Dutch Whaler by Jean-Pierre - Sergal - modified 17th century flute

[Jean-Pierre]

First I am a native French speaker.  But I happen to be lucky and know Dutch quite well, and certainly better than most Franch speaking persons.  I also have worked in the Netherlands, and in Flanders, and have a fair understanding of a number of dialects

 

I was suspected that Poolsterre could have been the word in those days.  I used to have some east Flemish friends, whom I managed to understand (at the cost of some headaches!) and yes, they still use the old word sterre.  

 

Alas, as you may see, I already put the tiny name plate, on which I wrote POOL STER / Hoorn.  I may try and be bold enough to change that.  In the meantime, the last 2 letters ER have been accidentally blurred ( Could have been a night raid by the Great Dutch Grammar Wizard? ).  We'll see and thanks for the research anyway.

 

So here are are some pictures of the ship I took yesterday with my cell phone.  I did not care to have a pristine finish of the waterline, like on real ships of the time.  I also added the anchor cables, which I made in the most rustic way by rolling 3 right twined cables from right to the left.  I wanted to have a right twined cable, like it was in those days, at least for the thicker cables.  I only had them (right twined in too small thicknesses.

 

 

[ccoyle]

Very interesting discussion about languages and dialects. I was an exchange student in Ostfriesland. Many of my schoolmates spoke High German as a second language -- just like me. Their first language was Plattdeutsch (Low German).

[Baker]

Nice work jean Pierre. 👍

 

 

[robert Lamba]

7 hours ago, Jean-Pierre said:

First I am a native French speaker.  But I happen to be lucky and know Dutch quite well, and certainly better than most Franch speaking persons.  I also have worked in the Netherlands, and in Flanders, and have a fair understanding of a number of dialects

 

I was suspected that Poolsterre could have been the word in those days.  I used to have some east Flemish friends, whom I managed to understand (at the cost of some headaches!) and yes, they still use the old word sterre.  

 

Alas, as you may see, I already put the tiny name plate, on which I wrote POOL STER / Hoorn.  I may try and be bold enough to change that.  In the meantime, the last 2 letters ER have been accidentally blurred ( Could have been a night raid by the Great Dutch Grammar Wizard? ).  We'll see and thanks for the research anyway.

 

 

I didn't know anything about the whaling industry of the Netherlands until I came across your build. I looked deeper into it I suspected most of the whalers may have been Frisian, my investigation confirmed it, whaling crews were predominately of Frisian origin. Hoorn the home port of your ship was in

West-Friesland now North Holland. West-Frisian political independence was ended by the dutch but the language would've remained on for centuries, even today the Dutch dialects there still have a Frisian influence. I wouldn't change your ships name with the regional linguistic evolution of the time period Dutch, Frisian or something in between could be correct.

[robert Lamba]

4 hours ago, ccoyle said:

Very interesting discussion about languages and dialects. I was an exchange student in Ostfriesland. Many of my schoolmates spoke High German as a second language -- just like me. Their first language was Plattdeutsch (Low German).

Plattdeutsch is similar to the dutch in NE Netherlands, I think the common base is Saxon but I'm not a linguist.

[amateur]

West-frisian is a bit confusing terminology: in the Netherlands it refers to the northern part of North-holland, in Germany it ofter refers to anything west of their region Ost-friesland (wich is essentially the dutch provinces Groningen and Friesland).

 

It is not correct to say that the Dutch ended the political independence of west-friesland when you refer to the dutch region west-friesland. The word 'dutch' did not come into existence after the napoleontic era. Before that the netherlands consisted of a political union of various regions, holland being the most important.  The political freedom of the kingdom of frisia ended in 1300.

 

The region around Hoorn.Schermer (the waling area) was part of Holland ever since the early middleages (the period were the zuijderzee became increasingly large). So if Frisian was ever the main language around Hoorn, it would have been around 1300, not around 1700. Around 1700 Dutch (which is essentially the dominant dialect spoken in holland) was standard in the western parts of the republic of the netherlands. The Frisian admirality operated from Harlingen (east side of the zuiderzee), and was a small admirality. The Frisian traders operated from Harlingen and Stavoren, and were mainly in the Baltic trade (wood and wheat)

Whalers came from Holland, and not from Frisia. Whaling industry was located in Holland, not in Frisia.

 

Jan

 

[robert Lamba]

6 hours ago, amateur said:

West-frisian is a bit confusing terminology: in the Netherlands it refers to the northern part of North-holland, in Germany it ofter refers to anything west of their region Ost-friesland (wich is essentially the dutch provinces Groningen and Friesland).

 

It is not correct to say that the Dutch ended the political independence of west-friesland when you refer to the dutch region west-friesland. The word 'dutch' did not come into existence after the napoleontic era. Before that the netherlands consisted of a political union of various regions, holland being the most important.  The political freedom of the kingdom of frisia ended in 1300.

 

The region around Hoorn.Schermer (the waling area) was part of Holland ever since the early middleages (the period were the zuijderzee became increasingly large). So if Frisian was ever the main language around Hoorn, it would have been around 1300, not around 1700. Around 1700 Dutch (which is essentially the dominant dialect spoken in holland) was standard in the western parts of the republic of the netherlands. The Frisian admirality operated from Harlingen (east side of the zuiderzee), and was a small admirality. The Frisian traders operated from Harlingen and Stavoren, and were mainly in the Baltic trade (wood and wheat)

Whalers came from Holland, and not from Frisia. Whaling industry was located in Holland, not in Frisia.

 

Jan

 

This being an english forum "dutch" is the common term for Nederlanders. The english called anyone from the northern areas of todays  Netherlands or northern Germany dutch, but it stuck permanently with Nederlanders, correct or not dutch  is what it is. Frisian losing independence in 1300 wouldn't eliminate the people or their language as is evidenced by dialects everywhere even in the Netherlands.

 

Whaling began in the early 1600's not 1700.

[Baker]

interesting lesson in history.

But.

Dutch, Hollands, Flemish, Frisian.

let's say that in this very small part of the world. no one understands each other when he speaks his own dialect.

 

and if you look far enough back in history we might all be a little bit family

 

[Jean-Pierre]

OK, when I asked about the 17th century spelling of the word STER, I really did not mean to start a political crisis in the Netherlands😷 . I swear!!  But thanks for the feedback anyway.  By the way, I was told that the language (Nederlands) was called Nederdiets in those days, which remembers of its North Deutsch or Platdeutsch origin.

 

So that's settled I guess: I'll try very hard to correct the name plate on the ship into POOLSTERRE.

 

The kit is really an "open source" to the builder's imagination.  Take for instance the fact that you have from many points a view to the inside structure.  Unacceptable, and of course what would remain visible inside should be masked with matt black paint.

 

I am now about to install the deck furniture, starting with the winch.  I include a picture of a winch built straight from the box, with the exception that the builder painted the flanges to cover up the plywood layers.  I also had liked to include a picture of the winch found on a flute wreck, a most simplified example, but I cannot reduce the picture size on this Macbook.  Sorry!

What bothers me on the kit winch are:

-the straight drums with grooves in it.  Why these grooves?  Shouldn't the drum be larger in its middle part? From a few other models, it seems that that the drum should extend from one side of the ship to the other one.  The wreck seemed to have a round drum, not an octogonal one.  Then the ratchet is ridiculously weak in the kit.  But then, I have never seen a winch (other than in this kit), that is supported by an extension backwards: nice, but not correct.  Also, it seems that the winch drum should be much lower to the deck.  Any opinion?

 

The kit picture is from Mr. Onderwater's model.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Jean-Pierre

[Baker]

 

My idea,

 

Probably an original winch is not made of one piece, but from different pieces of wood. 

And is this misunderstood by the builder of the model,  and therefore it has grooves

There are also no square holes in the winch??

 

the ratchet is ridiculously weak : indeed

 

Added
the winch of the replica yacht Duyfken

And a winch on a drawing (also with "grooves")

 

 

 

 

[amateur]

This kit was (loosely) based on a model in the Rotterdam Maritime museum,

https://www.maritiemdigitaal.nl/index.cfm?event=search.getdetail&id=100009961

(it is a shame that there are no high-resolution pics in this database)

and I guess some basic drawings dating back from the sixties. Lots of knowledge on fluits has build up since then, mainly due to the archeology, and better access to the archives.

 

So, when the kit diverges from the archeology, I would tend to follow archeology.

The winch is rubbish: the sides should be smaller, and if there are thoseextensions, they should be forwardfacing: thta is the direction in which they should withstand some force.

In some of the smaller wrecks, the whinch is going from side to side. I have also seen drawings (don't know where) with the heavy sides that enclose the winch.

As far as I know, the winch should be from one piece: no way to attach two parts in such a way that the thing does not break when force is applied.

 

In more modern fishingboats, (botters)  as far as I know there are three types: round, octagonal, or round with some strips attached. The last two, to create aditional friction onto the cable.

 

there should be square holes in it, to get the lever in.

 

Jan

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by amateur

[flying_dutchman2]

# Jean-Pierre. 

The built looks great. I like how you did the decorations. Also, noticed that your taffrail is very different compared to mine. I like that about Fluits, numerous variations. 

 

# Jan, 

Thank you for the linguistic history lesson. Fascinating! 

 

Marcus 

[Jean-Pierre]

Thank you for your kind comments.

 

Jan, you are right about this kit's winch.  It makes no sense.  It should be said that this kit seems more aimed as a decoration item than as a historic replica and as such, she is beautiful. Still, for me, the model was interesting just because of the possibilities for improvement.

 

About the winch, here are 2 underwater pics of a flute's winch.  Difficult to discern if they were taken backwards from the bow or otherwise.  Anyway, after many clumsy trials with a piece of round dowel, then with the kit pieces, I finally used a square dowel that I made more or less octogonal

I would have made the winch from side to side, but then I would have had problems with the access to the forecastle, PLUS I still want to build a ship's boat and therefore need the winch to be as close as possible to the forecastle to have enough place for it.

 

Another question:  I have seen on various models of Dutch ships a vertical pin rail along the mast, with 2 to 3 pins and a pulley there under.  Should this replace the classic horizontal pin rail before each mast?  See picture from the ship wreck.

 

[amateur]

Yes, those are clamps to hold the pins. 
 

Jan

[Jean-Pierre]

I did some more work on the winch to hopefully make it look a little more civilized and finally glued it in place.  It is good from far (away), but far from good, I am afraid.  Anyway it is a large improvement on the kit winch.

 

[Jean-Pierre]

Quite a few things have been done, and this log was quite difficult to find.   I had to face a number of problems I had never encountered before.

First I had (have??) wood worms in my deck. I sprayed the whole ship 2 or 3 times  (in- and outside) and look each morning anxiously if i don't notice any new wood dust heaps.  Grrr...

Then I think I may be happy with my winch.  I had previously made a couple of attempts you can see on one of the following pictures: One with a round drum, which i felt i would never succeed to make octogonal and then another attempt was made based on the kit parts, but that soon proved unfitted.  I finally used a stick of square stock.  The square hole were drilled round and then made square with a suitable nailhead.  But then I made the wrong decision to cover it with a coat of matte varnish (old enamel range by Humbrol) and it all turned white.  I used various ways to get a darker shade with the available materials, but Luckily, part of it will be covered by the anchor rope.

So far with some unexpected problems.

 

On this picture, you will find some of my trials and fails.  First the City of Hoorn coat of arms: my first two examples were either uncentered or just too large.  Then you have, clockwise, the rejected winch drums and flanges.  Then a skylight which I built during my first build seesion, and which I don't remember where to put them. Then, on the left a rather successful attempt at better pumps, next to the kit pump.  Then a roof which iss too large to be placed before the fore mast, and above these, two sets of winch bars, the small ones are way too small, and maybe the larger ones are in fact ... a little too large.

 

I have enlarged the pic to show the fairly ridiculous chains provided in the kit: no way for me to make anything solid with those rings.  But I have noticed that these chains were (on paintings), much shorter than what the kits suggests you to do.  See the end result.

 

I also made the various deck furniture pieces.  I tried to make better staircases but failed.  These are from the kit

 

Questions to 'specialists ':

I wanted my model to have 2 water pumps, 1 each side of the main mast: does that make more sense than just one of them.  Problem: I have already built them both, but let authenticity prevail!

The majority of flutes pictured on the web do not have mast bands!  I want to follow this trend (the easy way?): what do you think.  And in this case, the mast probably was a one piece wood piece, probably pine ? Then there would be numerous wood knots visible, no?

 

Here are some pics of her actual status:

 

[flying_dutchman2]

Pumps

On the Zeehaen there is one on the left close to the windlass and one on the right somewhere in back. 

On modelbouwforum.nl there are several Fluits being built and all of the ships have there pumps located the same way as the Zeehaen. There are no 2 pumps together. 

 

Mast bands

Some ships do and some don't. 

Marcus 

[Jean-Pierre]

Thanks for your reply, Marcus.  Alas, in the meantime, I had built with success, a PAIR of pumps, and I could not resist to glue them on both sides of the mainmast.  I suppose that the 2nd pump would also be on the main deck?

[Jean-Pierre]

I am currently working on the masts.  Not a small job anyway, as I found it difficult to align them properly.  And as I am not a dedicated user of sophisticated machinery, I brought all masts to the right shape with a Stanley cutter blade and abrasive paper: and I dare say they look fine, and sufficiently well aligned.  But before I glue the 4 masts on the deck, I did some changes and "improvements" to the deck.  First I followed the advice of Marcus, and removed one of the water pumps.  Then I glued the anchor cables.  I had also made 6 winch bars and mounted 3 of them each side, in the only place still available.  Then I had an aesthetic problem with the various pin rails.  Some had "shouldered" feet, and others didn't but looked too high (see pics above).  The shouldered rail at the mizzen mast received the straight feet of the ones behind the bow, and these, like the ones at the main mast, were shortened by 0,5cm.  The pin rail near the bow got shoulders, as most of the lines attached to it would go to the bowsprit.

 

By the way, you can see on one of the following pics a few woodworm holes.  These were all made in a couple of hours, an some extensive insect spraying seems to have killed the poor little beasts.

[Baker]

On 5/26/2020 at 3:55 PM, Jean-Pierre said:

spraying seems to have killed the poor little beasts

Well done.
They should not drill holes in your beautiful model 

[Jean-Pierre]

I have listened to the linguistic experts about this ship's name, and decided to rename her more correctly (see pics)  By the way, Sergal had placed some ovals in the rear deco of the ship.  It can hardly be seen but I framed a few portraits in them.  These portraits are taken from  the famous 17th century Dutch portrait painter Jacob cats (but the quality of these paintings is admittedly difficult to appreciate here.  The landscapes are 17th century landscape paintings of the city of Hoorn.

[Jean-Pierre]

I am now facing the masts and the rigging.  As I have decided to add the vertical belaying pins, I luckily will have some spare belaying points in case I decide to add sails.  Indeed a problem arises that I had not thought of: this model is supposed to be rigged only without sail.  Now on a real ship, most of the blocks needed to manoeuvre the sails would be present on the various spars and on deck: I shall have to buy some extra stock.   The masts themselves needed quite a bit of trimming: the kit proposed mast rake was not correct on the fore and main masts.  The upper mast also would not run parallel with the lower mast, due to mast caps that were quite a bit oversize.  Everything seems OK so far as can be seen on the pics below.  I also submit a picture of my technical advisor Kaly, a cocker lady.

[Jean-Pierre]

There have been some awful delays in this building again.  I have assembled and glued the mast into their place.  Problem with this kit is that the materials and given dimensions do NOT allow a good alignment of the topmasts.  Furthermore, the holes for the topmasts are way too large, and the naive builder that I am made as a result, topmasts that were much too thick.  I yesterday dismounted the topmasts and carefully scraped a fair amount of wood and, ok this will do for me.  I just need to finish the shrouds, then the ratlines, then the stays.

 

[Meriadoc Brandybuck]

Brilliant work coming together here!  I hope those ratlines are coming along.  My trick is to fiddle with them at least 10 minutes a day, and eventually they will not be the problem anymore.

 

Glad to see I'm not the only one who employs a canine technical advisor.  Everyone else around here seems to have feline inspectors.

[Jean-Pierre]

Actually, a canine advisor, as you can see, is a rather cool companion and is moderately interested in running through your work table, while a cat... I'm not sure.

The model as seen on the latest pics, has changed a bit since then (but not enough, alas).  First, the upper mast as on the picture, are too thick in my opinion, as they had been made too close to the plan and the kit pieces measures.  They were ripped apart, rescraped and I now still have to realign them to the lower masts (not easy!)  Then I also did the standing rigging of the lower masts (new blocks for the stays).  This worked rather well so far.  I now have to glus the upper masts, and rig them of course.  Then (or in the meantime if it gets too boring!) I will start work on the whaling boats, and possibly on a dinghy to put on deck.

[Martijn Onderwater]

Hi Jean-Pierre,

 

I just found your build log, and it looks amazing. Well done! I also noticed that you referenced my build log of the same ship (much obliged). By now it has been moved.

[Jean-Pierre]

Hello Martijn,

 

Thanks for your kind compliments on my model

 

Fine to read that you are still in business with ship building.  I of course tried to gather any possible information on flutes and on the Sergal kit built models in particular.  I also downloaded plenty of build pictures, and I have to say that your build log was probably the most helpful to me.  So thank you for the information,   and congratulation for your fine model.

 

Mine is still unfinished: shame on me! I did have some thoughts about the thickness of the upper masts, which I had to unglue and thin down a little.  Work has been suspended at this level.  I also do not like the whaling boats but am still doubting how to improve them, and if I could (and should) make 2 more of them.  And then, if I get so far, I will also want to have a dinghy on deck.

 

And ... I hope to restart work on the model in the coming days (?!)

[Martijn Onderwater]

Good to hear that you still have ideas for finishing your model. It has been a fine center piece in my house for 15 years. I'll try to upload my build log here, so that it is preserved for future builders. Also, in case you are visiting Amsterdam: I sold my model to a volunteer at the Tulip Museum in Amsterdam, and it is going on display there.