36pdr guns in the Dutch navy

Prior to 1665, and even after that, very few Dutch warships carried any 36pdr guns. The Aemilia and Brederode, both flagships, both carried them, as did the Eendracht blown up at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665. Michiel De Ruyter's flagship, the Zeven Provincien carried more 36 pdrs than any Dutch ship previously seen, as it had 12 in 1666. The Aemilia and Brederode carried four each. A few other ships had 36pdrs. For example, the Groene Draeck, 250-last ship built in 1623, carried two of them. The Hof van Zeeland, lost at the Four Days' Battle had two, as well. The Delfland, Michiel De Ruyter's flagship in the summer and early fall of 1665 carried one 36pdr. Sources:

1. James C. Bender, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Ships 1600-1700", 2006
2. H.A. van Foreest and R.E.J. Weber, De Vierdaagse Zeeslag 11-14 Juni 1666, 1984
3. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Warships 1600-1800", undated but circa 1992

One thing that interests me are keel lengths for Dutch ships

They only seem to be scarcely documented, but there are some keel lengths known for Dutch warships. They seem known for more ships built from the 1680's and beyond. Ron van Maanen has some of them in his long document:

Adm   Ship                Date Length    Keel Length  Length to Keel
A     Argo                1772 149ft-9in 140ft-2in    1.0688
N     Arnhem              1693 145ft     123-1/2ft    1.174
A     Beemster Koe        1686 138ft     115ft        1.2
N     Beschermer          1690 170ft     146-1/4ft    1.1624

Sources:

1. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Warships 1600-1800", undated but circa 1992

One continuing mystery: the Dutch prize Bear, taken by the English

Somehow, Ron van Maanen has Dutch specifications for ship that was taken by the English and which served as the Bear. This ship is still a mystery, since the obvious conclusion was that this was the Monnikendam Directors' ship commanded by Jacob Claesz Boot in the summer of 1652. The Swarte Beer still seems to have been in service with the Dutch in August 1653, by now commanded by Jan Cornelisz Oli. This was a large ship, 132ft long, with 32 guns.

The Amsterdam ship Banier from 1691

The Amsterdam ship Banier was built in 1691 during the War of the English Succession. The Banier was built by Hendrik Cardinaal at Amsterdam. There was another report that the Banier had been built by Jan van Rheenen. Ron van Maanen has the details about the Banier. The dimensions were 145ft x 39ft x 15ft. The Banier carried 64 guns and had a crew of 325 men. The armament consisted of 24-18pdr, 24-12pdr, and 16-6pdr guns. The Banier was broken up in 1719 (or, perhaps, in 1718). Sources:

1. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Warships 1600-1800", undated, but circa 1992

The Burcht van Leiden of 1653

Ron van Maanen has the details about the Amsterdam ship Burcht van Leiden, which was built at Edam in 1653 by Pieter Pietersz "Ouwtdaas". The contract called for a ship that was 130ft long with a 13ft hold. The ship was built larger than that. The ship survived at Amsterdam until 18 April 1685, when the ship was to be sold at auction, since it had become "unservicable". The dimensions usually given were 132-1/2ft x 32ft x 13-1/2ft, with a height between decks of 7ft. In April 1655, the guns were listed as 4-18pdr, 22-12pdr, 14-8pdr, and 4 drakes (probably 6pdr). The ship was often called the Burgh van Leiden. Sources:

1. Ron van Maanen, unpublished manuscript "Dutch Warships 1600-1800", undated, but circa 1992

Game programming books

I am still a rookie game programmer. I have done a small amount of 2D Blitz Basic programming, using the Visual Blitz IDE, but that is all I have done. I am an experienced Java programmer, so in my continuing program to get to the point that I can do some game programming, I purchased Jonathan Harbour's book Beginning Java 5 Game Programming. Last week, my wife bought me a book called The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners, by Jacob Habgood and Mark Overmars (a Dutch professor). I am interested in developing simulation-style naval wargames for 17th Century naval gaming. I at least have the continuing delusion that I might have something to contribute on the subject. I suspect that my first effort will be 2D, not 3D, due to the difficulty of generating 3D models.

We should be able to estimate the rake and thickness of the side for Dutch ships captured by the English

Where we have both Dutch dimensions and English dimensions when a Dutch ship was captured and the dimensions were recorded, we should be able to estimate the rake and the thickness of the planking on the side. We might use the Amsterdam ship Edam. The only possible issue is that the length is somewhat in dispute. The usual length given is 120ft, but we have instances where the length was given as 124ft. If we use the "classic" dimensions, we find:

The ship Edam or Wapen van Edam, called the Black Bull by the English

Dutch Measurements

      Amsterdam ft English ft
Length  120ft      111ft-4in
Beam     28ft       26ft
Hold     11ft       10ft-2.5in

English Measurements 

      Amsterdam ft English ft
Keel    92ft-7.5in  86ft
Beam    30ft-6in    28ft-4in
Depth   12ft-1in    12ft

If this has any validity, we might think that the rake was 120ft - 92ft-7.5in, or 27ft-3.5in. The thickness of one side is (30ft-6in - 28ft)/2 = 1ft-3in. If we feel daring, we would see if we can tell the camber of the deck. The Dutch measured the hold at the side, where the deck connected with the side. The English measured at the high point, under the deck at the center. They may not have measured from the same place, but let us imagine that they did. That would make the deck camber 1ft-1in, seems rather high. I took these figures from an old post from 2004.

Carl Stapel says that I am mistaken about the Groninger Nicolaes and Gelderland

Carl Stapel says that the Groninger Nicolaes (or Groninger Sint Nicolaes) and the Gelderland were two separate ships. He says that they both took part in the Battle of the Kentish Knock. Despite the fact that I had seen the page with Laurens Hermansz Degelcamp in command of the Gelderland, I cannot find the photograph, today.

The ships Gelderland and Groeningen Nicolaes were the same ship

I have photographs of pages from the Nationaal Archief that show that the ships Gelderland and Groeningen Nicolaes were the same ship. This was a small ship with dimensions of 106ft x 25-1/2ft x 11ft, with a height between decks of 5-3/4ft. The guns were 4-8pdr, 8-6pdr, 10-4pdr, and 2-2pdr, according to Ron van Maanen. He says that this was a pinnace hired in Groningen in 1652, so that seems to rule out that this was a ship in service prior to the war.

I will be switching to a new look soon

To ease the difficulties in Blogger template maintenance, I will soon be switching 17th Century Naval Wargaming to the new style template, which is much easier to maintain.

I went to photograph some of the pictures from the Hollandsche Mercurius...

I had forgotten that the edition of the 1652 and 1653 Hollandsche Mercurius that I have lacks the nice Reinier Nooms drawings. I went to photograph them over the weekend and realized that I don't have them. I remember now, that when I received my copy a year ago, I saw that there were no drawings. I had also tried to get the James Ford Bell Library to make copies for me, in 2001, but I was only able to get a few. I may have to hire someone to photograph them for me. I do have this one image, showing Tromp fighting the Garland. It is rather large, although the file is just 62K:

The ship Faem, hired in 1642 for service in the Sound

In 1642, the Admiralty of Amsterdam hired ships for service in the Sound. Carl Stapel had sent me copies of the documents some time ago. I could not read several names that were obscured by dark patches, but by adjusting contrast and brightness, I could read the name of this ship. I had photographed the paper copy, which as usual, contains more information than is visible. These are the ship details:

The ship Faem, hired in 1642

Length from stem to sternpost: 118ft
Beam:                           28-1/2ft
Hold:                           14-1/4ft
Height between decks:            6-1/2ft

26 guns: 2-bronze 12pdr, 2-iron 12pdr, 14-iron 8pdr,
         2-copper 8pdr, 4-iron 5pdr, 2-iron 4pdr

A matter of vision

One thing that I found out from my work with digital photographs of documents is that much of my difficulties with reading pages in gothic typeface stem from the small size. I also find that adjusting the brightness and contrast, in conjunction with zooming in to larger size, that I do much better reading the text than if I am left with reading paper with the gothic type face. If I am trying to read from images of copies, the resolution really makes a difference. I have found that pages that I scanned from copies are much lower resolution than photographs, and the images with gothic typeface are much more difficult to read. I probably need to photograph my copies of the Onstelde-Zee, from the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, to see if that helps readability. High-resolution digital cameras are good; scanners are not.

Quite a few Dutch ships had been lost or discarded by January 1653

I have a document dating from January 1653 that shows what it says are original numbers funded at the start of the war and those remaining in service:

Ships

Ordinary Convoyers

Originally
in
service  Admiralty     Remaining
 6       Rotterdam         3
16       Amsterdam        14
 8       Zeeland           7
 6       Noorderkwartier   4
 2       Friesland         0

36       Total            28


of the 36 against the French

Originally
in
service  Admiralty     Remaining
 6       Rotterdam         4
14       Amsterdam        13
 7       Zeeland           7
 7       Noorderkwartier   6
 2       Friesland         0

36       Total            30

of the 50 Directors' ships

Originally
in
service  Admiralty     Remaining
 7       Rotterdam         4
24       Amsterdam        16
 9       Zeeland           8
 7       Noorderkwartier   6
 3       Friesland         3

50       Total            30


of the planned hundred

Originally
in
service  Admiralty     Remaining
 9       Rotterdam         6
33       Amsterdam        24
16       Zeeland           9
10       Noorderkwartier   5
15       Friesland         9

83       Total            53

there was also the ship
Vogelstruijs of the East Indies Company

I had forgotten that Nico Brinck said that Dutch guns were bronze, not brass

I believe that Frank Fox always says that 17th Century guns were brass, but Nico Brinck, sea captain, who is into marine archaeology and Dutch guns, says that they were bronze. I had forgotten that is what he had told me. I looked up the old mail from late December 2004, and read that again. I had a question about what a "copere" gun meant, as opposed to "metaele", which is bronze.

Rombout van der Parre's ship in 1652

I have a page that gives the name of Rombout van der Parre's ship. The ship belonged to the Admiralty of Friesland and was named, in this document, "Princesse Albartina van Orangie". The crew was quite small, there being 68 sailors and 12 soldiers. The "main battery" consisted of iron 6pdr guns, supplemented by 6-8pdr and some 3 and 4pdr guns.

The second Friesland 36-gun ship

I have a page from a list of the Dutch navy, dated 28 November 1652, that indicates that there was a second Friesland ship that carried 36 guns, besides Hendrick Jansz Camp's ship, the Wapen van Nassau. That second ship did not have a name listed. Yesterday, I found out what that ship was. I received a photograph of a page that has dimensions, gun list, and crew for a 36-gun ship that does not have a name on the page. The page is from a list of Friesland ships dated 3 December 1652, just five days after the list was prepared. There is just an indication that this was a new ship. I immediately recognized that this was the ship that eventually went into service as the Zevenwolden and which was sunk at the Battle of Scheveningen.

Abraham van der Hulst, in 1652, up to August

I now have photographs of a list from 30 June 1652 that shows that yes, Abraham van der Hulst commanded a 26-gun ship at that date, as indicated by Hendrick de Raedt's list. The question remains: "which ship was that?" I do have the list, dating from 28 November 1652, that shows how the ships were divided into "convoyers funded at the peace in 1648", "the 36 cruisers funded in 1651", and the "hundred ships of the extraordinary equipage, funded in 1652". I would hazard a guess that the ship was one of the convoyers from 1648. My experience has been that when (if we ever do) we know the identity of his ship, we would say "Oh, yeah, of course!" The only thing that I can think to do is to take the list from 30 June 1652, and compare that against the list from 28 November, and look for ships from the latter list that we can't find in the first list. That would be the ship, if there is such a ship.

Some new information about Noorderkwartier hired ships

I just received a photograph (this one somewhat out of focus) of a page that gives the gun lists for the Noorderkwartier hired ships Peereboom and Vergulde Schel. Considering that they both fought through the First Anglo-Dutch War, the surprising thing is how light their armament is. The Peereboom has a main battery of 6pdr guns, with four 8pdrs and some smaller. The Vergulde Schel had 10 3 or 4pdr guns, with some 6 and 8pdrs, as well.

Rotterdam Directors' ships from 16 May 1652

I have a list of Dutch warships dating from 16 May 1652. This is not a fleet list, but a list of ships in service at that date. For the Rotterdam Directors, the list convirms the captains' names that are in Hendrick de Raedt's list, published after the storm in the Shetlands in early August 1652. This list gives the following captains, to which I have added ship information:

Adm    Ship        Guns Crew Captain
R-Dir  Meerman     32   110  Jacob Cleijdijck
R-Dir  Erasmus     ?    ?    Sijmon Corneliszoon (van der Meer)
R-Dir  Jonas       36   125  Jan de Lieffde
R-Dir  Sint Pieter 28   110  Adriaen de Zeeuw
R-Dir  Sint Pieter 29   110  Isaack de Jongh     short of 10 men
R-Dir  Hollandia   28   110  Ruth Jacobsz Buijs  short of  8 men

This list does not include Corstiaen Corstaiensz de Munnick's ship, the Prins. Sources:

1. Hendrik de Raedt, Lyste van de schepen van Oorloge onder het beleyt Admirael Marten Harpersz. Tromp, 1652
2. list of Dutch warships dating from 16 May 1652, attached to letter from Lt-Admiraal Tromp