It has been a while since I last contributed to this site but Seahorses beautiful posts reminded me of it. The reason for not posting for a while is simple: the project I was working on was not making any real progress.
My subject this time, after the fisherman type -the hooker- was the other iconic Dutch fishing boat of the 17th century: the herring buss. It was a relatively small vessel (this one is 72 feet long) and I used an original 18th century lines plan.
It is possible to use it because the difference in hull shapes between the 17th and 18th busses can be ignored. Herring was one of the most important ingredients in the Dutch kitchen in those days and there must have been thousands of busses, to satisfy the market. Herring was also an important exportproduct.
I started this project in a rather ignorant way, not expecting any problems. In the beginning that seemed the right prediction, because the building of the hull offered no problems. The technique was the same as in the other projects I published here. The main problem however appeared to be the rigging.
First something about the method of fishing. To catch herring a long series of straight nets were hung in the water, like a long curtain. The idea was that small fish passed through the loop-holes, but the bigger ones got stuck and could not free themselves because of its gills.
Once the ship arrived at the fishing grounds somewhere on the North Sea two of its three masts were lowered and placed in gaffs on the railings to make room for the job on deck. Only the aft mast stayed upright and provided the necessary pull to keep the nets tight. This stage was even depicted on a Delfts tile.
When the nets were pulled back in with the help of the capstan one man in front took in the rope with its floaters, while others at a roll in the bulwark grabbed the nets. The fish was removed from the net with a quick move, like one does with the blankets when making a bed. The fish was cured and stowed in small barrels with a lot of salt.
Because all this work was done on deck it was necessary to remove the two masts. And that was one of my problems: how did they do it? How did they manage to get two heavy masts out of their steps in the hold and place them in their gaffs on deck of a small moving ship? The masts must have weighed hundreds of kilos. From what I heard it must have been a risky exercise because people got killed doing it. Probably therefore the rig of the buss changed to the one like of the hooker in the 18th century. Literature did not help me out.
It took me long to figure out how the job was done. An etching by Reinier Nooms helped me out.
First the main mast was lowered therefore a plank in the deck was removed, so that the foot of the mast appeared on deck level. With tackles on the fore mast and the yard the foot was lifted and placed in its gaff. Then the foremast was lowered. It tilted above deck level, as can be seen on Nooms's etching.
Is that important for a model? Yes, because without this knowledge the arrangement of the deck could not be made. It is my firm conviction that no other method of research old ships works better than modelmaking and paper is a quick and easy material to do it.
However, the deck was only one of my many problems. How about the rigging? How did they remove all those ropes before they could even think of storing the masts? That was the point where I got stuck so I turned to other projects, but from its place on the shelf the model kept looking at me in a reproachable way.
First I could not decide in which stage I wanted to depict the ship: on its way to the fishing grounds or while actually fishing. These two stages showed two completely different looking ships. In the end I decided to do the sailing variant, for which I had some good examples, drawn by a 17th century artist Van der Laan. I needed those, because the rigging of this ships differed so much from what we usually see on three-masted ships that every bit of progress was the result of a long period of doubt.
Here you can see some examples of how the ship looked while sailing and how I translated that into the rigging of the model.
I promise to send better pictures when the model is finished, perhaps with a new Photo-Painting by my son.
I know this is not a maritime site, so I apologize for my long and dreary story, but at least I use paper to do my research, so please be tolerant and allow me this impertinance.
By the way, Doris, queen of the ship section of this forum, where art thou?