Nicolaes Witsen and Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age

332 Pages·2012·10.237 MB·English

by  A. J. Hoving

Nicol aes Wits en and
Ship building
in the Dut ch Golden Age
ED RACHAL FOUNDATION NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY SERIES
in Association with the Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation
and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology
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Nicolaes Witsen
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and Shipbui ldinq
in the
Dutch Golden Age
a. j. hoving
Translated by
Alan Lemmers
Foreword by
André Wegener Sleeswyk
With an appendix by
Diederick Wildeman
texa s a&m univers it y press
College Station
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Copyright © 2012 by A. J. Hoving
Manufactured in the United States of America
All rights reserved
First edition
This paper meets the requirements of ansi / niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Hoving, A. J., 1947–
Nicolaes Witsen and shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age / A. J. Hoving ; translated by
Alan Lemmers ; foreword by Andre Wegener Sleeswyk ; with an appendix by Diederick
Wildeman. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Ed Rachal Foundation nautical archaeology series)
Hoving selected the portions of Witsen’s 1671 publication that deal specifi cally with Dutch
shipbuilding and had them translated into English by Lemmers. Hoving then integrated
this translation into a new text with commentary. “To reorganize Witsen’s text, I have cut
his entire work (except the irrelevant chapters . . . ) into hundreds of selected fragments
and then arranged them in a new sequence that follows Witsen’s own description of the
construction process.”—Introd.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60344-286-2 (book/hc-hardcover : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-60344-404-0
(ebook format/ebook—c) 1. Witsen, Nicolaas, 1641–1717. Aeloude en hedendaegsche
scheeps-bouw en bestier. 2. Shipbuilding—Netherlands—History—17th century.
3. Shipbuilding—Netherlands—Early works to 1800. I. Wildeman, Diederick. II. Witsen,
Nicolaas, 1641–1717. Aeloude en hedendaegsche scheeps-bouw en bestier. III. Title.
IV. Series: Ed Rachal Foundation nautical archaeology series.
VM77.H68 2012
623.82009492'09032—dc22
2011010696
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And certainly if by reading books the arts could be mastered,
I would master many more than the few I do now.
— C ornelis van Yk
Master shipbuilder in Delfshaven, 1697
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Contents
Foreword by André Wegener Sleeswyk ix
Acknowledgments xiii
chapter 1 Introduction 1
chapter 2 How Ships are Built in Holland Today 35
chapter 3 Contracts as Historical Sources 203
chapter 4 Conclusion 233
appendix Variations on Witsen by Diederick Wildeman 237
table 1 C omparison of Witsen’s and Van Yk’s
shipbuilding formulas 250
table 2 M ain dimensions, number of lasts,
and last factors of early ships 259
table 3 W itsen’s measurements for eight
locations along the hull of the pinas 262
table 4 Key to parts shown on the plans of
the pinas (see plan drawings 1–5
following table) 265
Pinas model plan drawings:
drawing 1 Lines plan 276
drawing 2 Sections and decks 279
drawing 3 Side view 280
drawing 4 Rigging plan 283
drawing 5 Details 285
Notes 287
Glossary 297
Bibliography 307
Index 311
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Foreword
Whoever tries to master the text of Witsen’s Aeloude en Hedendaegsche
Scheeps- bouw en Bestier (Ancient and Modern Shipbuilding and Management)
soon discovers that the task is akin to fi nding one’s way in a decayed labyrinth,
even if he or she re ads seventeenth-c entury Dutch without diffi culty. The fre-
quent, rather pointless elaborations in which Witsen indulges resemble shrub-
bery that has overgrown the paths, and some of the walls seem partly collapsed
because Witsen has the disturbing habit of not furnishing the explanations that
he has announced. In spite of these shortcomings, since its publication in 1671,
Witsen’s book has been a most valuable source for our knowledge of shipbuild-
ing in the seventeenth century, even if very few of the many authors quoting the
work had really read it from cover to cover.
It is not surprising that it took Ab Hoving fourteen years to arrange that part
of Witsen’s work which directly bears on the history of shipbuilding in a logically
coherent manner, to supplement and elucidate where necessary, and to provide
helpful commentary. Of course, these fourteen years were not spent in continu-
ous labor on this task. In this type of research—the work may surely be called
such—it is of the utmost importance to pause between the steps of what cannot
be anything else but a stepwise approach. These pauses allow one to consider
the previous steps critically and to plan the next steps carefully.
Hoving’s presentation of this large part of Witsen’s work has not only cleared
out the labyrinth but also laid out a path with clear signposts that readers can
follow to arrive at an understanding of Witsen’s construction principles. The
most important part of the book is the description of the building of a pinas,
which Witsen intended to present in 122 consecutive steps.
From Witsen’s description, it is apparent that the construction method for this
ship was fundamentally different from that described in the other well- known
seventeenth- century work on Dutch shipbuilding, De Nederlandse Scheeps-
bouw- konst Open Gestelt (Dutch Naval Architecture Unveiled), written b y the
naval architect Cornelis van Yk of Delfshaven (today part of Rotterdam) and
published in Amsterdam in 1697. It should be noted that the fi rst phase of con-
struction—which consisted of laying down the keel timber on the stocks, erect-
ing the stem and sternp ost, and adding the fi rst strakes on both sides of the
keel—was identical in both methods. .
The differences become manifest after this phase. The most salient of them
comes to light when we compare the two works. Witsen describes how the shell
was fi rst built up to the level of the turn of the bilge, whereas in Van Yk’s text we
fi nd that the fi rst phase was followed by the erection of the frames. The plank
ix
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