When I started ship modeling, back in the 70s, there was hardly any material available for the building of 17th century Dutch vessels. A lot has changed since those days. Information on pinasses, VOC retourships, fluyts, men-of-war, yachts and inshore vessels has been developed and has become accessible to anyone planning to build a model.
But there is a limit. Using original sources from archives and literature brings us back as far as the first quarter of the 17th century. Everything behind that line is guesswork, there are no written sources, it is literally pre-history.
Still, it is most tempting to see what was sailing in our waters then. And not without importance, because the foundation of the Dutch nation took place in those days.
Looking at contemporary pictures of around 1600 seldom gives us the information we need. Painting realistic scenes was not developed as much as it was in later days in the 17th century. Most depictions are rather primitive and differ from each other. On top of that, ship types were used that were obsolete when authors began to report about the techniques used to build ships. We learn about 'cromsters' (ships with curved stemposts), rowing galleys and vlieboots (pr: flee boats) when we read about the early days of our War of Independance against the Spanish, which lasted 80 years from 1568 to 1648.
The first admiralty (later on there would be five of them) was founded in Veere, a small, but important town in Zealand on the isle of Walcheren. It was there that the first men-of-war available to the (Spanish) government were stationed. They were vlieboats, vessels about 80 feet long, three masts and even carrying some guns. I had access to some original specification contracts dated 1594, the legal description of what the ship should look like, the agreement between the commissioner and the shipbuilder. But that alone is not enough to build a model. It was only last year that I spotted a small painting owned by a friend and art-collector, painted by Cornelis Claeszn. van Wieringen (1577-1633) picturing a vlieboot with so many details that a model might be possible.
Over the last few years I showed many types of Dutch vessels here, which I built purely for the fun of building, much in contradiction to my builds when I was a professional conservator in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Modelbuilding has always been a method of research for me. The aim was never a model, but the process of building, to discover the way the construction was executed. Now it seems I returned to that sort of modeling. I will build a ship, of which it is mostly unclear how it was constructed and how the build will develop. Maybe you like to join me on my insure path.
First I wanted to find the lines of the ship. The building contract gave length, width and depth as well as the shape of stem and stern and of the main frame. Keeping in mind the shape of the Mediaeval cogs my good partner Rene Hendrickx and I manipulated the hull that was proposed by the terrific shipbuilding program Delftship, until we were both satisfied with the result. That ended in a fine lines plan.
Making the hull was a straight forward job, as I described many times. As you can see the basics of the hull are there. Now we will have to see how it will develop...
Don't get distracted by the ship in the background. That's another try-out I will report about some other time.