Dutch shipbuilding in Sweden

Wow, thats a wonderful model to have! Is it possible you could post a picture of that model? It would be really interesting to see.

Thanks for the eplanation, I had a feeling the lower cost would be part of the answer.

I'm interested in Karls life, he seems to have been ready to overcome anything to reach his goals, even if he got bad blood on his hands, yet at the same time seems to have been a caring father that became depressed when his children died. A complicated personality living a very complicated life. I knew he was very forward as a duke in making his realm organized and productive. He was early with making productions of gunpowder and cannons, something that would be important later on. I missed that he built the fleet to revolt, but thought he wanted a strong fleet for his realm and his exports, not primarly to revolt against Sigismund.


/Matti

I actually have pictures (although not too great, since the lighting was a little bad for my camera) of this model, and could post them with Fred's permission, otherwise Fred can post some.

I thought it was pretty neat to look at such a model in person, especially since I hadn't seen a period built one like this before except in pictures. Even though it is quite amazing, there is little planking except for the wales (nice in a way to be able to see the framing), and parts of it look rebuilt during a more modern time since the wood is lighter in color, especially at the stern, and one of the starboard side sections of a wale at the bow. Many of the sculptures are there too, except there probably would have been more covering the rebuilt part of the stern.

And it is an unrigged model.

And thanks for the shipbuilding bit Fred!

Cheers!
Clayton

Good afternoon everybody,

Being Dutch I was triggered by the answer Fred gave to Matti's question. Because I wanted to add some comments to the story about Dutch shipbuilding Fred posted, I immediately became forum member.

I must first explain that I didn't read Fred's book 'The Philosophy...' (yet), so if I jump to the wrong conclusions I am sorry for that and want to apologize to Fred on forehand.

Fred states that in the northern Netherlands no drawings were used. This is unlikely, since Rembrandt painted a picture of a northern Dutch shipwright holding a technical design drawing for a ship, in 1633. I have reasons to believe these type of drawings were commonly used, even in the Northern method, but just didn't survive. Witsen describes in 1671 that he inherited a great deal of drawings from his father when he died in 1669. Only a couple of Witsen's, and other's, drawings have survived, and are saved at the Amsterdam museum. 
It's a shame treatise writing was not something the Dutch exceled in, as Witsen, being the first Dutchman to do so, had to admit in 1671.

That same Witsen gives a somewhat different description of the building process of the northern method as Fred does. Fred says that all the floor timbers were placed after the laying of the floor planks. Witsen describes that at first only a part of the main frame was placed after the laying of the floor planks. This 'mould' consisted of one floor timber and two first futtocks. After placing that mould, the planking was continued to the top-side of these two futtocks. Then two second futtocks were placed at the main frame position to determine the shape of the sides of the ship. After this, a batten ('scheerstrook' in Dutch) was placed to determine the greatest width for the whole length of the ship. Not until then, the other floor timbers and all first and second futtocks were placed. The third futtocks were not placed until the major part of the interior planking was finished, and the beams for the lower gun deck were placed.

I included a couple of sketches that, I hope, make clear what I'm trying to say. 



The first sketch shows the situation at the main frame after the planking of the floor is completed. The second sketch shows the situation at the main frame after placing the 'mould' consisting of the first floor timber and the first two futtocks. The third sketch shows the situation at the main frame after boarding up higher ('boeien' in Dutch) and placing the two second futtocks and the batten. This is the situation right before the rest of the floor timbers and all the first and second futtocks were placed.

I hope these sketches also make clear that the shipwright had to determine the shape of the hull at the main frame, before any building activity could commence: the shape of the first and second futtocks had to be determined on forehand. And, what's more... the shape of these parts can be seen on the drawing in the hand of the 'Rembrandt-shipwright' of 1633 and Witsen describes the method to determine the shape of these parts in his description of the northern method in his work of 1671.

Fred also states that by mid 17th century the 'bottom based' method was abandoned for large ships. This is not likely. Witsen describes the method in 1671 and repeats his description in 1690. Ralamb describes the method in 1691 and Van Yk mentions it in 1697. Aubin still describes it in 1702 (based on Witsen). French spies mention the method for the Amsterdam Admiralty (where the biggest (app. 170 foot) war ships were built), in 1670 and 1672.


I hop I am allowed to ask a question too. Can anyone tell me when it was determined that Vasa was built according to the northern Dutch method? Landstrom already assumed so in 1980, no doubt on indications given by Stolt. Was he the first to publish this?
The museum shows the northern method in its diorama of the warve and in several displays of the ship during different stages of the building proces. Were these models made after Landstrom, or before?
When I read recent publications, it looks like it has only been recently determined that Vasa was built according the northern Dutch method.
I hope someone can help me.


Kind regards, 

Jules van Beek
The Netherlands


PS. Fred, thank you very much for answering all the technical questions in incredible detail. Where do you find the time?

Jules has filled in a lot of the detail in my over-simplified explanation of the basic differences, with some good references to Witsen, and I hope he will forgive me for doing some injustice to the details in the process of compressing the explanation into such a small space. I can answer a couple of his questions, and make a few comments.

In using the Dutch treatises (Witsen 1671 and vn Yk 1696/7) it is important to remember who the authors were and what their source material was. Witsen was not himself a shipwright, but an excellent collector and collator of information, while van Yk was a practicing shipwright and his work probably reflects the practice of his own time. Some of what Witsen includes in his work was already outdated in the 1670s - many of the examples of contracts he provides for ship specifications date to the 1620s and 1630s - and the bottom-based method he describes was dismiised by van Yk as very old-fashioned. Although authors continued to describe it, and small vessels continued to be built in large numbers with this method right into the 20th century, it gradually went out of common use for big seagoing ships. Archaeological evidence for this construction process in big ships is largely confined to ships built before about 1650. It does not mean that it disappeared entirely, but it was decidedly old-fashioned in the later 17th century.

I have always wondered about Rembrandt's painting of the shipwright and his wife. The little drawing he is working with is far too small to be of any real use in the ship design process, it is more like the illustration from a textbook. It suggests that shipwrights were aware of drawings, but I would be hesitant to use it as proof that they were commonly used, and just because the shipwreight is from a northern town does not mean he worked in the northern style. As far as I recall, the earliest drawings which survive in the Scheepvaartsmuseum archives (and which look something like the drawing in Rembrandt's painting) are usually dated to the 1640s, and I think they indicate that drawings started to replace the bottom-based method already in the second quarter of the 17th century. Not all ships built in the northern Netherlands were necessarily bottom-based, it is entirely possible that some frame-based ships were being built alongside them. Perhaps Rembrandt's shipwright was one of those innovators, and wanted the drawing in the picture to show what a modern, scientific guy he was. Ab Hoving, in his work with Witsen and other sources, has demonstrated pretty clearly that the information included in a specification is sufficient to build a moderately sized ship without drawings or many geometric tools, and as a former shipwright I tend to agree with him that the bottom-based method did not require drawings. I strongly recommend his annotated translation of Witsen to any reader interested in the details of Dutch ship construction in the middle of the 17th century.

There has been some debate about whether Vasa was bottom-based in earlier publications. Eva Marie Stolt believed that the ship was built in the southern Dutch tradition, as did Ab Hoving initially, but Landström thought otherwise. I do not think Landström's conclusion was based on observation of details, and it predates the widespread publication of the archaeological evidence for the method as discovered in ships reclaimed from the IJsselmeerpolders. Landström's illustrations largely follow what Witsen shows and I think are clearly derived from that source, which Landström knew well. His illustration of the initial phase of construction, with the bottom planked out to near the turn of the bilge, is also clearly based on the well-known Dutch engraving showing a ship at a similar stage, even to showing an incorrect bottom form for Vasa (Landström omits the knuckle between the garboard and first broad strake and shows too much deadrise throughout).

The first proof (using that word with a little caution) that Vasa was bottom-based did not come until 2008/9, when we removed two of the bottom strakes to inspect the space behind as part of the process of rebolting the ship. This is the first time that it was possible to look at the inner faces of the strakes that would have been assembled without frames, and it is these faces which provide the most conclusive evidence of the construction method. Wooden cleats nailed across the seams might be found on the outside of a frame-built hull, either as part of the original construction or repairs, and so by themselves are not proof of how the bottom was constructed. Hoving has also demonstrated that the shape of the bottom is also not definitive, although it was once thought so. One has to look at the inner faces of the bottom planks. When we were finally able to do this, we found the unmistakable evidence of cleats nailed across the seams on the inside in parts of the ship that should not have them if the ship was built on pre-erected frames, and some of these cleats were under later frame locations. The plugged nail holes for the cleats are usually found in pairs or groups of three spanning the width of the plank, in this case at intervals of a meter or more. We also found evidence that the tips of plank scarfs towards the ends of the hull were edge-nailed to the next plank inboard, another indicator.

We have some evidence for the framing sequence as well. Kroum Batchvarov, who spent a couple of years mapping all of the floor timbers and futtocks through the gaps between planks, believes that there were a number of very heavy frames which were the first ones laid into the bottom at approximately even intervals down the length, a total of five or six, including one very close to the midships position marked on the port side of the keel. There is no evidence that these floor timbers had futtocks joined to them, as Witsen suggests, but it is possible that one or more of these were put in place quite early, to aid in shaping the bottom. It was not uncommon to have at least a midships floor timber set up early to define the deadrise at the widest and lowest part of the bottom, and Kroum thinks that there may have been others in places corresponding to the tail frames in Mediterranean shipbuilding (the frames at the ends of the full part of the hold, where the hull ceases to be relatively straight sided and begins to turn into the posts more dramatically). The shape of the hull also suggests that there was some help in shaping the planks at these locations.

Kelby Rose, a PhD student at Texas A&M who is writing his dissertation about the design methods used in building Vasa, has noted a large number of simple arithmetic relationships between key dimensions in the hull, such as the keel length is 4/5 of the length over the posts, and that many of these relationships are similar to what is specified in Witsen. There is also some evidence that the shapes of the futtocks were defined using circular arcs (also noted in the treatises)or some sort of standardised pattern. None of this requires the use of dimensioned drawings, although sketches of key relationships might have made communicating the shipwright's ideas to the workforce easier, especially since the builders of the ship spoke two different languages and came from two different carpentry traditions!

And to answer Jules's last question, I love this kind of discussion, so I will always find the time for them! It is one of the reasons I participate in this forum, it make me think about my research in new ways.

Fred

Thank you Clayton for your response. I am sure the fact that the builders of Vasa were Dutch, helped Landstrom to decide to show the northern 'Witsen'-method. I am surprised to hear from Fred that Landstrom didn't do so because Eva Marie Stolt thought Vasa was built this way. Mrs. Stolt, being aware that the builders were Dutch, concluded that the ship was built according to the southern method. As does Hoving. Hoving concluded that Vasa couldn't have been built with the northern method, because the shape of the hull was too round. Hoving says that ships built according to the northern method can only produce ships with a clear 'knuckle' (as Fred calls it) between the last plank of the floor ('vlak' in Dutch) and the adjacent plank further up. This theory prooved to be wrong. The E81-wreck is very round and built to the northern method. Hoving is still under the impression that the northern method can only produce 'square bottom'-ships. When I asked Hoving last year if he thought if Vasa was built according to the northern or southern method, he said he wasn't sure.

Thank you Fred for your elaborate answer. Very helpful. Just some thoughts:

Sure, Witsen was not a shipwright, but in this case that is a good thing. Being of a wealthy family assured that Witsen could, at a very young age, travel through Europe to study the different shipbuilding methods. And, luckily so, he was very interested in shipbuilding. His father (Cornelis) was at a certain time a member of the Admiralty of Amsterdam and acquired a lot of knowledge about shipbuilding there. As Witsen (Nicolaes) states in his book, his father was even educated by a shipbuilder. So the family was highly interested in shipbuilding, no doubt because they depended on their ships for their trade with Russia and so depended on ships for their wealth. 

Fred says the contracts ('certers' in Dutch) in Witsen's work are mainly from the 1620s and 30s, and that's true of course. But Witsen's work also includes contract from later date and a contract for the very large threedecked warship Vrede of 1667. And that prolongues the time frame for the northern method to the 60s. The French spies, Arnoul and Seignelay, prolongue the time frame to the 70s. They have seen the method in the early 70s and even made drawings of it. So it still must have been practiced then.

Fred says Van Yk dismissed the northern method as 'very old-fashioned'. The only quote from Van Yk I could find, that comes close to this, is not that harsh. Van Yk only states that the notherners are 'still' working according to the northern method. What of course makes clear that the southerners were, in the past, working in northern style also, but changed to southern frame-first style later. When? I'm afraid we are not sure yet.

The Rembrandt painting alone, of course, can not be conclusive.

The point that I am trying to make is that when you build according to the northern method, you have to make decisions about form in the early stages of the building proces. For example: the form of the square tuck ('spiegel' in Dutch) had to be determined. (Just ask 7 Provincien reconstructors Dik and Vos what can go wrong with that). One of the other things you have to decide on at the start, is the angle of the scarph in the keel. This determines the rise of the floor along the length of the ship. (Ask Vos again what can go wrong with that). Van Yk shows that records were kept of where the first plank adjacent to the keel ('zandstrook' in Dutch), started to rise above the keel. Van Yk also kept records of the angle the planking made at the tuck. He also makes clear that sometimes, when more ships of one type had to be built, the batten (scheerstrook) from the first ship was saved, in order to use it on the next ship. He also kept records of the turn of the bows. All this, to make sure the knowledge, based on experience, didn't get lost. Later, when the advantages of drawings were recognized, these carefuly guarded 'secrets' were laid down in drawings.

Sure, the shipwrights of those days had enough experience to build a ship from a contract. The problem is: we don't. The Hoving-claim that the building method determines the shape of the ship, is, I am sorry to say, wrong. Even Hoving doesn't have enough experience to build a ship on a contract. 
I started a discussion on ship-shapes with him last year. He works according the principle: just start building a model, the wood will tell you what is possible and what is not. But, as any model builder will tell you, there is almost no limit to how far you can bend a thin piece of wood when it is wet and heated. I tried and could come up with any shape of hull what so ever. 
Vos has tried this approach while building the bottom (vlak) of 7 Provincien, and came up with an impossible hull shape. Which had to be corrected by, amongst others, Hoving. Who then used a framing system to determine the correct shape.

Even in the seventeenth century the northern method delivered good and bad ships. But that goes for the southern method as well. In warship building the contracts changed all the time, so every ship was a first built, only based on previous experiences. But, that is true for these days as well. I have been in specialized machine building for a long time, never had a contract with the same specs twice.

Fred, you say that there has been a debate in publications about how Vasa was built. Can you tell me where? I was not able to find anything. Thank you.

Fred, you say that Landstrom followed the Witsen-method. I am not sure of that. The drawing you refer to, does not show the initial frame consisting of a floor timber with the two first futtocks attached to it. Another drawing shows Vasa from behind: the floor planking is laid, and we can see three complete frames. As I explained in my first post, this is not the case with Witsen. Witsen shows that the third furttocks are placed when the ship is in a much further advanced stage of construction. (By the way, the Hoving drawings in the book you refer to, aren't showing the exact Witsen-practice either.)

Fred, thank you for your elaboration on the subject of when the building-method of Vasa was finaly determined. Can I conclude that every proof before 2008/9 is dubious?
I think, together with Clayton I believe, the existence of nail plugs, preferably under the floor timbers, forms the absolute proof for building according to the northern method. Theories based on ship form (square is north, round is south) or planking form (carvel is south, overlapping is north), seem to fail. Take the Vasa for example: round but north; first building stage: carvel planking without frame; second stage: carvel planking on one frame; third stage: carvel planking on all frames, fourth stage: overlapping planking on frames.

I have read Kroum's work of 2002. Love it! Is the specific work on Vasa he did, going to be published in the Vasa-series? Or is it already available? Can't wait actualy.

Looking forward to the work of Kelby Rose. Should be very interesting. Any idea when his dissertation will be published? Can't wait for this either.

So, and now I'm going to order Fred's 'Philosophy'. Promises to be a good read.

And, Fred, thanks again for the elaborate answers. I agree, it's getting more and more interesting as we go along.

With regard to Clayton's question: did Kroum find an extra wide floor timber on the main frame ('hals' in Dutch)? I suppose the main frame for Vasa is on one third from the front of the total length of the ship measured over stem and stern. This should be the position where the first floor timber would be located and I can imagine this one being larger.

Thank you for the info on the Dutch 'shipwrights' of Vasa. Surprising news. Can we even still call them shipwrights?

Witsen for sure does not describe the only way ships were built in the northern way. But al least he provides the only trustable written source we have for this method. The guy wrote down what he saw, measured parts and presented it in great detail. When you're interested in this building method, there is no other way to gather reliable information, then to read his book; hard as it may be. Even when you're Dutch, as I am, his texts are hard to read, and finding things is a nightmare. But, perseverance will be rewarded. One extra warning: go to the original source, do not trust other people's interpretations of Witsen's texts, they're usually wrong. A lot of reference to Witsen is made to defend constructional solutions that, at the least, seem unlikely. Business as usual: when the source doesn't fit the preconceptions, we discard the source, not the preconceptions.

The only new sources that can shed light in the dark matters of Dutch ship building, can come from archeaology. And, in this specific case, now that has been determined that Vasa is built according to this method, from Vasa. Don't want to put extra pressure on you, Fred 

I personally think that there is not another shipbuilding method better documented than the Dutch northern method. Witsen's book gives reliable information, ship models (or still existing photo's from ship models) fill in some of the gaps, and, on top of that, a great supply of archeaological evidence that is expanding every day. Chances to get at least this one right, never looked more promising.

Fred, you say that, since no fastenings were found between the floortimbers and the futtocks and between the futtocks, you think that Vasa was not built according to the Witsen-method. In Witsen's method only at one position the first futtocks were attached to the floor timber: at the 'hals'. This set of three frame parts is the only set that has fastenings. The rest of the frame parts are only attached to the planks, not to eachother. I understand that with Vasa this set of three at the 'hals' was not present. Am I right?

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on the progression of the southern method in the Netherlands. Any ideas on the time frame for the introduction of the southern method? Do you think it was at the same time when carvel-building was introduced in Zierikzee and Hoorn, around 1460? Or much later?

Thank you for sharing my view on the 'Hoving-dogma': 'a square ship has to come out of the northern method'.

Fred, don't get me wrong, I am in no way saying that drawings had to be used with any ship building method. I think we can be pretty sure that drawings were not used for centuries and still good ships were built. When renaissance came, everything changed. Shipwrights, by learning to write, were more and more inclined to write down the basic principles at first, and their thouights on the subject later. Later, by learning to draw, they saw the advantages of keeping track of their records in a drawing. The problem was however, as it is today, how do you capture the difficult shape of the ship under the waterline on paper? After mastering that, it took another very long time before ship designers made correct predictions for the ships behaviour from a drawing. We're well into the 18th century then.
Let's not forget that the 17th century testing approach to ship behaviour, 'we do not know how it's going to behave, so let's drag a model through a water filled basin and see what happens', is still being used in these days. (In Wageningen for example).

To build a ship without drawings while applying the northern method, is certainly possible. Witsen shows so. He was trying to capture all the dimensions of all the parts of one ship, by giving these parts dimensions that were derived from the width of the stem. Since he derived the width of the stem from the length of the ship, we can say that he derived all measures for the parts from the length of the ship. After he had done that for one ship, he goes on to say that the dimensional relations for this ship, can be (mutatis mutandis) applied to ships with other lengths and even to other ship types.
This approach can also be seen in the 'old' 'table of Grebber', which Witsen included in his book. This table gives the major ship dimensions for a whole range of ships. These dimensions were derived form the length of the ship. For example: length (L): 170 foot, width 42 ft, 5 1/2 thumb (1/4xL), depth 17 foot (1/10xL) etc. Grebber's table also includes measures for determining the shape of certain parts: "the third futtocks hang over at the greatest width: 2 foot 6 thumb." In this way hull design was captured in writing.
Witsen expanded on this and tried to capture all the ship parts dimensions in these kinds of divisions. An immense task (he even gives divisions for door posts!), only to be undertaken by a very young person, who is still very ambitious.
Witsen tried to capture the shape of the hull of his ship, a pinas, in writing as well. He determined the shape by taking measures on an actual ship while it was being built. He took several heigth and width measurements at 7 stations along the length of the ship. In this way he registered an array of points on the ships hull and gave us a unique insight in the as built shape of the hull of a 17th century ship.
Ab Hoving derived his pinas-shape from the points that were given by Witsen. But, unfortunately, some of the points Witsen gave are not correct and have to be corrected to get a good fair hull shape. And this, unfortunately, leads to interpretation again. (Read Kamer and you know what I mean).
Ab also took measures of frame parts of the E81-wreck to check if these measures corresponded with the equations Witsen gives. Risky business, since the wreck was dried and not PEG-impregnated like Vasa. Over the many years, all parts have shrunk considerably. And, on top of that, the guys from NISA told me that all the parts were scraped down to remove a 'crust' that had formed. Again, I am looking forward to Kelby Rose's work; Vasa could provide some interesting answers!

After posting my last post, I realized that I forgot to mention that the 'spijkerpennetjes' are not the only indicator for the northern method. No fastenings between frame parts is, I believe, another one. No way to build a ship according the southern method, without fastenings between the structural frame parts.

Fred, on your book. Delivery time: 3 weeks, a long wait. But, when I finally get to read it, I will keep your warning about the hammerless people in mind.

By the way, I love to confuse people with detail. For me everything has to be right to the last detail. If not, something unexpected may pop up that will shatter my illusions of complete perception. I am still brooding on some detailed tech-questions. I will open new threads for those.

One more question for this thread though: who decided to show the northern method in the diorama in the museum and in the several  other models in the Vasa-museet, and when? He or she got it right years ago and well before 2008/09. I still can't figure out the time line with respect to Landstrom and Stolt. Thank you.

Kind regards and a good weekend,

Jules

Ps. I included a sketch of a section of a ship at the 'hals', when it is ready to receive the first two third futtocks: completely planked up on the inside, still open on the outside. The beams for the orlop deck and the lower gundeck are in place.