The Admiralty of the Maze's ship, the Dolphijn, or Gulden Dolphijn is interesting, in that there are at least two sets of conflicting information about her characteritics. One is from the Staet van Oorlog te Water for the year 1654, and is what was apparently used by Vreugdenhil for his list, published in 1938. The other is from the document dated 26 February 1652 that says it was written for the "Admiraliteit van Rotterdam" (the Maze). The data from the Staet van Oorlog te Water is as follows:
Gulden Dolphijn, 32 guns
built in 1634
Dimensions:
Maas feet (308mm): 116ft x 25ft x 12ft
Amsterdam feet (283mm): 127ft x 27ft x 13ft
Guns:
Brass 4-chambered 24pdr, 2-chambered 5pdr
Iron 16-12pdr, 8-6pdr, 2-4pdr
The data from the 26 February 1652 document is as follows:
Dolphijn, 28 guns
Dimensions:
Maas feet (308mm): 110ft x 25.5ft x 12.5ft
Amsterdam feet (283mm): 120ft x 27ft x 13.5ft
As you can see, they differ considerably. They apparently describe the same ship, however! This just reiterates the lesson that "there are no mystery ships". If you think that there is a mystery ship, you just don't know enough, yet. On the other hand, a great number of Amsterdam Directors' ships escaped being included in Vreugdenhil's list, when they could easily have been, as the documents listing them were in the Nationaal Archief in The Hague. They were mostly just missing details such as ship name, dimensions, and a listing of guns. They largely were included in the listing in The First Dutch War, Vol.I.
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