Hi again!
CoreTech is back
For severel days i’ve been playing the game Age of Empires 3 as the dutch.
I built a dock where i saw a ship named Fluyt,i recognized it but couldn’t identify the ship.
So i built one,and even though Age of empire’s ships are totally out of shape and proportion,i fell in love with the ship right away. I think the design of the ship is,odd but still beautiful.And together with the distinctive dutch colours it forms a very nice ship.
I wonder if anyone have seen a plastic fluyt out there?
I know there’s atleast one wooden but a wooden one is out of my skill range so im gonna go for a plastic one if available.
One more thing…the Batavia…is this a Fluyt or some weird dutch version of a galleon?
My next project (when im finished with wasa) will be one of 3 ships,and the Batavia is one of them.
I think I am correct in writing that there are no plastic models of fluyts. Not an easy hull shape to scratchbuild I’d wager.
A Fluyt is dutch terminology for a hull that is round at the stern (i.e the wales meet the sternpost) and then rapidly narrows above the waterline. This meant that the hull had a pear-shaped cross-section along its whole length. Other distinctive features caused by the stern shape included a narrow superstrucure and the rudder head situated outside the vessel. The reason behind the peculiar shape is partly due to the Dutch arranged frames at bows and sterns, and allegedly partly due to taxation laws that allowed ships with narrower decks to pay less.
Batavia was a larger ship than the average fluyt, and not built with a round stern, but a transom stern (i.e the wales don;t carry along all the way around the to the sternpost, but instead they terminate away from the sternpost, at a piece of wood called the fashion piece.) The Revell kit is a good kit. One of the better small-scale sailing ship kits out there in my opinion.
Other than Batavia, the only other plastic ship of 17th century Dutch vessel I can recall is the long out of production Pyro kit of a Dutch state yacht. It is really quite rare, so I have never seen the kit iself. I hear tell it is quite accurate.
Maybe there are some card kits of 17th century Dutch vessels?
CoreTech: This is a picture of a fluyt, which was a very popular merchant ship of the 17th century Dutch merchant fleet.
The standard fluyt was designed to maximize available cargo space with minimum crew members to operate the ship. The were so seaworthy, that some could be made to sail backwards if the occasion required this maneuver.
The fluyt is credited with enhancing the Dutch competitiveness for the international trade in the Baltic and the Dutch East India Company. This type of vessel became so popular, that most of the European maritime nations adopted this design for their trading ships.
Montani semper liberi ! Happy modeling to all and every one of you
a shame that these aren’t available (fluyts) since they’re beautiful ships in my opinion.
Im very familiar with the ship and features since i made som research on it after discovering it on the game.
Woodburner,i wouldn’t count wasa as a dutch ship but thats a matter of oponion since its dutch design (wich you can clearly see,the wasa also got some features of the fluyt)
but i would like too ad one ship.
i believe its translated the seven provinces,a dutch man of war and are in some ways similiar to wapen von hamburg but probably more decorated.
is the wapen von hamburg still in production and by what brand?
the batavia is still in production,or atleast still buyable on revell’s site.
the wasa is indeed a very beautiful kit,a little difficult to get the two hull parts together but other then that its great.
it is very similiar to wasa…but as you said one less gallery,and i think it got more of a galleon look.
but maybe wasa would’ve looked the same with a forecastle?
thats a funny thing,wasa hasn’t got any forecastle,im curious about why.
and that diorama was AMAZING,that must have taken a veeeeeery long time.
absolutely stunning.
as you said,many fluyts,and i think i saw the seven provinces…
Thanks for the out of box images of the Airfix St. Louis, I have never seen the sprues of this kit. It has been out of production for a while. It looks quite good. That generation of airfix 17th century ships was, within the constraints of contemporary knowledge of the ships involved, very nice representations. I have built the HMS Prince (also very rare now!) and Royal Sovereign- both excellent models, and show a very close affinity to the cnontemporary models that survive in museums. I wonder whether airfix did similar research for St. Louis?
Can’t comfirm that information. When i try to find more information about The Saint Louis or more precise - Le Saint Louis, i have found only few engravings of that ship, one of them still with Dutch flag. Model is identical to these engravings.
thanks for the presentations,a shame that they aren’t in production anymore,i’d love to build the hms prince or saint louis.
does somebody know why the designers of wasa removed the forecastle?
if they even drew one from the beginning.
first i thought it was a feature of the dutch ships but its not…
The original design of the Wasa may have had a forecastle. However when the extra gun deck was added the forcastle probably had to go for stability, though a lot of good it may have done in the end… That would be my guess.
thats possible.
well if that deck wasnt added maybe the wasa would’ve been docked in stockholm harbor rater then beeing put together piece by piece inside a museum.
or maybe it would’ve been less complete beacause it was destroyed in a battle haha.
There is a good book about Wasa or more correct - Vasa: Bjorn Landstrom’s “The Royal Warship Vasa”. Book has usefull information about Vasa “puzzles” i.e. hull shape etc. Author write about connections to Le Saint Louis (book has information and about this ship) and possible too connection to Danish warship Sancte Sophia build by David Sinclair (Scotsman) in British manner.
wasa can be just as correct as vasa,since the old swedish often used w and f instead of v.
for example,av means of,and in old swedish this was spelled af.
Yes, You are right - book i mentioned, has information, that in documents of the seventeenth century ship was called Vasa, Wasan, Vasen, Vhasa, Vhasen, Vhassan, Vazan, Whasa, Whassan, Wazan, die Whasse etc.
By the way - author of the book has theory: “I believe - but naturally cannot demonstrate - that new ship was intended to be bigger than Tre Kronor, which was a sound ship, and that instead of carrying of twelve-pounders on her single complete gun-deck, she should carry twenty-four-pounders. I believe that her flat had been completed when the king received alarming information that the new Danish ship was to have two complete gun-decks, and that he then personally ordered that the new warship should be a two-decker, with twelve-pounders on the upper gun-deck”.
I think Bjornstrom’s arguments in his book are very well considered. I agree that there was probably a direct, or stongly implied order from the ‘top’ to make sure the Vasa was more powerful than her direct rivals, and whilst it is true that there is just no evidence to support it, I think it is important to note that the Privy Council inquiry into the loss of the ship did not find any one party at fault. It was probably very well known that it was King Gustavus’ direct involvement had led to a lot of problems with the stability of the ship, and like modern politics, this would be tremendously embarresing if recorded officially. (Even absolute monarchiesin the early-modern period were subject to checks and balances from privy councillors) I imagine the whole matter was quietly dropped…
Just conjecture, but seems plausible enough to me!
If Vasa was indeed projected first as single complete gun-deck and only later projected as two complete gun-decks and first order was to made a “substitute” to Tre Kroner with its basic hull shapes that can explain why forecastle of Vasa was so “small”.
i dont think king gustav even considered the consequences of a second full gun deck.
tragic that my nations biggest and most magnificent ships has sunk allmost directly after completion,wasa sunk beacause of the wind,kronan exploded in the battle of kalmar.
seems like the world doesnt want us sweds to have big ships?
atleast we can brag with having the most decorated warship in the world.
now im going of topic but it seems to me that the king was somewhat desperate to get more firepower.
understandable since both the danes and the germans threatened to attack the country.
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