Dutch ships at the Battle of Portland

I have my working list of Dutch ships at the Battle of Portland (the Three Days Battle), but I already see a potential problem. On page 69, a Captain "Willem Aryens" is mentioned in the battle, and I think that this would be a reference to Willem Ariensz Warmont, who was captain of the Rotterdam ship Gorcum (30 guns). I do not have that ship in my list.

The hired ship Hollandsche Tuin

Any doubt that the hired 24-gun ship that was commanded by Joris Block in 1653 was the same ship as that which had served in 1652 were removed with I looked at the gun list. The list from September 1652 and the list from 23 June 1653 are indentical. The dimensions are similar, which is good, as the list from 23 June 1653 has dimensions that often vary from what we believe to be accurate.

The Dutch after the Battle of Portland

While the Battle of Portland, or as the Dutch called, the Three Days Battle, was hard fought, it was not as intense as the Four Days' Battle in June 1666. In the Battle of Portland, the hard fighting took place on the first day. Already, after the first day, the Dutch were running short of gun powder and shot. The Dutch acquired a new interest in the status of ships and how much gun powder, in particular, that they carried. They always had been interested in the status of victuals and water carried.

One consequence of the Battle of Portland was that the Dutch largely rearmed their ships. The fleet flagship Brederode had, by the time of the Battle of the Gabbard, a complete lower tier of 24pdr and 36pdr guns. Prior to that, there were still some 18pdr guns on the lower tier. The overall effect was to increase the broadside weight of many ships. After the Battle of the Gabbard, they often included inventories of shot carried for the guns, as they gathered more status information after the battle.

The Dutch did their best to learn from "the last battle", at least what they saw the problems to be. One consequence of the Battle of the Kentish Knock on 8 October 1652 was to start building new and larger ships for the fleet. The first had joined the fleet for the Battle of Scheveningen, but they did not join the fleet in larger numbers until after that battle. At this time, the Dutch had difficulty in providing guns for the new ships.

The Amsterdam ship Overijssel in 1655

By May of 1655, the 112ft Amsterdam ship Overijssel carried a much lighter armament than it had previously. Initially, the Overijssel carried a lower tier of 10pdr guns. By 1655, the armament was now mixed, with six 12pdr and the rest 8pdr guns. The 6pdr guns seem to have been retained and there were two "drakes", which could have been the original 3pdr drakes. The new broadside was about 111 pounds while the original broadside weight was 147 pounds. We could imagine that the 10pdr gun was now non-standard and there could have been a desire to move to the standard shot weights. The ship would probably have carried a lighter armament, although we would have to know the weights of the guns to be sure. Of course, we don't have those figures.

A bothersome fact about 17th Century Dutch ship data

I just received the photographs for pages showing Amsterdam ship specifications, dating from 1655. The bothersome feature is that while they are consistent with what was published by Vreugdenhil in 1938, they differ considerably from lists dating from 1652 and 1653. I knew that this was the case, but the dimensions for many Amsterdam ships are what is different. In one case, the length is shown as five feet shorter (for the Maeght van Enkhuizen).

A Friesland ship in 1655 named Omlandia

I am now receiving photographs of documents from 1655. There is one page that shows a ship of the Admiralty of Friesland that is named Omlandia. This is a ship of approximately the dimensions of the Zevenwolden that was sunk at the Battle of Scheveningen. The Omlandia was also 122ft long. The Omlandia only carried 30 guns, unlike the Zevenwolden, which carried between 34 and 38 guns at different dates. The ship in this document doesn't match other listing that I have seen for a Friesland Omlandia in service in 1655.

La armada invencible by Cesáreo Fernández Duro

I suddenly thought of looking to see if La armada invencible By Cesáreo Fernández Duro might be available through Google Books, and it was. I just downloaded the PDF file. I had despaired of ever finding the book and now I (sort of) have it. This is an important source book, from the Spanish perspective, about the Spanish Armada. The book is reportedly based on a cache of documents discovered in an old Spanish castle, back in the latter 19th Century.