Article by Ab Hoving in Nautical Research Journal

[Don Boose]

Just received the latest issue of the Nautical Research Journal and was pleased to find another article about Dutch 17th century ship design and building by our friend and fellow Forum member Ab Hoving: "The Missing Link," NRG, 70/1, Spring 2025, pp. 79-88.

As always, Ab's article is well-informed, smoothly written, highly illustrated, and a pleasure to read. He addresses one aspect of how 17th century Dutch shipbuilders designed ships. After meticulous research and deduction set forth in the article, he concludes that the shipbuilders used mathematical design techniques and, although they may have laid out some design elements on paper, they did not produce "the kind of plans that are recognizable and useful to us" (p. 88).

My synopsis is based on an initial reading of the article. I hope Ab will weigh in if my comments are erroneous or misleading.

The article is very much worth reading. You can access the Nautical Research Journal at <https://www.thenrg.org/journal>

Don

[ccoyle]

You can also read a review of Ab's latest book here. Some reviewer of middling ability wrote the review, but the book itself is excellent!

[abhovi]

@Don Boose, you gave a very good review of the article, I have nothing to add, except that the new insight was initiated by a member of the Ships of Scale forum, Waldemar Gurgul, who I owe much gratitude.

@Ccoyle: I never saw you as a 'reviewer of middling ability', even more so because you were kind enough to do the editing of the book. Much praise for that.

[JohnMGD]

Congratulations Ab with your new book about paper modelling historical ships and your article in NRJ.
I find this all very interesting, but after my try to build historical ships, I stay far away from building them and leave it to the real specialists.