Page 93 - Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters
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Crew The crew of the ship was possibly the most important aspect of the self-sufficiency of the expe- ditions to Asia. At the beginning of Asian shipping, little experience existed in long haul voyages and the size of the crew required had not yet been determined. On the first voyage to Asia, the crewmembers divided over a fleet of four ships (with a total of almost last) turned out to be too few to bring all the ships back to Europe. During the voyage, the size of the crew was reduced to such an extent that one of the vessels needed to be abandoned. Of the crewmembers, only survived the trip to Asia. The middle-sized ship Amsterdam (ID:) was destroyed by purpose near Java (Rouffaer & IJzerman , p ). On the following expedi- tions from the Netherlands to Asia the same problem arose. During the voyage, the fleet was so under-manned that sailors from Java had to be employed to take the ships back to Europe (De Jonge , p. ). On the ship Lange Bark (ID:), so many sailors of the initial crew of were incapacitated that only seven were able to serve at the helm. The hopelessness of the situation was expressed in the ships journal: Two were onboard who could climb the topmast, of which one earned a jar of wine because he had hung the flag, (in my opinion) he would have deserved it more if he had hung a black sheet (cited in Foreest & Booij , p. ) Although ships were almost never left behind exclusively due to problems with the crew, the running ashore of the Liefde (ID:)in Japan (Adams , kolom ) and the Hendrik Frederik on Ternate can be partly explained by the lack of capable crew. The burning of the unseaworthy Haarlem (ID:) near Patani in could also have been as a result of problems with the crew (Foreest & Booij , p. ). Almost every ship that was sent out by the Voorcompagnieën in this period had substantial difficulties in returning to the Netherlands, because there were simply too few fit crewmembers to sail. On the return voyage of the Tweede Schipvaart in , the situation was so pressing that one of the ships even had to borrow crew from an English ship in order to sail safely through the channel back to the Netherlands (Keuning , p. ). In the expeditions that followed, the experience gained led to larger crews and a drop in mortality due to quicker routes and more reliable staging posts. However, the larger crews created new logistical problems. In order to house these extra people and their supplies, the space on board needed to be rearranged. In particular, the stock of food for two to three years required new facilities and specially adapted rooms were con- structed. The bread rooms, for instance, were sheathed with tin to protect the bread. If the food was consumed in the course of the voyage, these locations were used for the storage of cargo for the return voyage, especially the more valuable and vulnerable products like spices, includ- ing pepper (see e.g. Keuning , p. ; De Jonge , p ; Van Foreest & Booy , p. ). Although the larger crews solved the immediate problem, of keeping the ships sailing, new logistical requirements were created of which the Dutch had little experience. Ballast Adaptations to the ship to house a larger crew and their supplies created adjustment problems for the ballast of the vessel. Traditionally, the Dutch skippers were able to sail their ships with- out cargo with only the necessary ballast to make the ships stable. The new problem was the diversity of the equipment and variable nature of food supplies during the voyage. To find the balance between cargo, equipment, supplies and ballast was a challenge for the Dutch skipper. It is obvious that this was a process of trial and error. The early journals describe the difficulties they had in stabilising the ships; sometimes the volume of the required items they had to carry did not provide enough weight to stabilise the ship. Lambert Biesman, who sailed in the fleet of Oliver van Noort, complains in that they missed a favourable opportunity to sail because: ‘the ship was crammed with goods but \[was\] too unstable to sail’ (cited in IJzerman , p. ). The shipping and logistics in operation
