Dear Friends
On Thursday I posted that I had received a very important document from the Zeeland Archives. That document in a nutshell can best be described as a "Job Card" for the work undertaken on the two Zeeland ships for the 1595 expedition as well as a full inventory of how the two ships were equipped for the journey. My hope was that in there - somewhere - I would find some information useful as to how ships were constructed for the Barentsz expeditions and just to gain a better understanding in general of how things worked. Well, to cut a long story short, whilst not providing answers to all my questions, it has answered some of them, has provided very valuable information and was just damn interesting to read.
However, there is one major hiccup.
How to decipher that? The original document in the hand of Pieter Reygersbergh - the equipage and ammunition master of Veere. I passed a much simpler page on to three of my Dutch friends and their verdict was unanimous: "Very difficult" - read "impossible".
So I got going. By looking at original resolutions from Zeelandt of which I had the printed transcripts, I began identifying individual letters. Even though the handwriting was different, there were certain similarities. Slowly - ever so slowly - the puzzle was started and at the end of Day One, (Friday) I had this.
And by today I can post this. I have printed this out as I have copyrighted the English version. I will most certainly not bore you with all 31 pages, but I would like to show you what is available, if you are really serious about what you are doing.
You will see that the 60 lasten as donated by the asterisk changes upon closer examination of the ship.
Note that De Zwane is now listed at its "correct" displacement of 40 lasten. The amounts are in pounds, schillings and "grooten Vlaams".
And there is our first piece of crucial information - the Zeeland ships featured
double-planked hulls. This is not to be confused with the thin exterior of pine wood that was applied to ships as a means of protecting them against the "paalworm".
And with this type of information available it now raises an interesting question. Do I build the nameless "Het Expeditieschip of Willem Barentsz or do I build the De Zwane (the real one of Zeelandt Staten Generaal - not the doubtful Witte Swaen) as she sailed on the 1595 expedition?
Food for thought.