Page 13 - Nicolaes Witsen & Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age

Fresco of the building of St. Ursula’s ship with the frame-first method, by the “Veneto Master,” c. 1350. From Michelangelo Muraro, Paolo da Venezia (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1970). (Reproduced by André Wegener Sleeswyk)
are joined together only by the frames.9 The Serce Liman wreck, dating from c. ad 1025, represents the e arliest known example of the skeleton-first system, which natu- rally results in carvel planking.
The earliest known depiction of the frame-first method of shipbuilding dates to c onsiderably later, c. 1 350, on a fresco by the anonymous “Veneto Master” (1310–58).10 The expansion of this system of ship construction to north- western Europe took place about a c entury later, a step that is sufficiently documented to provide some historical underpinning for the mode of transfer of this technique.
In all probability the transmission is linked to the dy- nastic marriage of Philip the Good, duk e of Burgundy, to Isabella of Portugal in 1430. From that date onward a dis- tinct Portuguese influence in the Burgundian possessions can be traced in a number of fields, including shipbuild- ing. As part of this cultural transfer, in 1439 Philip ordered the Portuguese naval architect Jehan Perhouse to build in Brussels not only a n ao but also a c aravel.11 This type of ship had not been built previously in Flanders. The caravel (caravela in Portuguese) gave its name to the method of “carvel-building,” in which the frames are erected before the planking is mounted. More th an likely Philip i ssued this order to promote the adoption of this innovation in his territories.
After an “incubation period” of two decades the frame- first method spread to Holland and Germany. According to Jan van Reijgersbergh’s Dye Chronijcke van Zeelandt (The Chronicle of Zeeland), published in 155 1, the fi rst carvel- planked ship was built in the province of Zeeland in 1459 in the sm all town of Zierikzee, again by a foreign n aval architect called Juliaen de Bretoen, or Julian from Brittany. In 1460 a carvel ship was built in the town of Hoorn,12 ac-
cording to the town’s chronicle, written by Velius in 1604, and in the s ame year two kraweelen are mentioned in a letters of marque issued by Danzig (now Gdansk).13 These were flush-planked ships built with the sk eleton-first method.
Although this newmethodof construction spread quickly through the nor th, it did not entirely replace the older shell-first system, as is clear from Witsen’s descrip- tion of the latt er as something that was obviously, for him, the st andard method in 16 71. There are numerous other indications that the older system was only partially replaced. The photograph of the Swedish shipwright who is busy putting futtoc ks into the completed clinker-built shell, which Casson reproduced in hi s book on anc ient watercraft, is well known.14 In the Dutch province of Fries- land flush-planked boats of a loc al type c alled Staverse Jol were built in the s ame manner; a gre at number of temporary cleats held the str akes forming the shel l to- gether prior to the in sertion of frames. The method i s still used by some builders of boeiers (boyers) and other small watercraft in this province, which illustrates that the skeleton-first method never completely replaced the older shell-first system in northwestern Europe.
No doubt an impor tant reason for preferring the skeleton-first method is that fitting the frames to the hull in a l arge ship, e ach of them weighing sever al hundred kilograms, was a more difficult operation than mounting strakes one after the other on apreexisting set of frames.15 These frames could be he avier and strong er than those which were inserted in the shell of strakes in the shell-first method. This advantage was an important consideration, even in view of the fact that the new method of construc- tion, when tried for the first time in a town or in a shipyard
Foreword
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