Page 74 - Nicolaes Witsen & Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age

Chapter Two
Make the rabbet one fourth the thickness of the stem, from the upper side of the keel, also make it about one fourth deep, and as broad, at the rear end it should be kept straight down, [ . . . ].
(149 I 9)
. ..
3. The rabbet here is little less than in the . ..
(66 II 25)
keel.
(150 I 12)
made, as is shown at f on the same plate [fig. 2.41; f is missing, but Witsen’s heavy black line indicates the rab- bet], and when the stem is made fast on the k eel, then a spline [rey or rij ] is taken and bent from the end of the rabbet in a cur ve as wished , the upper side is copied from the spline, and wi th a compass with a piece of chalk also the breadth of the Rabbet is drawn from the spline, then cut the Rabbet an d make the overlap of the scarf and the boxing scarf well fastened.
56
Then a part of the Rabbet in the Stem is
15. Then the Garboard Stern Rabbet Is Made, with the Keel Rabbet
The garboard stern r abbet, mentioned prev iously in sec - tion 3 (The Sternpost) and made in the sternpost as well as in the keel, was a rabbet in which the planks were set. The dimensions of the rabbet depended on the thickness of the planks as a matter of course. In general, we can say that the upper edge of the rabbet was as muc h re- moved from the upper s ide of the keel as the breadth of the rabbet itself, leaving about half the keel outside the planking.
Figure 2.38. Exploded view of the stern construction. The rabbet on the mid-section of the front side of the post differs slightly from Witsen’s description and is based on the wreck of a seventeenth-century trader that was recovered in the former Zuider Zee. 1, keel; 2, sternpost; 3, knee;
4, wing transom; 5, fashion pieces; 6, transoms; 7; broekstuk; 8, stern timbers. (Courtesy G. A. de Weerdt)
Figure 2.39. (below) Plate XXVII. Knee on the keel against the sternpost.
(72 II 42) 4. The rabbet from the side 4 1⁄2 inches; the rabbet broad 31⁄2 inches, the rabbet deep 3 inches.
5.Thegarboardsternrabbetlongorhigh5 1⁄2 feet, thick outward 6 inches, the square thick 13 inches.
(71 II 42) The rabbet, which turns at the rear in as much as the ship is plank ed at or sharp, is broad 3 1⁄2 inches, deep 31⁄2 inches, the edge above the rabbet broad 4 inches.