This Zeeland “cog” is derived, doubtless, from the primitive “cog”. Let us suppose this vessel as having a little fuller ends; as having the mast in the middle; as having a steering oar instead of a rudder; the lee-boards suppressed and a clinker-built hull; we shall have an idea of the “cog”. This being so, the cause of the existence of our “bom” becomes more important; this latter boat, as is well known, has been greatly enlarged during the past century and has gained fullness at the ends so as to increase its capacity. This is noticeable when the bow of a “bom” is compared with that of the boat used for catching shrimps. This latter has still the old rounded forms and is not so wide in proportion to its length.
Let us suppose then that the “bom” is less square at its ends, higher at bow and stern, that is to say: having a little more sheer, like the boats of former times; there will be had a vessel which, with its clinker built sides, will differ little from the old “cog”, still met with as a rarity in our fleet of fishing boats.
Changed in this way, the “bom” no longer differs so much from the “Egmonderpink” reproduced and described by WITSEN (p. 168); it might even be concluded that it descends therefrom. It can be understood from this how it is, even in our days, that the “bommen” are often called “pinken”.
Thus a picture, in the town Museum of The Hague, shows the beach at Schevening covered, not with “bommen” but with “Egmonderpinken”.
This subject will be taken up again in speaking of fishing boats.
The shrimp fishing boats have been less changed; consequently, aside from the counter which was added later, they differed less from the “Egmonderpink” which, finally, are found again almost complete in the Ostend fishing boats, as LELONG has pointed out in his Encyclopedia of Naval Architecture, p. 17.
The “bommen” were still able in the XIXth century to render good service as coast guards. There is nothing to prove that they existed in Witsen’s time; the contrary is more likely, as this author does not mention them. He merely says that, beside the “Egmonderpinken”, other and much smaller fishing boats were seen on the beach and that they carried only fore and aft sails. If these boats had differed much in shape from the “pinken”, it is to be believed that mention of the fact would have been made. (See WITSEN, p. 168, 2d column.)