More about "Charters"

The Dutch referred to a warship specification as a "Charter". These are some examples that seem charter-like, using Amsterdam feet as the measure:

250 lasts   128 feet long   
200 lasts   125 feet long
200 lasts   120 feet long
170 lasts   116 feet long

More formerly, were the ships built in the First Anglo-Dutch War building program. There were three official charters, but there was wide variation from them:

Large  150ft x 38ft x 15ft
Medium 136ft x 36ft x 14ft
Small  130ft x 32ft x 13.5ft

The reality was that many of of the 130ft ships, such as the Noorderkwartier ship Jupiter, were built to a variation of those dimensions: 130ft x 32ft x 12ft. Armament seem to have not been specified by Charters. Armament were more driven by the availibility of guns, at least in the 1650's and 1660's. Frank Fox says that the Dutch had solved their gun supply problem by the 1670's, so that the Zeven Provinciën could have a complete lower tier of 36pdrs. A good source on Charters is Dr. Elias's book De Vlootbouw in Nederland.