Building 17th century ships from recycled plastic

Maarten

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Maybe you are suprized by reading this topic. Building 17th century ships from recycled plastic??? Who is so crazy of doing this, actually it is Edwin ter Velde and I met him last week at his shipyard in Hoorn.
Edwin is an entrepreneur and a free spirit who has been travelling with his wife in his own build solar powered expedition mobil from recycled plastic to the geograpical South Pole.
Solar-Voyager-Iceland-2_0.jpg

And now Edwin has a new project with his non profit organization Clean 2 Anywhere.
Edwin want to build a fluit schip from recycled plastic (HDPE) and sail the world with it. But before this is possible a lot of engineering and also exprience in building is needed.
The engineering part is that his recycled plastic needs to be comparable with the nature of wood, this as he want to build ships originally build from wood.
This problem seems to be overcome by using fibers also made from recycled plastic in his extruded recycled plastic planks and beams.

To start the first ships build were 17th century work boats. These were made to test materials and building methodes. Except for the mast everything is build from recycled plastic. The ships are conventionally build according 17th century shell first methodes.
20240719_122055.jpg

The HDPE is supplied in large sheets used for planks or stacked for creating thicker knees etc.
Large beams are from extruded beams.
See below some knees welded together from sheets.
20240719_114836.jpg

Behind it a new work boat in progress.
20240719_114844.jpg

The whole process of building the sloops and work boats is already flawless and before starting with something so big as a fluit first an intermediate project was started to build a 17th century speeljacht. A speeljacht was the ultimate 17th century richman's toy.
speel-800x445.jpg

Ab Hoving helped Edwin to start with the build of the speeljacht. Again the speeljacht is fully build from recycled plastic and according the shell first methode.
In the meantime she is already a full grown ship looking out to her launch end of this summer.
20240719_122023.jpg
20240719_114859.jpg

You won't believe it but everything here is recycled plastic. And not wooden beam resulting in a nearly maintenance free ship.
The planks are welded to each other and Additionally nailed. All liggers, zitters and oplangen are bolted to the planks.
20240719_121755.jpg
20240719_121642.jpg
20240719_121626.jpg

The upper transome "hakkebord" is a mock up for the final plastic version.
20240719_122111.jpg

The hakkebord is being carved and coloured again with recycled plastic which is welded to the surface.
20240719_114222.jpg

The next project is a fluitschip, based on the ghost ship. This was my reason to visit Edwin, as I am currently working on a model of the Ghost ship. He will be doing the same only in full scale in recycled plastic.
20240715_220549.jpg

A remarkable project in which Edwin helps young people to learn a proffesion and to devellop their skills for the future.
Secondly the project devellops new materials based on recycled plastic. One spin off of that is that they already build tiny houses from recycled materials.

See below the wesite and the youtube channel.


20240719_122039.jpg
 
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Maybe you are suprized by reading this topic. Building 17th century ships from recycled plastic??? Who is so crazy of doing this, actually it is Edwin ter Velde and I met him last week at his shipyard in Hoorn.
Edwin is an entrepreneur and a free spirit who has been travelling with his wife in his own build solar powered expedition mobil from recycled plastic to the geograpical South Pole.
View attachment 461462

And now Edwin has a new project with his non profit organization Clean 2 Anywhere.
Edwin want to build a fluit schip from recycled plastic (HDPE) and sail the world with it. But before this is possible a lot of engineering and also exprience in building is needed.
The engineering part is that his recycled plastic needs to be comparable with the nature of wood, this as he want to build ships originally build from wood.
This problem seems to be overcome by using fibers also made from recycled plastic in his extruded recycled plastic planks and beams.

To start the first ships build were 17th century work boats. These were made to test materials and building methodes. Except for the mast everything is build from recycled plastic. The ships are conventionally build according 17th century shell first methodes.
View attachment 461466

The HDPE is supplied in large sheets used for planks or stacked for creating thicker knees etc.
Large beams are from extruded beams.
See below some knees welded together from sheets.
View attachment 461475

Behind it a new work boat in progress.
View attachment 461474

The whole process of building the sloops and work boats is already flawless and before starting with something so big as a fluit first an intermediate project was started to build a 17th century speeljacht. A speeljacht was the ultimate 17th century richman's toy.
View attachment 461495

Ab Hoving helped Edwin to start with the build of the speeljacht. Again the speeljacht is fully build from recycled plastic and according the shell first methode.
In the meantime she is already a full grown ship looking out to her launch end of this summer.
View attachment 461469
View attachment 461473

You won't believe it but everything here is recycled plastic. And not wooden beam resulting in a nearly maintenance free ship.
The planks are welded to each other and Additionally nailed. All liggers, zitters and oplangen are bolted to the planks.
View attachment 461470
View attachment 461471
View attachment 461472

The upper transome "hakkebord" is a mock up for the final plastic version.
View attachment 461464

The hakkebord is being carved and coloured again with recycled plastic which is welded to the surface.
View attachment 461476

The next project is a fluitschip, based on the ghost ship. This was my reason to visit Edwin, as I am currently working on a model of the Ghost ship. He will be doing the same only in full scale in recycled plastic.
View attachment 461498

A remarkable project in which Edwin helps young people to learn a proffesion and to devellop their skills for the future.
Secondly the project devellops new materials based on recycled plastic. One spin off of that is that they already build tiny houses from recycled materials.

See below the wesite and the youtube channel.


View attachment 461468
Thanks for pointing this to our attention, Maarten. For sure my bike will turn to the direction of his shipyard.
Regards, Peter
 
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I have also recently seen an already completed model of a period vessel, likewise made strictly according to instructions from contemporary treatises on shipbuilding, albeit non-floating one. At the same time, the replica has a somewhat haphazard shape, and somewhat haphazard, recycled materials were used in its construction, almost exactly like the original. The expertise of the maker of this work is immediately apparent.


Authentic replica of the ship - museum quality.jpg

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I have also recently seen an already completed model of a period vessel, likewise made strictly according to instructions from contemporary treatises on shipbuilding, albeit non-floating one. At the same time, the replica has a somewhat haphazard shape, and somewhat haphazard, recycled materials were used in its construction, almost exactly like the original. The expertise of the maker of this work is immediately apparent.



.​
Hi Waldemar, guess this was your first attempt to build a shipmodel ROTF
 
If I could retire to Maine I would want one, even it doesn’t look like a downeaster. Let us know how she sails and if it is easy to maintain. I’ve only seen park benches made this way.
 
Very interesting full size build, How does the weight of recycled plastic compare with timber?

Doug Hey NZ
 
Very intriguing...
Given your description of the welding of parts leads me to the conclusion that only recycled thermoplastic are (and very likely can be) used. Assuming that the planks are not supplied in the required form, how are these formed to fit, some sort of hot forming?

While I find the idea very commendable, it still leaves all thermoset waste untouched and that's something which will bite us (eventually) at the end of their life cycle.
 
Nice, you mentioned it already. But I didn't get the update of a new topic. But I find it
 
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