Page 32 - Nicolaes Witsen & Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age

Chapter 1
in three r ates (charters), measuring 130, 145, and 160 Amsterdam feet (1 Amsterdam foot = 28 .3 centimeters). Whetherthereturnship wassimplyrenamed“pinas”or the advantages of the abo ve-mentioned warship were fused with the older , slower merc hantman remains un- clear. It is noteworthy, however, that in the 16 90s, when this shift occurs, we fi nd the frig ate mentioned b y the Dutch East India C ompany for the fi rst time, probab ly a replacement for the old term pinas, which then acquired another meaning.
A comparison of Witsen’s 134-foot pinas with the smallest rate of 130 feet, established in the resolution of the East India C ompany of April 4, 16 97, reveals that the first, being four feet longer, is also four feet narrower than the second. We can then ask ourselves whether the use of the name pinas in the earlier case did not in fact refer to a
Figure 1.9. Model of a pinas, built by the author from information in Wit- sen’s treatise. Originally a small war jacht, the pinas developed into an armed merchantman of medium size in the middle of the seventeenth cen- tury, later into a heavy East Indiaman. (Courtesy Cees de Jonge, The Visual Art Box)
faster ship. Unfortunately, we cannot be so quick to draw this conclusion. In 1660, for instance, the East India Com- pany commissioned a ship, the Diemermeer, with exactly the same dimensions as Witsen’s pinas (134 × 2 9 × 1 3 feet); yet this ship was a fluyt. Measurements alone, then, are not conclusive in defining ship types.
The evolution from re turn vessel to pinas can be com- pared with the shift to frigates in the war fleet. When the Dunkirk pirates became such a nuisance in the 1630s that Holland decided to de al with them in an org anized way, it soon became apparent that the small, fast pirate ships had many advantages over the l arge “ships of violence” of the Dutch Admiralties. This is the main reason why the frigatewasintroducedasasmaller,fasterman-of-warnext to the large warships. The frigates proved such a success that soon the l arger rates were “frig ated” ( gefregateerd),
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