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Monday, January 29, 2007

A Zeeland ship named Meermin

Ron van Maanen continues the story about the Zeeland ship named Meermin that was 130ft long and which was mentioned between 1641 and 1655. Carl Stapel says that the Meerminne (the old spelling) was another name for Gillis Janszoon's ship, the Zeeridder. Carl says that the Meerminne is the feminine spelling, while Zeeridder is the masculine. Vreugdenhil, in his list, though, mentions the Meermin with the characteristics given my Ron van Maanen. I suspect, although I do not remember for sure, that Dr. Elias's book De Vlootbouw in Nederland, in a table in an appendix, lists the Meermin in 1655 with this length. Ron gives the armament as 34 guns and the size as 300 lasts. That is a bit small for a 300 last ship, but possible. 300 last ships were usually at least 132ft long, if not larger than that. On the other hand, in Dr. Simon Hart's papers, he shows a 200 last ship of 128ft x 25-1/2ft x 11ft. The formula is "lasts = length x beam x hold / K, where I can vary above or below 200. In this case, K=179.52. A 300 last ship with dimensions of 130ft x 32ft x 13.5ft would have K=187.2. Still, we have not seen any sign of the ship mentioned by Vreugdenhil and Ron van Maanen.

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