Discussion devoted mainly to the Anglo-Dutch Wars (at sea), including ships, battles, and persons. Our website, kentishknock.com, is the primary outlet for artwork, research results, and more formal analysis and commentary. Copyright (c) 2003-2007 James C. Bender
Saturday, August 28, 2004
Rethinking the Frederick Hendrick (I lost a post, earlier this morning)
I have been studying De Vlootbouw in Nederland closely, and I realized several things. One is that the Frederick Hendrick and Huis van Nassau very likely belonged to the 128ft x 31-1/2ft x 12ft charter. I had not realized that the 128ft x 31-1/2ft x 12ft size was considered to be 250 lasts, so I had not equated these ships with those dimensions.
A consequence of the 125ft x 29ft x 11-1/2ft dimensions being 200 lasts is that the Noorderkwartier ship Eenhoorn could well be of those dimensions. The "Staet van Oorlogh te Water voor den Jaere 1654" gives her dimensions as 125ft x 29ft, with no depth in hold listed. The depth could be 11-1/2ft instead of the 12ft that I would have expected.
There is still great confusion over dimensions due, in part, to some ships being listed in Maas feet of 12 inches, while most ships are listed in Amsterdam feet of 11inches. The Aemilia and the Brederode are two prime examples. They are usually referred to as being 300 lasts, as their dimensions are quoted as 132ft x 32ft x 13-1/2ft. The only difficulty is that is in Maas feet (308mm) rather than Amsterdam feet (283mm). If you convert that to Amsterdam feet, the dimensions are something like 144ft x 35ft x 14ft-8in. That could give a burden way in excess of 300 lasts (more like 370 if we use a factor of 200).