Page 30 - Nicolaes Witsen & Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age

Chapter 1
greatly complicated designing but significantly improved the shape of the ship.
The English shipyards took more time to build a ship, but their ships lasted longer. Deane’s successful Resolu- tion was lost thir ty-eight years after its launching without giving the impres sion of being an old ship, and Sover- eign of the Sea lasted almost one hundred years before a knocked-over candle finished its career. In Holland ships were usually worn out in twenty years. Abel Tasman’s Heemskerck, built in 1639, was b roken up eleven years after its launching, and De Zeven Provinciën, De Ruyter’s famous battleship, lasted twenty-nine years. Of the Dutch ships mentioned in Vreugdenhil’s list for the period 1660 to 1670, which were event ually broken up, the aver age age is twenty years.16
The Pinas as Example
It is almost impossible to m ake any hard and f ast state- ments about seventeenth-century ship types and their names—not only because these types evolved slowly over the course of the century, but also because the meaning of the n ames appear to h ave changed, although no re a-
Figure 1.7. Model of the East Indiaman Prins Willem, built in 1649. In the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–54) it served as a man-of-war; it sank in 1662 with all hands on board during one
of its return trips from Asia. (Courtesy Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
son for this can be found in the ship’s outward shape or construction. The pinas is an example of this.
The return ship ( retourschip) of the Dut ch East In- dia Company was one of the largest vessels in the sev- enteenth century, although it existed in sever al sizes. Common characteristics were the square t uck and other features that made it well suited for repe ated voyages to the East Indies, such as having a large-cargo capacity and being heavily armed. An ex ample of such a ship i s the Prins Willem, a model of which is displayed in the Rijk s- museum in Amsterdam. This size of return ship was so heavily armed th at in times of war the Dut ch East India Company hired them out to the Admir alties as men-of- war. Thus the Prins Willem briefly served as the admir al ship of Witte de With, one of the Dut ch admirals, in the Battle of Kijkduin of 1652. Six gunports were added on the main deck, and its armaments were incre ased from twenty-four to forty guns.
Apart from large, armed merchantmen, the Dutch East India Company had smaller ships, which were not built for a ret urn voyage. These were m ainly small merchant- men, such as fluiten (fluyts, sometimes called “flutes” or “flyboats”), and later mainly hoekers (or quellen) and gal-
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