Page 221 - Nicolaes Witsen & Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age

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1 Contracts as Historical Sources
The data on the pinas, which we have seen in the prev ious chapter, could be called a contract. However, such elaborate contracts were rare. Strictly speaking, the contract was more than a collection of shipbuilding data. It was also a busi- ness contract in which costs and delivery date were stipulated.
The Contract
Witsen used the words bestek (contract) and charter (also cherter or certer, meaning “charter” but also “r ate”) indiscriminately. The difference between these terms is dealt with in chapter 1 (see the section “Contract Specifications”). Witsen describes a certer as a contract between client and contractor:
(98 I 49) When Ships, made in this country, are ordered, it is common that the client or buyer dictates rules, and conditions to the Master Shipwrigh t and Seller, after which he wants the ship to be built: w hich rules and in- structions are called, with a foreign word, Certer.
In his next chapter Witsen presents several contracts. However, a close ex - amination reveals many differences. For instance, in the contract for the 125-foot ship in passage 98 II 5 (see “C ontracts for Hulls” below), business agreements are included with the s tructural and tec hnical details, whereas the short con- tracts “made by Mr. Dirk Raven” (see “Contracts for Hulls”) are so concise that they appear to be no more th an notes made by the shipwright for his own use. Yet this important difference is not conveyed by any significant difference in ter- minology in Witsen’s text.
In general the m ain dimensions of the ship were the fi rst issue to be men- tioned in the c ontract: length, breadth, depth, and sometimes also the height between lower and upper deck. Occasionally the orlop deck is mentioned. Then the stem and sternposts are desc ribed: their height and r ake, thickness and width, and sometimes (for the stem) also the curve (i.e., the distance between the inner face of the stem and the diag onal line drawn from the keel to the top of the stem).1
The contract for the Mauritius of 1639 in passage 108 I 33 (see “Contracts for Hulls”) even states that the stem was to be more curved at the top and a little straighter below; in thi s case, a circle-arc is out of the question. In section 2 of chapter 2 Witsen describes the c onstruction of a stem b y the aid of a fl exible
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