Page 141 - Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters
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to Surat by an armed yacht because the flute needed its canons in the hold for ballast (NA .., Geleynssen de Jongh ). During the period -, peace with Portugal made it possible to increase the relative proportion of flutes to other vessel types in the shipping in this region. From the retourschepen took on the role of rate men-of-war because they were both suited to and available for this purpose. The role of the middle-sized yachts was unchanged as good defensible and well-sailing yachts for the blockade of Goa. Due to the shipbuilding policy of the VOC, as well as that of the Admiralty in the Netherlands of building bigger (war) yachts, these ships started to play an important role in the region after and in turn replaced the retourschepen. Table .: The activity-level of the various types of VOC vessels in the separate destinations in the Ara- bian Sea region. - (areas in the first row of the table: . Arabian Peninsula, . Persia, . Pakistan and northwestern India, . Goa Area, . Malabaar, . Maldives) Looking at the separate destinations in this region, there are no major differences in the role of certain types of vessels. So in general it can be concluded that this whole region required defen- sible vessels larger then last that were able to combine military functions with trade. Con- voys had to be organised for the pure merchant vessels. Bay of Bengal (Areas -) This region comprises Ceylon in the southwest, the Coromandel Coast in the west, Bengal in the north and the Andaman coast in the east. In this region no heavy sea and weather condi- tions were expected. Most of the destination ports were subject to monsoon seasons but, pro- vided the skippers’ navigation was good, shipping to and from this region was possible throughout the year. As was the case with Galle, which was also, in theory at least, accessible all year round, only a slight miscalculation could take a vessel a mile downwind of the entrance and make it impossible to reach the harbour. So shipping between harbours within the region was strongly monsoon-dependent. The shallow river mouth of the Ganges and some destina- tions in certain seasons on the Coromandel Coast required shallow-going vessels Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters .
