Page 84 - Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters
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cargo capacity are included in Rate : ships; small junks are included in Rate : miscellaneous small vessels. Fig. .: Bird's eye view of Bangkok, Anonymous, Badische Landesbibliothek. Vessels flying the Dutch flag at the former toll post Bankock on the River Menam in Thailand. The VOC used locally rented vessels as well as ships built for the company after models of Dutch ships for trans- port between the Gulf of Siam, where the large ships had to remain, and the capital Ayutthaya, higher up the river. An example of a vessel built after Dutch examples is the ‘bark’ or yacht Amsterdam (ID ) of rate , which also made voyages to Batavia. It probably looked like the four small vessels on the right, of which one is painted as a -masted Dutch ‘bezaansjacht’, and the other with typical Dutch leeboards. The two large Dutch ships which lay for anchor at the mouth of the river could be the homeward-bounder Groot Mauritius (ID ) and the Wapen van Hoorn (ID) which were at the mouth of the river together during the second half of . These miscellaneous small vessels were used for a wide variety of utilitarian purposes such as communication, cargo, and transport. Their purpose in military operations was to pursue the smaller Asian vessels. They were not fit to encounter heavy fire because they were only lightly armed and had little protection against cannon shot or boarding by the enemy. This rate gradu- ally took over the role of the Rate vessels (afbreekboots) that the VOC brought out from the Netherlands. The Asian vessels in this category were often well adapted for service in a specific region: in the waters around Taiwan small jonken that were rented, purchased or captured served as logistical support around this important junction of shipping in the Far East. A number of vessels with typically Dutch ship-type descriptions were built for the VOC in Asia, apparently to Dutch design. Drawings often show VOC vessels in Asia with typically Dutch leeboards. Boeiers, a vessel type originally built for the shallow waters of the Dutch coast, were built and used by the VOC in the Ganges delta where similar conditions existed. But boeiers also sailed between the Spice Islands and from there to the Kay and Aru archipelagos east of Banda. Kaag and smack, were also ship-types of the Dutch coastal and inland waters that were used on the relatively sheltered route from Batavia to Jambi where they were able to sail upriver. Vessels named bark, were built in Siam to Dutch design and used by the VOC to The development of the VOC fleet
