how difficult would be to deploy a big sheet of paper if it rains or the wind is blowing. So if the shipwright had a plan, he would jealously keep it to himself safely home and refer to it when he will need it. I don't believe there may have been a guild's rule to destroy the design after the ship was made. Yet, I believe the were rules which said the plans were private property of the shipwright and he would keep to himself.
 
It is not different today with architects, which have to provide copies of their plans to their customers for the building permit to be issued and then for the house to be built But the originals of these plans are private property of the architect and there may be a legal bound that both the customer and the architect will not give the plans to any third party. 
 
So I believe each shipwright may have had an archive (of sorts) regarding his builds, which would jealously keep to himself as it encompassed his tricks of the trade. It doesn't have to be a large archive with carefully drawn plans of ships, it may have been just a stack of leaflets with calculations regarding the ship's dimensions. 
 
Secondly, it has been said that the shipwright was able to do the shape of the hull just by pinching the floor boards and then do some tricks with the leeboard and such. Yes, it may have been like that for the first build, but then if the ship shape went right, why wouldn't the shipwright note just for himself the shape of each frame, to easier reproduce a successful design? Moreover, how would a shipwright ensure the ship he is doing would be symmetrical on both sides, except if he has a way to "measure" the shape and replicate on the other side?    
 
Thirdly, how would you convey your design to another member of the team if you can't draft it in some way, to tell the EXACT shape of the wooden member you need for your build?
 
So these are just some things to ponder while claiming "shipbuilders did their tricks without any plans". Also, the plan doesn't necessarily have to be done in paper.
 
It has been also claimed that Greek temples from the classic period were built without plans, because, obviously, no plan of this survived. Yet lately in an unfinished Greek temple, a scribbling have been found on a marble wall, which proved to be exactly the plan of the said temple. After the temple would have been finished, the wall would have been polished flat and the scribbling erased, but since it was left unfinished, the "plan" survived!
 
 

Hello MTaylor,
 
Thank you for your questions. Sorry for taking so long in replying.
 
Let me repeat your first question:
 
"1) Given all the wars that went through Europe over the centuries, is it likely that many (most) records were destroyed?"
 
About Dutch naval records, I am afraid it was not because of wars that most records were destroyed. To repeat after J. de Hullu, archivist of the National Archives in The Hague from 1902-1924, specializing in the archives of the Admiralty, the VOC and the WIC: "From the start, one would almost say, the archives of the Admiralty Colleges were doomed."
22 February 1604: fire in the Admiralty of Rotterdam.
12 January 1771: fire in the Admiralty of Friesland in Harlingen.
8 January 1844: fire in the centralized Archives of the Admiralties in the Department of the Navy in The Hague.
 
I have spent a lot of time going through the burnt remnants of these naval records, mostly on microfilm, in the National Archives in The Hague.
 
The VOC-archives have fared better. I will show an example of the use of technical drawings in Dutch shell first shipbuilding from these archives in a future post.
 
 
And your second question:
 
"2) Guilds in many ways were secret societies, so if build plans were made, would it be realistic to think they were destroyed when the ship was launched? I do believe that much knowledge in the past was word of mouth and not recorded in an archival form."
 
Regarding the guilds, again, a big problem for research arises. To study Dutch shell first shipbuilding we have to turn mostly to the Guild of the Shipcarpenters in Amsterdam. Nowadays the archives of this guild are kept in the minicipal archive of the City of Amsterdam. This is what the municipal archive of Amsterdam says about the archive of the Guild of the Shipcarpenters of Amsterdam on its website: "Not much is left of the archive. Just some of the financial registers are kept in the municipal archives."
 
I have never heard that the Guild of the Shipcarpenters in Amsterdam recommended destroying build plans after the ships were built. If the Guild recommended destroying, its recommendation must not have been followed, for example: Witsen shows a lot of build plans in his book of 1671, the Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam holds a lot of seventeenth century build plans in its collection, I know build plans were kept at an artist's place in Amsterdam in 1669, and I know of a handbook of a shipwright of the second half of the seventeenth century that holds coordinates of built sloops, and build plans of ships and their construction. To me, all these sources show that build plans were not destroyed after building the ship, but that the build plans were used as "an archival form", as you call it.
I will dedicate future posts to the design drawings at the artist's place and the handbook of the shipwright to show what I mean.
 
"Knowledge was not recorded in an archival form". I do not know about your memory capacity right now, but my memory capacity is certainly not enough to hold all the data of one ship, let alone of several ships. Drawings were made in architecture, be it in house building or ship building, in the seventeenth century because they served a purpose: they expanded the memory capacity; once the drawing is made you can forget about the data used to make that drawing. These drawings for me are a form of knowledge "recorded in an archival form", as you call it.
 
Why do we accept that drawings were made in seventeenth century house building, and why don't we accept that drawings were made in seventeenth century ship building?
Here is for example a design drawing made by the 'City carpenter', we would call him city architect now, of the city of Leiden Willem van der Helm in 1669:

'City carpenter' Willem van der Helm made design drawings for buildings and bridges for the city of Leiden from 1662 to the early 1670s, and, as we can see, also made a design drawing for the yacht of the city of Leiden in 1669. (From: Elske Gerristen, 'De grondt, standt teeckeninge ende profyl geteeckent op de cleene maet', UvA).
Gerristen says: "Every city had her own city yacht that had to be replaced regularly. The city carpenter usually provided the designs."
I think 'building architect/naval architect' Willem van der Helm shows us that there was no 'hard' separation in design activity in 1669.
 
In general I think we have to keep a very open mind to study design activity in the seventeenth century. When we assume that 'knowledge in the past was word of mouth and not recorded in archival form', as you suggest, the will to research is the victim: when we assume that there are no 'records in archival form', I am pretty sure we will not find any 'records in archival form'.
 
Regarding Dutch ship design activity, we first of all have to accept that Rembrandt shows us design activity of a shipwright in 1633, and that Witsen shows us design activity of shipwrights in 1671. I notice that, for some, it is very hard to even accept those two facts.
 
I hope this answers your questions. If not, please do not hesitate to ask some more.
 
Kind regards,
 
Jules
 

Thanks for the answer.  I appreciate it.

Hi Jules, 
 
Thank you for continuing your lesson on Dutch shipbuilding techniques, it is very much appreciated! Also, while I can't really add anything on the subject as all period sources are written in Dutch, and even 17th century one, which I can't read,  just a few thoughts on the general topic of "building without plans". I have seen various kinds of professionals at work, from carpenters to blacksmiths, to furniture restorers, scissormakers or jewellers. I believe any good blacksmith with good experience on it would do a horseshoe without any plan, based on his own experience. Also it takes only one master plus an apprentice to do it, so virtually everything comes of a single mind. It may also be true for cartwheel makers, who generally speaking work in a team, or even the makers of the carts themselves, when all the details are traditional and known to all workers in the shop.
 
This may also be true even for small traditional boats. I lived part of my life in a city by the Black Sea shore here in Romania, which also used to have a small fleet of fishermen boats. I never saw one of these fishermen boats being actually built, only repaired (this is sadly a dying art) yet it is obvious they only follow a known pattern. Even more, some time  ago while being in a small city in neigbouring Bulgaria I saw the structure of a traditional boat half finished and thrown away to rot in a backyard. It was absolutely the same "blueprint" so to say, despite the fact that it was some hundred kilometers south and in a different country. So these traditional makers are completely able to do a traditional thing in their own way without any plan, following only a standard procedure. The old people a talked with, which did still remember the old days when you could visit a boat shop and order a traditional boat told me the first question a boat builder would pose to the customer would have been "how many (frames) the boat you want to be?"- this is just another way to say the length of the boat, considering the distance between frames is already known and "traditional". Now, the problem is in a boat shop would probably work up to four to five people, all led by the master boat builder, which would take them a reasonable amount of time in building one boat - several weeks for instance.
 
But this would have been not possible for larger ships, which would need much bigger teams to build them, not only because a small number of people would take a completely unrealistic time horizon to do all the tasks, but also because bigger ships would need bigger pieces of wood which are simply not possible to move and to put in the right place just by a handful of people. So, when a master builder has to lead a bigger team, he can divide the tasks and give pieces of the ship to different builders, which may then be brought together. But to make sure the pieces fit, they have to be DESIGNED in some way, otherwise they would NOT fit. This is where design becomes compulsory. You can make a perfect horseshoe with no plan, if you have already done five to ten horseshoes a day for several years. It may also be true for traditional boats or cartwheels.
 
But all blacksmiths I have seen make a small plan, even if it's only scribbled in chalk on their table, if they want to make something different, which they have not done before. This is also true for jewellers, which usually do a small sketch just for themselves before starting to cut gold or silver. This also applies for our modeller fellows which would do a careful planning, which would often include a small sketch, before starting to cut an expensive piece of exotic wood. So making a plan is a natural thing - it comes probably of our way of thinking. Also, if a plan may not be necessary when working alone, it becomes crucial if you have to work in a team with someone else. Otherwise, how could a team member understand the piece you need? 
 
So I come here to some conclusions:
 
Firstly, doing a plan is a natural way of our brain to imagine something new. This plan doesn't necessarily need to be done with a pencil on a piece of paper. It can be done in various ways. Remember that paper was not always as available as it is today, nor were pencils, quills, ink, rulers, compasses and various other drafting tools. It may have been that shipbuilders traditionally used wax tablets for their draft, or a flat piece of plank on which you do your lines in chalk or a piece of coal. Moreover, having a plan done on paper or even in parchment would NOT help too much if brought on the shipyard, which is usually outside in the rain and aside some water.  You can imagine how difficult would be to deploy a big sheet of paper if it rains or the wind is blowing. So if the shipwright had a plan, he would jealously keep it to himself safely home and refer to it when he will need it. I don't believe there may have been a guild's rule to destroy the design after the ship was made. Yet, I believe the were rules which said the plans were private property of the shipwright and he would keep to himself.
 
It is not different today with architects, which have to provide copies of their plans to their customers for the building permit to be issued and then for the house to be built But the originals of these plans are private property of the architect and there may be a legal bound that both the customer and the architect will not give the plans to any third party. 
 
So I believe each shipwright may have had an archive (of sorts) regarding his builds, which would jealously keep to himself as it encompassed his tricks of the trade. It doesn't have to be a large archive with carefully drawn plans of ships, it may have been just a stack of leaflets with calculations regarding the ship's dimensions. 
 
Secondly, it has been said that the shipwright was able to do the shape of the hull just by pinching the floor boards and then do some tricks with the leeboard and such. Yes, it may have been like that for the first build, but then if the ship shape went right, why wouldn't the shipwright note just for himself the shape of each frame, to easier reproduce a successful design? Moreover, how would a shipwright ensure the ship he is doing would be symmetrical on both sides, except if he has a way to "measure" the shape and replicate on the other side?    
 
Thirdly, how would you convey your design to another member of the team if you can't draft it in some way, to tell the EXACT shape of the wooden member you need for your build?
 
So these are just some things to ponder while claiming "shipbuilders did their tricks without any plans". Also, the plan doesn't necessarily have to be done in paper.
 
It has been also claimed that Greek temples from the classic period were built without plans, because, obviously, no plan of this survived. Yet lately in an unfinished Greek temple, a scribbling have been found on a marble wall, which proved to be exactly the plan of the said temple. After the temple would have been finished, the wall would have been polished flat and the scribbling erased, but since it was left unfinished, the "plan" survived!
 
 

Hi Jules, 
 
Thank you for continuing your lesson on Dutch shipbuilding techniques, it is very much appreciated! Also, while I can't really add anything on the subject as all period sources are written in Dutch, and even 17th century one, which I can't read,  just a few thoughts on the general topic of "building without plans". I have seen various kinds of professionals at work, from carpenters to blacksmiths, to furniture restorers, scissormakers or jewellers. I believe any good blacksmith with good experience on it would do a horseshoe without any plan, based on his own experience. Also it takes only one master plus an apprentice to do it, so virtually everything comes of a single mind. It may also be true for cartwheel makers, who generally speaking work in a team, or even the makers of the carts themselves, when all the details are traditional and known to all workers in the shop.
 
This may also be true even for small traditional boats. I lived part of my life in a city by the Black Sea shore here in Romania, which also used to have a small fleet of fishermen boats. I never saw one of these fishermen boats being actually built, only repaired (this is sadly a dying art) yet it is obvious they only follow a known pattern. Even more, some time  ago while being in a small city in neigbouring Bulgaria I saw the structure of a traditional boat half finished and thrown away to rot in a backyard. It was absolutely the same "blueprint" so to say, despite the fact that it was some hundred kilometers south and in a different country. So these traditional makers are completely able to do a traditional thing in their own way without any plan, following only a standard procedure. The old people a talked with, which did still remember the old days when you could visit a boat shop and order a traditional boat told me the first question a boat builder would pose to the customer would have been "how many (frames) the boat you want to be?"- this is just another way to say the length of the boat, considering the distance between frames is already known and "traditional". Now, the problem is in a boat shop would probably work up to four to five people, all led by the master boat builder, which would take them a reasonable amount of time in building one boat - several weeks for instance.
 
But this would have been not possible for larger ships, which would need much bigger teams to build them, not only because a small number of people would take a completely unrealistic time horizon to do all the tasks, but also because bigger ships would need bigger pieces of wood which are simply not possible to move and to put in the right place just by a handful of people. So, when a master builder has to lead a bigger team, he can divide the tasks and give pieces of the ship to different builders, which may then be brought together. But to make sure the pieces fit, they have to be DESIGNED in some way, otherwise they would NOT fit. This is where design becomes compulsory. You can make a perfect horseshoe with no plan, if you have already done five to ten horseshoes a day for several years. It may also be true for traditional boats or cartwheels.
 
But all blacksmiths I have seen make a small plan, even if it's only scribbled in chalk on their table, if they want to make something different, which they have not done before. This is also true for jewellers, which usually do a small sketch just for themselves before starting to cut gold or silver. This also applies for our modeller fellows which would do a careful planning, which would often include a small sketch, before starting to cut an expensive piece of exotic wood. So making a plan is a natural thing - it comes probably of our way of thinking. Also, if a plan may not be necessary when working alone, it becomes crucial if you have to work in a team with someone else. Otherwise, how could a team member understand the piece you need? 
 
So I come here to some conclusions:
 
Firstly, doing a plan is a natural way of our brain to imagine something new. This plan doesn't necessarily need to be done with a pencil on a piece of paper. It can be done in various ways. Remember that paper was not always as available as it is today, nor were pencils, quills, ink, rulers, compasses and various other drafting tools. It may have been that shipbuilders traditionally used wax tablets for their draft, or a flat piece of plank on which you do your lines in chalk or a piece of coal. Moreover, having a plan done on paper or even in parchment would NOT help too much if brought on the shipyard, which is usually outside in the rain and aside some water.  You can imagine how difficult would be to deploy a big sheet of paper if it rains or the wind is blowing. So if the shipwright had a plan, he would jealously keep it to himself safely home and refer to it when he will need it. I don't believe there may have been a guild's rule to destroy the design after the ship was made. Yet, I believe the were rules which said the plans were private property of the shipwright and he would keep to himself.
 
It is not different today with architects, which have to provide copies of their plans to their customers for the building permit to be issued and then for the house to be built But the originals of these plans are private property of the architect and there may be a legal bound that both the customer and the architect will not give the plans to any third party. 
 
So I believe each shipwright may have had an archive (of sorts) regarding his builds, which would jealously keep to himself as it encompassed his tricks of the trade. It doesn't have to be a large archive with carefully drawn plans of ships, it may have been just a stack of leaflets with calculations regarding the ship's dimensions. 
 
Secondly, it has been said that the shipwright was able to do the shape of the hull just by pinching the floor boards and then do some tricks with the leeboard and such. Yes, it may have been like that for the first build, but then if the ship shape went right, why wouldn't the shipwright note just for himself the shape of each frame, to easier reproduce a successful design? Moreover, how would a shipwright ensure the ship he is doing would be symmetrical on both sides, except if he has a way to "measure" the shape and replicate on the other side?    
 
Thirdly, how would you convey your design to another member of the team if you can't draft it in some way, to tell the EXACT shape of the wooden member you need for your build?
 
So these are just some things to ponder while claiming "shipbuilders did their tricks without any plans". Also, the plan doesn't necessarily have to be done in paper.
 
It has been also claimed that Greek temples from the classic period were built without plans, because, obviously, no plan of this survived. Yet lately in an unfinished Greek temple, a scribbling have been found on a marble wall, which proved to be exactly the plan of the said temple. After the temple would have been finished, the wall would have been polished flat and the scribbling erased, but since it was left unfinished, the "plan" survived!
 
 

On the subject of teeth, a common Victorian practice in the UK was for a brides father to pay for his daughters teeth to be extracted and replaced with dentures, even if her teeth were perfect.  This wedding gift was to save the new groom the expense of dental upkeep over her lifetime!  And if you couldn’t parcel your daughter off early it was also a perfectly acceptable 21st Birthday present! This practice continued into the 1950’s remaining particularly prevalent in Scotland.
 
As I sit here and reflect on the cost of my Scottish wife’s dental bill over the length of our marriage I can’t help but feel my father in-law in not providing this service has left me with an otherwise avoidable financial burden that could have paid for several good holidays (or more model kits & bits)!
 
Gary

Suit and tie, you guys are disgraceful. How can you go about our great hobby without your powdered wig on?

The problem is that such measure are typically taken in isolation, not based on a systemic assessment of all the consequences and impacts. The life-cycle impact of an entirely new plate may well be higher than using some not so environmentally friendly paint (whereby the main impact comes from inadequate handling and application, rather than production). We see this over and over again in political decisions that aim to solve one problem, but then create a host of other problems down the road.

For many years there has been confusion over the different versions of Fubbs. The one you show here is the 1724 rebuild, not the 1682 original Fubbs. The original had a straight cutwater, more vertical stern post and a taller, rounded tafferel. The inboard arrangements were very different than that  of the rebuild. 
 
That the above statements are accurate is part of the result of several years research by the Stuart Yacht Research Group, a small international group of historians and model-makers of which I happen to be a member.

That character was Archie, a male Bengal who loved being on the boat, but also loved serving as a figurehead on the Shellback dinghy when Vicky would go for a row. A bit of a sensation in an anchorage.

 

Hello Jules, 
Thank you for appreciating my post, and also your invitation to continue posting on your topic - so you do not consider comments to "pollute" your topic! Also yes, it is important to put your lessons on Dutch shipbuilding of the 17th century into the right context.
 
Also, about your lesson on drawing the proper arc to close between the large sweep and the floor, I can't read Witsen's text to know how he does it, but this is a simple geometry problem and can be easily solved.
 
Many geometry problems can be done in more than one way so the trick is to find the easiest way and I would simply drop a perpendicular to line eg from the point g until it intersects the floor line. Then I would take the compass, put the needle in that point of intersection, let's call it x, and would draw an arc from point g to the floor line, called y. Thus, segment gx and segment xy are of equal length. Then I would rise a perpendicular to the line of the floor in point y until it intersects line eg. Let's call this new point z. We now have two new segments of equal length, zg = yz and the needed connecting arc can be drawn from point g to y by simply putting the compass needle in point z. But I can't say how close this outcome gets to Grebber's list of parameters. I would consider the height of point g given and the geometry procedure will give the rest of the points. But he may have worked backwards, starting from the given point y and determining the g, which may be complicated.
 
Also we must keep in mind that today we can do these drawings using vectorial softwares of unprecedented precision, while in the 17th century they only had basic tools and probably couldn't measure everything too precisely.
 
Also I cant't say about Dutch shipbuilders, yet English shipbuilders of the time spoke of a "rise of floor" which meant the angle the floor did from the horizontal. It was given as a fraction like "one foot of rise for every eight of length" and can be easily connected with our way of telling a slope in percentage. Thus, a slope of 100% would mean an angle of 45°. 
 
Best wishes,
Doreltomin
 

Hello Jules, many, many thanks again for taking your time to explain the subtleties of Dutch ship design and also to translate the relevant bits and pieces from Dutch to proper English. Some may not feel it, but reading from a three centuries old text isn't the same as just knowing the language. I do not know exactly how much the Dutch language changed in these three centuries, but as a non-Dutch speaker, I can understand the meaning of a Dutch simple sentence like "Geen fiets hier", yet I could have not by any means understand all the subtleties of Witsen's text without your compassionate translation so this is why your effort is much appreciated. 
 
Also I have seen some fellow members compare the "Dutch system of designing ships" which you are introducing here with others, mainly the one developed in England - and even as a "proof" produced some fine examples of naval plans developed around 1815-1825 from which a medium-experienced modeller could build a splendid authentic model, saying that compared with these, the "Dutch system" may seem crude.
 
My friends, have you ever noticed that our host here speaks specifically about the system presented by Witsen in his two books: 'Aeloude en Hedendaegsche Scheeps-Bouw en Bestier' published in 1671, with a second more enlarged and completed version 'Architectura Navalis', published in 1690. This is specifically 17th century and there's an old saying along the lines "you can't compare pears with apples" or whatever fruit suits you.
 
I also remember my father in the late '60's using his slide rule with an uncanny dexterity, yet in the '80's during my school days I had to buy myself a handheld calculator while learning doing the structural calculations which my father did by his rule. Also, forgive my father for I have sinned, even if he taught me too how to use it and I still have his rule somewhere, I can't remember anymore how to use it as the calculator is much easier. Therefore in much the same way 19th century navy drawings cannot be compared with any 17th century "system" simply because the first have some 100 more years of drafting expertise added to them. 
 
So just let me ask you the following: if you had to go to a dentist, would you prefer one which uses the latest 21-th century tech, or someone whose cabinet employs technologies and techniques which stop to 1980? It's just 43 years ago now, less than half a century, yet their technologies have had a good advance.  
 
So, speaking about ship designs, please return to 1671 and show me a single original draft of a ship from any nation, be it Spanish, Venitian, French or English, of similar age and also similar or better in complexity than these Dutch drafts which our friend Jules is presenting us here. I bet you can't find any. Most 17th century English ship plans are either drafts of real 17th century ships as taken off in their 18th century yards, or genuine bits or pieces left by sheer chance by some of the 17th century shipwrights, which generally speaking are NOT enough to build a complete ship if you don't add knowledge for the said ships from other sources.
 
During the 17th century shipwrights of most nationalities cautiously kept to themselves their "secrets of trade" and there are just some happy exceptions to the rule which can help us to understand how not only they designed their ships, but also how ship drafting evolved from mere scratches on a wooden board to the wonderful complete drafts available in the 19th century. 
 
One more remark about the Dutch system of "shell first", or alternatively, "bottom first" as it was specifically called in some books. The "shell first" is mainly the old system which was used for ships around all Europe; it was first spread in the Mediterranean by the Minoans and Phoenicians and everybody used it in the same way for several centuries and it's still in use for traditional boats today, although this is almost a dead art now.  I remember seeing some ten to twenty years ago a little movie showing the build of a Portuguese traditional riverine boat in the same way.
 
It was specifically during the 17th century that the English, based on a wide array of foreign sources too, developed a practical and successful method to raise a plan off an existing ship in order to replicate it. This is the whole trick. But Jules' drawings clearly demonstrate that the Dutch were able at this point to do the same, so it may never be clear whether the Dutch took this art from the English or it was the opposite, or even they both learned from the same third source.  So even if Witsen's method may look crude, he was fully able to build a whole ship using his methods, and after having built one ship, he could have raised the curves from existing frames and was perfectly able to replicate his design, if it proved successful, or to slightly modify it to obtain some desired properties. 
 
Also what is shown here is that the Dutch were perfectly able to develop ship lines which suited their own shallow waters. These Dutch ship lines are completely different of any ship lines the English or other nations did use at the same time -  and also if you read attentively what Jules presented when dealing with the yachts presented by Witsen, their shipwrights were perfectly able to adapt their designs from the Dutch shallow waters to the Swedish waters. Too bad the design of the Swedish royal yacht Lejonet isn't shown in the book, although a portrait of that fine craft survives in a painting done by Backhuysen which is now kept in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. 
 
Best wishes and keep your wonderful History lesson coming, Jules!
Doreltomin
 

Allan, regarding the distance between bench and thwarts, you simply cannot take authentic period drawings in the same way as our normal shipmodel drawings. Ours are made by shipmodellers for the use of shipmodellers and include as much details as possible to make the subject easy to build. The authentic plans of the epoch did never bother with many details, but instead centered on important things. For instance the exact position of the hawse hole or of the thwarts was not important to the said drawing, because anyway it would have been done later during the build and possibly not by using drawn plans and/or measurements, but simply a template, which could have been a piece of scrap wood used to take the "right" distance from bench to thwart from an existing boat which was known to be an easy rower. Also, I remember reading that during the 17th to 19th centuries people working on shipyards were so highly specialised that people doing "decks" weren't doing also coamings and so on, up to a certain point there was just one guy which was the "specialist" in doing hawse holes in the whole London area so he travelled from one yard to another doing his job, therefore using period drawings to figure the exact position of such details may be futile. Also, talking from my experience as a trained architect, when I draw a handrail for a flight of stairs I do not need to specify also the height and/or details of it as this is already known thanks of safety standards which have to be obeyed anyway. Only if I want a specific detail I have to draw it for the builder so that he knows what I mean.
Also, Jules, thank you for taking your time to translate all those texts from Dutch to plain English, which may allow us to learn some wrinkles on Dutch shipbuilding art - this is much appreciated!

Allan, regarding the distance between bench and thwarts, you simply cannot take authentic period drawings in the same way as our normal shipmodel drawings. Ours are made by shipmodellers for the use of shipmodellers and include as much details as possible to make the subject easy to build. The authentic plans of the epoch did never bother with many details, but instead centered on important things. For instance the exact position of the hawse hole or of the thwarts was not important to the said drawing, because anyway it would have been done later during the build and possibly not by using drawn plans and/or measurements, but simply a template, which could have been a piece of scrap wood used to take the "right" distance from bench to thwart from an existing boat which was known to be an easy rower. Also, I remember reading that during the 17th to 19th centuries people working on shipyards were so highly specialised that people doing "decks" weren't doing also coamings and so on, up to a certain point there was just one guy which was the "specialist" in doing hawse holes in the whole London area so he travelled from one yard to another doing his job, therefore using period drawings to figure the exact position of such details may be futile. Also, talking from my experience as a trained architect, when I draw a handrail for a flight of stairs I do not need to specify also the height and/or details of it as this is already known thanks of safety standards which have to be obeyed anyway. Only if I want a specific detail I have to draw it for the builder so that he knows what I mean.
Also, Jules, thank you for taking your time to translate all those texts from Dutch to plain English, which may allow us to learn some wrinkles on Dutch shipbuilding art - this is much appreciated!

Well. Damme ! You must be psychic! This is exactly what I was considering as a future build. I look forward to seeing your reconstruction of All the weaponry poking out of the sterncastle.😁
Cheers
Dick

Yup; we're interested, Steven! You always find such interesting and different subjects.

Most of them look pretty 'home-grown' to me and bits and pieces can be sourced here and there. Whoever made the model, seems to have had certain artisanal capability, but evidently did not know too much about ships in general and this type in particular. The model is a bit incongruent in the sense that there are well-executed details, say the cabin-roof, the rails and so on, while others are pretty crude, such as the windlass or the anchors.

Hi Tony, just take a look at the picture above. You will notice the ship actually has three masts: two "normals" as for a brig and then there's a third, a thinner one. It looks as if a normal "ship" with a mizzen mast put VERY close of the main mast. That was called a snow, a kind of rig which gradually dissapeared, being transformed into the two-masted rig called "brig" 

Hello Vivian, have fun on this one! I also think the same as Mark above, you are slowly and surely approaching "the dark side" 
 
Best wishes, this will be a nice build!

Nice idea, Dafi. What you show certainly looks like peas! However, the source of my quote says:
 
"NB the Sloop has now a pease Coat bottom upon her, which will last extremely well till the Spring."
  "till the Spring" implies a temporary rather than permanent measure, and studded nails are unlikely to be called a 'Coat'. So the mystery remains.

Main top mast is built and in place! With that I have also completed the last top for this ship. As neat as those round tops are in appearance, they are a pain to make. Next build session will start the shroud rigging which means that nothing exciting will be seen for a few days but with the weekend coming up I may get lucky and get in some longer build hours and get it done.
 
Afterwards the stays will go up and surprisingly the stays for the main top mast are quite simple when compared to the ones on the fore top mast. In looking ahead the rigging is fairly straight forward for a while until I get to the top gallants and the lifts for some of the yards. Then the crows feet come back. The more I read about them and experience trying to rig them, the more I understand why they vanished relatively fast in favor of much simpler rigging. I would not have wanted to be the sailors tasked with trying to repair one of them while at sea.
 
Ok, enough chat for now, enjoy the pictures! 

Kurt,


I don’t know of any hard evidence for the start of this practice.  The earliest example of which I am aware is the NMM’s model of Boyne (1692), built by the master shipwright himself, which does have red bulwarks.
 


Research on the Mary Rose (sunk 1545) has shown a few traces of paint on the external surfaces of one or two fragments, but nothing on internal surfaces.  Similarly, there is considerable evidence of paint remaining on the many carvings of the Wasa (1628) but, except for mouldings in the captain’s cabin, there is no mention of paint inside the hull.  One of the guide books states “Traces of paint have also been found on certain furnishings, but none anywhere on the hull.  Tar and linseed oil seem the only things to have been applied to that.”
 


Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, of course.  However, a near-contemporary panting of the Battle of Gravelines (August, 1588) does show the inner bulwarks of several vessels, none of which seem to carry a predominantly red colour:


 

 
My gut reaction is that painting the inner bulwarks probably began in the mid-seventeenth century.  For anything earlier than that, I suggest that it would be safer to leave the bulwarks in a natural wood colour.

Personal Experience!!  For working on carved hulls you need to buy a carver's glove or at least a heavy knit glove to protect your hands.  Use this to protect the hand that is not holding the tool.  One slip with a sharp chisel and you are on your way to the emergency room.
 
Roger

Hi Chuck,
 
I would suggest the use of sharp gouge and chisels finished off with flexible sanding sticks.  If the deck is low or lacks camber, you can build it up as shown below.  You will find more pictures on carving and working with solid hulls in my Brigantine Newsboy of 1854 build log here at MSW.
 
Regards,
Pete 

Next step in the carving process. What I call the Megatron stage - because the figure's face resembles some kind of Transformer. I've roughed out the face and given the arms more definition, as well as slightly trimming the body a little closer to the size and shape I want it to be. From this point on, I get very careful about shaving off more wood and only take off a very little at each time, have a look, compare it to how I want it to look, take a little more off and look at it again etc. It's easy to take wood off, but if you've cut off too much you can't put it back.
 
At this point I move from a Stanley knife
 

 to a scalpel with a No. 11 blade for the finer work. 
 
 
Now I put a lot of effort into getting the face right. Once that's ok I go on with the body. If I mess up the face I have to throw the figure away and start again. I might as well do it now, rather than do all the work  getting the body perfect and then have to throw the figure away because I messed up the face - it's just wasted effort.

 
 
 
 
Still somewhat Megatron, but looking a bit more like a human's face.
 
And here he is from the side
 

 
Unfortunately, the next photos in the carving sequence came out all blurry, so I've had to skip a step. Here's the figure almost complete. 
 

I'm afraid he looks a little like a Tolkien dwarf, but when he's painted up he should look more Greek and less dwarvish - the "dwarf's hood" is really some kind of turban, and I think a good paint job will point this up. And I have the chance to show the Byzantine splendour of the clothes.
 
Oh, and I only realised from looking at the photos that his pedal extremities are colossal - his feet's too big. I'll trim them down and I think this will reduce the dwarvish look as well.
 
 

 

 

I'm pretty happy with those fingers . . .
 
 
Steven