Frustration: you can't assume anything

The frustrating thing is to find that where you don't have specific information, that the situation was different from anything you have seen. There were apparently some "mystery ships" and different captain assignments in the Dutch fleet up to the storm in the Shetlands in early August 1652. I have good information from September, some of which refers to August and before, so I had assumed that I knew more about ship assignments in the fleet than I apparently do. I am not able to look in the Nationaal Archief myself, so I have to rely upon finding out enough specifics so that my researcher can find and photograph pages for me. One complication is that the research in this area is competitive, so when I find out that there is new information, I am likely not to find out the specific location. The main problem area is the ships and captains of the Admiralty of Amsterdam, apparently. Some ships only appeared in September 1652 and others had new captains in September.