Surabaya by Piet - 1/80 - Mid 17th-Century VOC ship

[Piet]

Thank you Mark!  Yeah, I'm beginning to like the idea, it brings a little extra color to the ship.  Next is to install the guns on the port side and then on to the starboard side.

 

Have a great rest of the evening, I'm turning in, have an early dental appointment.

 

Cheers,

[Piet]

Hello everyone, 

 

After a few weeks of working hard on the O 19 sub I had some time to devote on the VOC ship "Surabaya."  I rotated the build board so I could work on the starboard side.  Today I completed the base of the lower gunport doors.  They are now ready to be painted red on the inside and get the hinges and open - close ropes installed with their hardware.

 

I had made the rough hinges already a few weeks ago but they need final trimming.  On the pic below you can see them all ready and waiting.

 

I also managed to start with the top gun port mouldings, just a little more work and they are ready to be painted and glued on.

 

You'd think that I have nothing else to do but that's not the case   There is still a lot of yard work to do and then my fish pond.

 

Wow, my closeup lens is distorting the ship quite a bit.  Okay, the gunport lids I completed today are laid out  in front on top of the build dock.  The upper gunport mouldings are laid out in the foreground on the mat and  the rough hinges are in the mat and on the build board.  Getting close now ! 

Cheers, 

 

Edited September 27, 2015 by Piet

[Piet]

Today I had some time between paint drying and glue curing on the O 19 sub project that I finished the top gun port mouldings.  They are now CA'd to the hull and look quite nice.

I'll have to force myself away from the O 19 build so once in a while to work the lower gun port lids.

 

Here are a few pics of how she looks as of this afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

Edited September 27, 2015 by Piet

[Piet]

Hello Lawrence,

 

Thank you very much for your undeserved compliment, but I'll take it anyhow   You are not a slouch yourself with that very impressive Victory model.  

The fun part is figuring out how each part is or should be made when working without drawings or guidelines.  I have to consult many old drawing,s paintings and museum models to get an idea and then also rely on a few experts on VOC ships.

 

I hope you'll try your hand at a scratch build after the Victory is completed.  After three models under your belt you should be past the learning curve.  Get a good set of drawings and start making your own parts.  There is nothing like it and the satisfaction is exhilarating.  There is a lot of expert help if you need it.

 

I have been neglecting the VOC ship in favor of my father's submarine model, the O 19.  But she is sitting not too far away from my sub model, three steps.  I really need to get back to her and put the gunport lids on on the starboard side.  Then I can finish some of the deck furniture before starting with the rigging. 

 

Thanks again for visiting.

 

Cheers, 

 

[texxn5]

Hi Piet, I just found the link to your build.  This is a magnificent ship.  I look forward to seeing it in person.  I'm sure it is much more impressive than photographs can capture.  Hope to see you soon.

[Adrieke]

hmm somehow i must have missed these updates . beautiful work

Edited October 3, 2013 by Adrieke

[Piet]

Hoi Adriaan,

 

Thanks for checking in.  Remember?  You were under the weather for some time and just missed it 

Not much is happening since mid August, I seem to be giving priority to my O 19 build.  

 

We had a most delightful visit with texxn5 John and his bride Diane.  And oh yeah, he looked at my three builds too and liked them all.  He also liked the Belgian beer Leffe 

Hopefully I can spend some more time on this VOC ship but - - - - -  Well, who knows when

 

Cheers,

[Adrieke]

ther is no rush whenever you feel like workign on her

 

and i bet John liked the Leffe  i myself am not in to the heavier beers and cant get the one i like so at the moment i have a feww bottles of bitburg in my fridge

[Bluto 1790]

Hi Piet, just found your buildlog here and it's great to find someone else building at 1:80 ~ I thought I was the only one!

 

What a great build . . . I'll be watching closely.

[Piet]

Hoi John Bluto, thanks for dropping in and your kind words, it's really appreciated.

Actually the 1:80 scale was of necessity because I could not fit a larger scale on my drafting table.  Yeah, I'm still T square and triangles, none of that convoluted digital stuff,   Stupid actually because I could have used the floor in my studio as I did for the O 19 sub.  But alas, so be it.  I really wanted to build a larger model but that may come later in life    Oh heavens, what am I saying at pushing 80 

 

Well John, for now please don't hold your breath my friend because the VOC ship is temporarily put on the semi back burner in favor for my father's O 19 sub.  But she's calling to me though and as soon as I have completed the hull section of the O 19 I'll go back to her.  Just keep an eye out.

Love you build by the way!

 

 

Adriaan, Bitburg is also pretty good but to light for me, I like a heavy bodied beer like I enjoy my w - - - - never mind     

 

Cheers, 

[Adrieke]

 

 

Adriaan, Bitburg is also pretty good but to light for me, I like a heavy bodied beer like I enjoy my w - - - - never mind     

 

Cheers, 

 

lol unfortunately for me the heavy beers give me headaches so I enjoy a light beer now and then . the 6 pack off bitts will most likely last me a month or two lol

[Piet]

Hoi Adriaan, so sorry for poor old you    But then again, it's not the end of the world.  For me - - - I guess  must have developed an iron stomach during the time I was the "guest of the Emperor of Japan."      I only have one glass a day though unless I have guests then I may imbibe in two, yea      Top on the food pyramid.

 

Cheers,

[mtaylor]

I always thought beer was one of the food groups.. it's has vitamins, mineral, grains, and alcohol to make it feel good as it goes down.

[flying_dutchman2]

Awesome, beautiful lines, I always enjoy seeing a model from a VOC ship.

I am probably going to look into this plan and will put it on my future built list.

Thank you for making my DAY.

mARC

[Piet]

Hello Marc and thanks for visiting my VOC ship build log and your kind words.

Yes, I too like the lines of the mid and late 17th century Dutch ships, whether merchants or navy ships.  Born a Dutch national I naturally am drawn to Dutch ships of all kinds and would like to build a large scale Botter or Kotter, someday 

I now understand that there are drawings available of Dutch build ships but according to Amateur Jan and Amazon Dirk there are problems with the layout.  I knew what I wanted my ship to look like and its function in (hypothetical) life so I set out to design her myself.

I wanted to stick with the mid 17th century looks and refrained from giving her a sharper entry  and a few more innovations that did not exist at that time.  I think she came out quite nice though.  I had a lot of good ideas from Amateur Jan and Amazon Dirk that I incorporated.

 

Right now I am neglecting her in favor of my the model of my father's submarine, the O 19.

 

Dirk is in the beginning stages of a kit for the "Provincie Utrecht, a very nice Dutch Navy ship, may be worth your while looking into.

Jan or Dirk may know about available drawings of VOC ships.  I do know that the Maritime Museum in Rotterdam has drawings for the "Amsterdam" but they may be pricy.

 

Wish you luck with your endeavors in ship modeling.

 

Cheers,

 

[flying_dutchman2]

Hey Marc, thanks for looking in and your encouraging comments. Flying Dutchman 2 eh?  Are you a pilot also? That's what many folks in the past labeled me, I used to fix them, design repairs for them and flew them.  The title kinda stuck.  Besides coming to the USA way back in 1957 from the Netherlands.

In any case, yes, I love these ships, they had character and made a tiny nation the greatest seapower in the world before England overtook them.  

The Valkenisse, beautiful ship and like to see you get started on that project.  How soon?

 

Cheers,

Piet

I enjoy reading anything VOC.  I've done some kits  from botter's, tjalk, and boeier's.  There is a Dutch wood kits manufacturer at the Maritime museum in Amsterdam. Finishing up the Royal Mary (from Mamoli) and starting to work on the Utrecht.  Have both books from that one from Seawatch books.  So the Utrect comes first to get a taste of scratch building.

 

For me doing something like your boat would be very advanced, but I will get to that.

 

The Valkenisse is something I need to study and I like to add masts, rigging and sails.  So I need to do further research on similar boats from that era for that.  Seems the book from Hoving on the boats from Abel Tasman (Heemskerck and Zeehahn) have similar rigging.  As far as I can search the Net, this book is not available.  So next year when I go visit my mother in Amsterdam I will purchase the Dutch version among the many other things boat wise I will be getting.

 

Yes, the Dutch ruled the naval world and it was all about "business", that is why we were welcome in Japan and several other Asian nations, because we were not trying to convert the locals to a religion, like the Portugeese and the Spanish.

 

Regards,

Marc

[amateur]

Sorry to disappoint you:

1. the kit-manufacterer in the Maritime museum has gone out of business

2. the Hoving book is just sold-out in new, so you have to go for the second-hand version. (mind you, there are some ridiculous prices being asked....)

3. Valkenisse and Zeehaan are about 150 years apart. The system of the rigging is comparable, but there is certainly no one-to-one correspondence...

 

Utrecht is a nice ship: I once made a couple of pics of the 'real thing': https://picasaweb.google.com/101597346346552139735/UtrechtsStatenjacht#

(mainly details, as someone on MSW1 was doing a cardboard version of her, and liked to have some pics of the scroll-work, as the work as build, differs from the work as drawn.)

 

Jan

Edited October 30, 2013 by amateur

[flying_dutchman2]

Sorry to disappoint you:

1. the kit-manufacterer in the Maritime museum has gone out of business

2. the Hoving book is just sold-out in new, so you have to go for the second-hand version. (mind you, there are some ridiculous prices being asked....)

3. Valkenisse and Zeehaan are about 150 years apart. The system of the rigging is comparable, but there is certainly no one-to-one correspondence...

 

Utrecht is a nice ship: I once made a couple of pics of the 'real thing': https://picasaweb.google.com/101597346346552139735/UtrechtsStatenjacht#

(mainly details, as someone on MSW1 was doing a cardboard version of her, and liked to have some pics of the scroll-work, as the work as build, differs from the work as drawn.)

 

Jan

Jan;

Thank you for all the information and I know about the kit-manufacturer.

I will hunt down Hoving's book.

 

Marc

[flying_dutchman2]

Someone on MSW1 was doing a cardboard version of her, and liked to have some pics of the scroll-work, as the work as build, differs from the work as drawn.)

I followed that built.  Amazing work

Marc

[flying_dutchman2]

You may know about this but there is a blog on the Anglo-Dutch Wars (h$$p://anglo-dutch-wars.blogspot.com/)

[Piet]

Well hello Lawrence, good to hear from you again and thanks for dropping in.  Yes, I guess I'm adding more things to this build then initially intended but I like the way she is turning out.  Right now she is put on the back burner in favor of de model of my father's submarine, the O 19.  Sooner or later I'll get back on the VOC ship Surabaya.

 

Cheers, 

[ceestoorn]

Hello Piet,

read your building proces and I enjoyed the foto's

Looks great en verry profesionally

I see You use the scale 1 : 80 what are the the measures of this ship?

 

I love to hear from You

Greetings cees

[pollex]

Hello Piet; I'm enjoying your log of the VOC "Surabaya";

however, I have a suggestion/question.  I see you have

positioned "steps" just aft the 3rd gunport in the waist.  A

British naval or merchantship would have had them aft the

NEXT set of gunports. When the officers (only) stepped on the

gangway, they would then have been right athwarthships the

main mast. This would then allow you to place a pair of vertical 

"skids" in place 3 feet+ (1 metre) apart, for hauling the heavy

water casks aboard from the boats alongside. Not being so

familiar with Dutch marine traditions, would this suit your model?

Kind regards,  pollex

[Piet]

Hello Cees and Pollex, thanks for dropping in.

 

@ Cees, thank you for your kind words.  The length is supposed to be 165 Amsterdam voet, beam of 41 A'dam voet and the hold is 16 voet.  I think I have written this in my intro on page 1 with some other stuff.

 

@ Pollex, thank you too for dropping in and your questions, appreciate it.  About the steps, well, yes, this may not be as the English ships would have it but, if you have read my intro you may have seen that this is a hypothetical ship.  As the shipwright, owner and captain I have taken certain minor liberties with the design.  Also, this design is based, or closely so, on Dutch merchant ships of the mid 17th century, not English.  And remember, it's a merchant ship not a naval war ship, although they have been "rented" by the navy to battle their enemies at that time.  I have also looked at many paintings and drawings of ships of this era and have seen variations in details such as this.  There were and still are no plan drawings of these ships and the ship yards of the 7 chambers of the VOC build their ships their way, not bound to one standard.  Although van Ijk and Witsen wrote very comprehensive treatises on shipbuilding.   

Right now the best anyone can do is take off the lines of old models that hang in churches and museums and use these models and the drawings and paintings as a guide.

As the designing shipwright, builder and owner I wanted a hybrid.  I.e. a heavily armed merchant vessel to combat the many pirates in the Indonesian archipelago and of course the Portuguese  and with a good cargo capacity.  That's my excuse anyway 

Will it suit my model?  Yeah, I think so.  I designed and am building it for my pleasure not so much as making it authentic, which is impossible anyway.  As long as it looks like and could function as a mid 17th century Dutch merchant ship the VOC would use then I'm happy.  Much more can be said but I think this should answer your very legitimate question.

 

Cheers, 

 

 

[NenadM]

How I miss this topic ?

 

Very nice work. flying maestro !!!!

[*Hans*]

Piet,

 

I wondered why I didn't see your topic before! You're doing a very nice and accurate job - details are very well worked out, and I recognise the shape of the VOC ships of the 17th century very well.  

 

The stern f.i. is very much like the Prins Willem model, and the Zeven Provinciën (only as scratch model available  - a lot of information is to be found here: http://www.otteblom.nl/tekeningen/ ).  The Friesland from Mamioli has also the wider stern which came in use the second half of the 17th century.

 

My Batavia is smaller at the stern, which I think was more in use beginning of the 17th century, and she is less accurate build as yours (in fact, I'm a bit of a sloppy builder.... )

 

Waiting for further post from your side!

[Piet]

Hoi Hans, thanks for visiting my VOC ship "Soerabaya."  Reason that you haven't seen this log is that I started on my father's submarine, the O19.  I thought in working both at the same time, every other day, but somehow the O19 took front burner.

I'll get back to the VOC ship after my dad's sub model is finished. 

 

Thanks for the URL for more pics on VOC ships, they have a very keen interest for me, also for personal reasons, as explained in the build log.

 

Amateur Jan and Amazon Dirk have been very helpful with info and guidance in making the model more realistic.  Some of the detail stuff may be somewhat out of scale but to the novice it will not be noticeable. I really like the "Friesland" but at this stage in my life I have enough in the pipeline to last me for the rest of my life 

 

When you have the time check my dad's submarine log.

 

Cheers,

[JesseLee]

Piet, just caught up with your build. Truly outstanding work!

[Piet]

Thank you Jesse for visiting my Surabaya shipyard and your kind words.

 

Now that the O19 model is nearing completion I'll get back at this one.  However, there is most likely another "iron" ship in the works.  I MUST now control my urge of neglecting the Surabaya again.  This time I have to divide my time between the wo.

 

Stay tuned for more news.

 

Cheers,

[Piet]

Hello Lawrence, thank yo for visiting the Surabaya shipyard.  Yes, pretty soon I'll remove the towels from her and resume work.  I may have mentioned it before but there is also a connection with the Surabaya, my father and father in law, Gwen's dad.

That's why it has to be a fictitious model and not of an existing ship of the VOC.  The details from this point on like the masts, yards and rigging will have to be close to how it was at that time.

 

Stay tuned,

 

Cheers,