HOLMES speaks also of the light draught of our vessels. He expresses himself on this subject as follows on page 111 of his work: “In consequence of the shallowness of the Dutch harbours, the draught of their ships was also considerably less than that of the English vessels of corresponding force”.
The English had at their disposal docks for the construction of their ships (WITSEN, p. 206, column I.); they used neither ribands nor shores. Before laying down their ships, says VAN YK (p. 19), they so prepared the models as to give them the shape desired. For this purpose, and before starting construction, they laid out the frames at full size on a floor. This process was, therefore, born in England.
The laying out of the full scale drawings was only adopted with us at the middle of the XVIIIth century. Before this time, only models and ribands were used in our country, as is still the present practice for building the smaller wooden vessels and many fishing boats.
This new method, however, was not introduced without trouble; and the more so as there was doubt of success in applying it to the Dutch ships, which, as VAN YK says (p. 19), “had rounded sides, to allow them to glide over the water, and sharper angles than the English ships” which had a more regular contour.
The Swedes and Danes followed the Dutch method in the main. (VAN YK, p. 20.) Their navy was copied after ours (DE JONGE), but their ships were not so full and drew more.
The honor of having endowed the shipbuilding art with scientific principles belongs wholly to the French. All the nations, even the Dutch and the English borrowed these principles from them about the middle of the XVIIIth century. It was however only at the end of this century that the French method for calculating and designing ships forced its way everywhere.
The Netherlands, in addition to their war fleet proper, had a very large merchant marine. (KOENEN, p. 90.) This latter it is said, included, at the beginning of the XVIIth century, 20,000 vessels which had all been built in Holland and, flying the Dutch colors, furrowed the seas in all directions. At the end of this century, when we must have already lost many of our over-seas possessions, the total tonnage of the English merchant marine amounted to 500,000 tons; that of our country was 900,000 tons, and all other nations together had 2,000,000 tons. (GROEN VAN PINSTEREN, Handboek, § 303.—KOENEN, p. 160.)
Our merchantmen obtained quickly a great perfection. Full proof of this can be found in the observations made by Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) about the Dutch ships, in which, as he remarks, a large amount of freight could be stowed while, at the same time, they required a smaller crew than that found necessary for the English ships. (KOENEN, p. 86.)
Our merchant vessels, among which especially “flutes” were met with, were copied by the English and French.
Flutes were used preferentially as freight carriers. The following, for example, is found in Le Musée de Marine du Louvre: “The navy has always had transports for supplying squadrons; they were called at first flutes or transports and later were known as ‘corvettes de charge’”.