Page 188 - Nicolaes Witsen & Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age

Chapter Two
Figure 2.225.
[mistakenly numbered “112” in the original] and 127). Witsen’s original table has been digitally altered to show the Dutch text in English. The column headings for anchor weights are not retouched and reflect the English system of hundredweight (“Cen.”), quarters (“Quart.”), and pounds (“Pont.”) (Scanned image modified by Emiel Hoving)
12 750 121⁄2 2750 13 3000 131⁄2 3250 14 3500 141⁄2 3800
15 4900
16 5332
17 5900
18 6600
19 7000
20 8000
21 9000
For the largest Ships, which are equipped for War, cables of 120 fathoms are laid , to better ride at an- chor, and these are thick 20 or 22 inches: they are laid from three ropes, each made of three strands, w hich are composed of about 900 yarns each, so that the entire rope consists of 18000 yarns, at a thickness of 20 inches, such a cable weighs 9 1⁄2 thousand pounds, when tarred.
126. Anchor Cables
There is something peculiar about Witsen’s table of cable sizes according to anc hor weight (fig. 2.225). It seems to be a li st of English origin, a s the anc hor weights are shown in hu ndredweight (“Cen.”), quarters (“Quart.”), and pounds (“Pont.”). One hundredweight is 112 pounds. There are twenty hundredweight to a ton. A quar ter is 28 pounds or two stone.
As these units of measurement were not in use in Hol- land, it appears that Witsen borrowed thi s information from lists in Edward Hayward’s The Sizes and Lengths of Rigging for All the States Ships and Frigats (1655). Hay - ward was clerk of the sur vey at the Chatham Dockyard, one of several Royal Navy dockyards. Other lists that Wit- sen appears to have borrowed are the ones on rope thick- nesses relative to their m asts (see fi gs. 2.226 through 2.230). Although Hayw ard even gives rope leng ths and does not refer to mast thicknesses, the sizes of ropework for his largest ship ( Sovereign) correspond precisely to the dimensions Witsen gives for a 34- inch mast. The fol- lowing order of the ropes and the apparently laboriously translated terms are identical. The numbers for rope sizes in both t ables are the s ame (with few ex ceptions), both vertically and horiz ontally. Witsen’s printer must have rather freely inserted a few c olumns (8, 9 , 10, and 11) in the wrong pl aces. These are the four c olumns that Hay-
170
(at left) Cable sizes by anchor weight (pp. 126