Nevertheless, the construction of large numbers of merchant ships with narrow decks was still persisted in and, even at the beginning of the XIXth century, “Fluitschepen” (flutes) are still met with. A beautiful model of one of these “Dutch Flights” exists at the museum of antiquities at Dordrecht.
The greater bulging of merchant vessels kept pace with the straightening of the sternpost and stem. On another side, the idea that the volume of the submerged part of a vessel should be reduced to a minimum, was abandoned toward the end of the XVIIth century.
The straightening of the sternpost brought about the shortening of the beakhead which, at the beginning of the XVIIth century, measured one-fifth of the total length of the vessel and only one-eighth of this length at its end. This difference is clearly seen by comparing the Zierikzee model with that of the “Bleijswijk”. The beakhead, which had come down to us from ancient times (VAN YK, p. 103), was used only “als Heimelijke gevoeg-plaatsen” (as a W. C.) for the crew, and those who had been guilty of some unimportant misdemeanor were also shut up there, as VAN YK says (p. 104), “des devotie des overspelenden zeewaters” (at the mercy of the waves).
Fire was the great enemy of our merchant ships. The stoppage of leaks was also more difficult for these vessels than for men-of-war because it was impossible, as a rule, on the former to reach the leak from the inside and through the cargo.
Water tight bulkheads did not exist, but, for all that, the stoppage of the leak was none the less indispensable. WITSEN tells us how it was all handled (p. 276), and, after explaining how a fire was put out, he continues thus:
“Wanneer een geschoten gat onder water van binnen niet gestopt kan worden, hetzij den last in den weg is of anderzins, wordt een man buiten boord met een prop in de hant op een plankje gezet, daar een dreg aan vast is, die hem onder water haalt. En aldus stopt of dekt hij de opening. Men geeft hem een geoliede lap in den mont on het water uit het lichaem te weeren”[17].
Before going on to the classification, properly so called, of the principal categories of vessels which have just been sketched out, a few more remarks, about the ship in general and a few details in particular, should be made.
The old builders of wooden vessels determined the ship’s length by the work for which it was intended. This length was measured from the forward side of the stem to the after side of the sternpost. The beam and the depth were deduced from the length; the beam being taken equal to one-fourth of the length, and for the depth, one foot was taken for each 10 feet of length, at the point where the vessel’s height was least. It was only for esthetic reasons that the sternpost was made higher than the stem.
When the keel was laid down, the sternpost and the stem put up, the wing transom was made fast to the fashion timbers, then the main frame and the frame at the junction of the stem were reared. Another frame was raised between the main frame and the sternpost. “Centen” (thin flexible boards, called ribands in English) were then made fast to these frames so as to determine in this way the shape of the ship and to deduce therefrom the other frames.