"Meermann" or "Wodnik" 1627 (1:100, scratch)

[Seahorse]

Welcome everyone,

encouraged by a group of friends, I made a bold decision to develop a model of the "Meermann" ship, which took part in the Battle of Oliwa in 1627. The battle was not big when we compare it to great clashes of great maritime powers, but for Poland at that time it had a huge political and propaganda dimension. Because here "... the traders from Danzig defeated one of the strongest fleets - Sweden ..." as the angry king of Sweden reportedly said. The dynastic war with Sweden, in which the Republic of Poland got involved, led to the Swedish capture of part of the Polish coast and the sea blockade of Gdańsk. Partially built in Gdansk, partially bought (mainly from the Netherlands), the Polish fleet, emerging from the morning mists, attacked the "sleeping" Swedish ships standing in the roadstead of Gdansk. The Poles captured the Swedish "Tigern" and caused an explosion on "Solen" which sank. The Swedes withdrew, that's the whole battle.
Battle of Oliwa - Wikipedia

Unfortunately, there are not many sources regarding the construction of these ships, so we can only use "standard" solutions from that period. Since my English is not so perfect that I could, like Ab Hoving, write passionately about dilemmas during the reconstruction, I will stick to some of the most important facts and a few "blank spots" to which Polish historians and researchers have not found an answer so far.
The dimensions of the ship are known with some assumption that all mistakes were detected in the main source, ie "Wismar inventory". There is no original document, only the original copy, in which the copyist's mistakes were found. Also the weapons and equipment are known from the above list.
The Scot James Murray was responsible for the creation of the Polish fleet, which for many historians is tantamount to the statement that they were English-style ships. But the empty royal treasury (which probably lasts to this day :-))) allows you to suspect that maybe it was built in the Dutch style, which was much cheaper and faster than the English method. Besides, some of the ships that were part of the Polish young fleet were bought from the Dutch. There are many such unresolved dilemmas for each ship.
I am familiar with four images depicting this event, but they differ drastically and, as recently noticed, are partially copies of other earlier images. The mere fact of "piracy" in painting is not surprising, but it reduces the credibility of such works. In short: in the most popular of these paintings by P. Janssen you can see a copy of the ships from the Dutch painting of the Battle of Bantam (1603), and the second important painting, A. Boy's watercolor, is a compositional copy of the painting of the first one, i.e. P. Janssen :-)) )))

Searching for an answer is hampered by the multitude of myths that cling to the Battle of Oliwa. Around 1950, the plans of "Meermann" were created, which in fact are a modification of the plans of the "Rotter Lowe", with anachronistic geometric patterns in white and red on the sides. It seems to me that only Hansa ships had decorations of this type at that time. By the way, the red and white colors became the national colors of Poland only in 1792. Such a form of "Meerman" caught on in the mentality of even researchers who reproduced these and other errors. In the mindset of many Poles, this battle took the form of not a historical event, but a legend.
There are still many details that I could complain about, so maybe enough :-)))

When building, I used typical lines of Dutch ships from that period, because I assumed that there were masters from the Netherlands, not from England, in the Gdańsk shipyard. And probably right, because I had to introduce few changes to make the dimensions taken from the "Wismar inventory" match the ones I have. This applies not only to the distance between decks, width and length, but also to the draft, which turned out to be almost identical.

So the hull was built.
1 mm cardboard frames. Simplified gun carriages inserted on one side.



The first cover stiffening the structure:



And the second horizontal cover:



I put planks on the hull prepared in this way:





Best regards
Tomek

[Michael Mash]

It was a pleasure reading about the research necessary to build this vessel.
This is an excellent choice for a project. Already we can see the high quality “Seahorse” planking work throughout the hull.
I assume that is a panoramic view of Gdansk painted across the stern?
I have not seen one decorated that way before.
Mike

[abhovi]

If this ship was originally Dutch, you hit the nail on the head. Very nice hull shape. Good design!
Ab

[JohnMGD]

Nice design and ship Tomek, do we have to worry about "De Zeven Provincien" ???

[Dancooper]

This is the second model of this ship that I see, but the first time I read it's background. The hull already looks fantastic and I will be following.

The first model of this ship was on another forum and it was a wood built, at least the shell was, the frame some kind of board.

[Seahorse]

Thank you, men.

@Mike - as far as I know, such decorations appeared on the stern, sometimes they were sea scenes, sometimes panoramas of the home ports, sometimes allegorical scenes related to the name of the ship. Of course, at a certain point in time, simply the name of the ship began to appear here.
On Polish forums I have already been hit, because such a panorama breaks the "taboo" surrounding ships from Oliwa. Especially that this painting comes from around 1650, so it is later than the ship :-) I am also considering a painting of a sea creature similar to Meerman's imagination, as well as empty boards due to the fact that the royal budget was small. Such a painter, however, expected some payment. The modeller will be able to choose decorations on the stern.

@Ab -thank you. Your opinion, especially on the subject of Dutch boatbuilding, cannot be overestimated.

@John - No, "7 Provinces" is doing well, but it is such a large project that sometimes it has to mature like good wine.

@Dancooper - I am not surprised that you have already met this model, because as I wrote, it is a legend among Polish brothers of boatbuilding modelers and basically every self-respecting Polish boatbuilder has to build "Meermann". There are probably dozens of "Meermanns" on Polish modeling forums.

Best
Tomek

[RdK]

Hi Tomek!

I haven't build the Wodnik , yet. But since...

Originally Posted by Seahorse

...basically every self-respecting Polish boatbuilder has to build "Meermann"...

...I will wait and order your interpretation of it!

So far the ship looks very good! Looking forward for more!

-Radek

[Butelczynski]

Very impressive work. I'll follow this.

Out of curiosity-Maly did this ship I think twice. Are those models anywhere near accuracy wise or complete imagination? I was thinking of making the older model from 70s.

[Seahorse]

Butelczynski,
MM published "Wodnik" four times + one more by another publisher (see picture).
I wrote a little more about the difficulties related to the reconstruction of ships from Oliwa on Polish forums, mainly because I do not feel strong enough to present these intricacies and details in a foreign language. Besides, they are not about my thoughts, but the collected knowledge from the work of people who often spent half their lives researching the history of the Battle of Oliwa. Although your location is in Ontario, "Butelczynski" is Polish in essence, so maybe Polish is not foreign to you. If this is the case, please visit the Konradus forum where I wrote a little more, or directly to the "hardcore" knowledge, i.e. timberships.fora.pl.
Are the older studies of "Meermann" in Maly Modelarz correct to any degree? Opinions of researchers and modellers are rather negative, ie especially older editions are based on the modification of "Rotter Lowe" drawings. Is she correct? Supposedly built in the Netherlands, so Ab Hoving could say more about the "Rotter Lowe" lines. I know that some of the drawings in the book "Risse von Schiffen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts" are far from the truth, but I don't remember if it concerns "Rotter Lowe". If even the hull of the "R.L." is reasonably correct, the rigging and details of "Meermann" are developed at a very low level. Rigging is greatly simplified, so with some ambition you should make corrections and additions on your own using other sources. As far as I know, some details on board are horrendously scaled, so they should also be made from scratch.
From the purely modeling point of view, you must remember that modeling in a 50-year-old cardboard is terrible. Such old paper must first be reinforced, for example, with acrylic varnish, although in Poland we usually use "heavy" chemicals, e.g. floor primer :-))) If you like any of these models, try :-)

Best
Tomek

[Butelczynski]

Dobrze dedukujesz Watsonie

I had no intention of building original-I have CDs from Maly publisher with somewhat decent scans and one I looked at was fairly simple.I never did a sail ship.

Either way thanks for an answer and I'll follow your post on Konradus as well.