Duyfken lines?

[DerekW]

Does anyone know where the lines and offsets for the replica "Duyfken" might be found? The Duyfken web page (http://www.duyfken.com/replica/experimental.html) talks of interesting underwater form but doesn't get very specific. Not specific enough, anyway smile.gif

http://www.duyfken.com/replica/sailwind.jpg

There's a book of photographs available, but it's not available near by, and the write-up makes no mention of drawings.

Cheers
Derek

[outofthenorm]

Derek, I can't help you with this specific ship, but there is an outstanding book/plans/CD set called The Ships of Abel Tasman available from Pier books http://www.pierdupont.com/ (Dave Roach runs the show and he's a great guy.) Tasman of course, was the discoverer of Tasmania. His ships were the yacht Heemskerck and the fluyt Zeehaen, very similar to Duyfken - same age and type.

There are 40 sheets of detail plans, a book and a CD with a full set of digital plans. I just bought it a few weeks ago and I'm very impressed. - Norm

[DerekW]

Thanks for the link Norm; looks like a good resource, and it's one I didn't know about.

The Duyfken website talks of the difference between the underwater shape they arrived at, and that of previous 'reconstructions':

"...there have been a number of theoretical (on paper) reconstructions designed by using the relatively narrow and box-like hull-form of the late 17th-century...combining this with the high-stern and large billowing sails of the 16th-century galleon."

Do the sections in the 'Tasman' book show the pronounced 'hollow garboards' claimed for Duyfken?

cheers
Derek

[outofthenorm]

I had a close look at the body plan and profile of Heemskurck and tried to compare them with what is shown on the Dufkyen site. It's too bad they didn't produce a lines plan! The lines in my book show about what you would expect - plenty of hollow aft but almost square sections with virtully no deadrise amidship and very round sections fwd. Looking at the pics of Dufkyen, she doesn't seem all that hollow to me.

I once built a model of Berlin, a Dutch frigate or pinnace of 1640 and she had distictly hollow fwd sections below the water, but round as an apple above the WL. It was a bugger to plank!

There is a statement on the site that seems pretty questionable:

"Dutch shipwrights, building plank-first, evolving the shape of the ship by eye, were able to build whatever shape they thought would serve best, whereas builders of frame-first ships were constrained by the type of shapes they could develop by unsophisticated techniques of drawing a ship's plan."

The truth about building by eye, especially using the plank first method, rather than frame first, is that outside of basic dimensions like LOA, max breadth, tons burden and the like,(which were dictated for each type by the VOC), no two ships would ever be exactly alike.

No real plans exist of course, so every ship from this period is a best guess.

[John E Hardiman]

Lines look like a typical English "race built" carrack. The hollow forefoot is typical of european carrack and nao construction from about 1470 onward (the planking runs give it away). This type of construction and form (spanish construction, english plan) would be typical in "the Spanish Netherlands" right near the end of the 40 year "War of Revolt".

[outofthenorm]

Derek, Pier Books also has a book written about the Duyfken replica program. If you call John Roach he'll be able to tell you if it contains an actual lines plan.

John, sounds like this is an area you know. I'm just getting interested in it myself. Any recco on good reference books for the period?

Norm

[John E Hardiman]

Originally posted by outofthenorm:
Any recco on good reference books for the period?

NormFor construction try "The Evolution of the Wooden Ship" by Basil Greenhill. Covers up to 1500 and after 1700 pretty well, but the Age of Discovery ships are a pretty mish-mash lot as the 'standards' for construction were worked out.

For a broad reference of ship types try "The Book of Old Ships : From Egyptian Galleys to Clipper Ships" by Henry B. Culver. the original is 1924, but Dover has a reprint out. Not much nuts and bolts detail but rather a historical narrative of who was building what when.

As for history, there is a lot out there. I'm a Reniassance reenactor that mostly deals with the English and use a copy of "The Sea Dogs: Privateers, Plunder and Piracy in the Elizabethan Age" by Neville Williams. It broadly covers the politics and technoligical transference of the age. It addresses the English influence in the low countries (Sea Beggers and Free Booters) and has pictures of ship plans.

Also check out this site

http://www.greatgridlock.net/Sqrigg/galleon.html

and notice the differences to the sterns. The Dutch had a tradition of building round sterns (see the cog, hulc, and carrack) so I would expect it. The hollow in the forefoot is directly decended from the line straight stem of the cog and early carrack, with the adjustment of rounding off some of the forefoot to improve maneuverability.