Page 228 - Nicolaes Witsen & Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age

Chapter Three
The Yacht de Brack
The second experiment had its inception in 1993 when I was commissioned by the Dutc h community in Oak land, New Zealand, to build a model of Abel Tasman’s Heems- kerck. As no plans for the ship were known to exist, I used Witsen’s contract for a yacht named de Brack, its specifica- tions scaled up slightly, and applied his building method and formulas.5 This experiment had some fl air. The ship
was larger th an the pl easure yacht and the c onstruction more complicated; yet the specifications were much less elaborate. But even from suc h a minim al contract it is possible to build a reconstruction if the rules described in chapter 2 are applied. Little more than the dimensions of the stem and sternpost, the t uck, the keel, and the m ain frame are provided in the contract:
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Figure 3.13. Detail of a print by Claes Janszoon Visscher, c. 1635. On boats with the mastless “lateen yard rig” depicted here, the sails were probably never lowered but furled around the yard with the sheet. They were probably marled to the yards
with a lacing line, and the yards would have to be lifted from the t abernacle to remove the sail altogether.
Figure 3.14. Speeljachten, by Willem van de Velde the Elder, 1660. Van de Velde depicts two lowering masts, rigged with an early version of the bezan rig with tiny gaffs. This type probably superseded the older “lateen yard rig” specified in Witsen’s pleasure yacht contract. Indeed, this etching was made long after the probable date of the contract.