Hohenzollern-model research

[Rodolphe]

Hello all,

In a thread where the plans of the Hohenzollern-model from Heinrich Winter's book were presented as representing a Dutch warship of 1664, I posted this drawing:



In red the mainframe of a Dutch warship of 1703, in blue the mainframe of a Dutch warship of 1664. I hope it is clear from this drawing that the mainframe of the Dutch warship of 1664 is very flat.

Then I did some more research into the shape of the mainframe of the Hohenzollern-model which I would like to share here.

(Beware! The drawing above was made in the conventional way: the contours show the outside of the mainframes. Since Heinrich Winter measured the Hohenzollern-model on the outside of the hull, and not on the outside of the frames, all four following drawings show the contours of the outside of the hull of the Hohenzollern-model.)

The flatness of the Dutch warship of 1664 we see in the drawing above, we do not see in the plans of the Hohenzollern-model from Heinrich Winter's book. In the plans from the book we see a mainframe that is not flat at all. Here is that mainframe:



In red I added a rising line that starts where the planking touches the keel and that is tangent to the contour of the planking of the mainframe. This rising line is at an angle of 13,73° with the horizontal.
I drew this rising line because we can find a similar rising line on a drawing that was made before the plans in Winter's book were made. Here is that preliminary drawing:



The rising line I mentioned is marked with 'Anstieg' and I marked it in green. This rising line is at an angle of 9,80° with the horizontal.
So the green rising line on this preliminary drawing is at a much smaller angle with the horizontal than the red rising line from the plan from the book.
Please note that the preliminary drawing also shows the values Winter noted when measuring the Hohenzollern-model. These values show that Winter only took measurements three station lines down from the waterline 'WL', he did not take measurements from the bottom of the model. The only measurement he took from the bottom was the rising line marked 'Anstieg' and the distance from the keel where this rising line touched the outside planking at the position of the mainframe of the model. He gives a value of 'ca 14 cm' for this distance.

That the angle of the green rising line on the preliminary drawing is not just a simple drawing mistake, can be seen on a second preliminary drawing that shows a similar rising line. Here is that second preliminary drawing:



I marked the rising line on this preliminary drawing in blue. This rising line is at an angle of 9,32° with the horizontal. Since this second preliminary drawing is a bit deformed, I think we can say that the two preliminary drawings show approximately the same rising line angle.

A drawing like the second preliminary drawing can also be found on one of the plans from Winter's book; on 'Tafel IV'. Here it is:



I drew a rising line in magenta this time. As you can see it is at an angle of 13,69° with the horizontal, and therefore confirms the angle of 13,73° of the red rising line on the other plan from Winter's book.

I think we can conclude from this that something went wrong when the preliminary drawings were transformed into the plans from Winter's book. The preliminary drawings show a much flatter mainframe than the plans from Winter's book. So the plans from Winter's book probably do not show the shape of the hull of the Hohenzollern-model.
When we add this problem to the other problems we can find in the plans from Winter's book, wrong shape of the transom, wrong gun port positions etcetera, I think we have to conclude that it is impossible to retreive the shape of the hull of the Hohenzollern-model by using the plans from Winter's book.

Now let's compare the angles of the rising lines that we found on the preliminary drawings, 9,80° and 9,32°, and the angles of the rising lines we found on the plans from Winter's book, 13,73° and 13,69°, with the angles of rising lines we can draw based on information from two contracts for Dutch warships of 1664.
Here is the rising line of the 'blue ship' of 140 feet of the first drawing above. Drawn on the outside of the planking, like on the plans from Winter's book:



As you can see the rising line for this Dutch warship of 1664 is at an angle of 5,74° with the horizontal.
And here is the rising line for a Dutch warship of 160 feet of 1664:



The rising line for this Dutch warship of 1664 is at an angle of 6,45° with the horizontal.

So the rising line angles of the actual Dutch warships of 1664 are much smaller than the rising line angles on the preliminary drawings, which are much smaller than the rising line angles on the plans from Winter's book. When we compare the rising line angles of the actual Dutch warships of 1664, 5,74° and 6,45°, with the rising line angles on the plans from Winter's book, 13,73° and 13,69°, I think we can conclude that it is not a good idea to use the plans from Winter's book to make a model of a Dutch warship of the 1660s. The actual Dutch warship of the 1660s were much flatter than the plans of the Hohenzollern-model from Heinrich Winter's book show us.
R.

 

[Steef66]

I think we can conclude that it is not a good idea to use the plans from Winter's book to make a model of a Dutch warship of the 1660s. The actual Dutch warship of the 1660s were much flatter than the plans of the Hohenzollern-model from Heinrich Winter's book show us.

I don't really understand what you're trying to prove here. If you want to try saying Winter did draw it wrong, I have to disappoint you. Winter did a good research job on this ship. Without the research of Winter we would have nothing then a few dark black and white pictures.
It was already very clear that these ships had a flatter bottom and that the Hohenzollern model does not have this. Winter's drawings are based on that model.

So if you want to recreate the Hohenzollern model as it looked in Berlin in the photos you will have to use those drawings. It does have a few flaws if you compare the photos of the model with the drawing. The last 2 frames at the stern are not drawn correctly. But apart from that Winter has provided fine drawings of a model. And not of an actual existing ship.
If you want to build a Dutch 2-decker other than the Hohenzollern model then you should not use those drawings from Winter because they are specific to this Hohenzollern model. You had better look at drawings by Blom or Dik. Those are more close to a Dutch 2-decker. But even that is guesswork, because we know very little about the exact shape of the 2-decker then that what is written in the books of Cornelis and Nicolaes. In fact, I don't think any of those ships were identical in those days because no drawings were used, only certers. Then only the skill of the master, craftsmen, builders and available wood in the different yards. These factors determined the final shape of the ship. The wreckage of the Samuel in Den Helder is a good example how the wood was used.

I myself used these drawings as a guide to reconstruct the ship, I find the beautiful ornaments and construction of this ship very fascinating. For the construction I use the same way as the old masters do. More or less to teach myself what can and cannot be done. In the shell first method you soon become aware that this ship does not have the shape it should have and I also modified the drawings of the hull for my construction in such a way that shell first was possible.
To build a model following that method gives you respect about the craftsmen at that time. Of course I won't be able to replicate many things exactly on the model, but it does give insight into how these ships were built. And there were really no drawings needed for that, the shape of the ship came about almost by itself through proper handling and construction.

 

[Steef66]

Looks like you want to make the same point like this member on MSW.

 

[Rodolphe]

I don't really understand what you're trying to prove here. If you want to try saying Winter did draw it wrong, I have to disappoint you. Winter did a good research job on this ship. Without the research of Winter we would have nothing then a few dark black and white pictures.
It was already very clear that these ships had a flatter bottom and that the Hohenzollern model does not have this. Winter's drawings are based on that model.

Hello Steef66,
Thank you for your reply.
Let's start with the relevance of my initial post. You say that 'it was already very clear' that the Dutch warships of the 1660s 'had a flatter bottom and that the Hohenzollern model does not have this'.
But why is it then that a forum member who wants to build a model of Akerboom, a Dutch warship of the 1660s, is advised to use the plans of the Hohenzollern-model from Winter's book? And why does another forum member who presents a reconstruction of a 'Dutch capital ship of ca. 1665', use the plans of the Hohenzollern-model from Winter's book? And why do you yourself say that 'the Hohenzollern model is not designed for the shallow waters around the Dutch coast line'?
This makes me think there were at least three people who thought that the plans of the Hohenzollern-model from Winter's book are a good representation of a Dutch warship of the 1660s. Since you and I now seem to agree that this is not so, maybe now there are only two people left.
It is also nice that some forum members took the trouble to give some 'likes' for my initial post. Thank you Archi, Uwek, donfarr and empe. Much appreciated.
And on top of that my initial post also resulted in the discussion we are having now.
So I live in good faith that there is some relevance to my initial post.

Then on to your remark that 'Winter did a good research job on this ship', with which I am sure you mean to say 'Winter did a good research job on this model'.
I don't know why you keep insisting Winter did a good research job when it is clear that when we compare the pictures of the Hohenzollern-model with the plans of the Hohenzollern-model from Winter's book, that there are some obvious mistakes in the plans. I already mentioned the wrong shape of the transom and the wrong placement of the gun ports in my initial post. Here are some pictures to illustrate these problems. First a photo of the transom of the Hohenzollern-model:

Please compare the shape of the transom on this photo of the model with the shape of the transom on one of the plans from Winter's book:


Second a photo of the positions of the gun ports on the Hohenzollern-model, with some white connection lines:

Please compare the positions of the gun ports on this photo of the model with the positions of the gun ports on this plan from Winter's book:


I think that from these two examples alone we have to conclude that we can not say that 'Winter did a good research job on this ship'.

And there are more obvious mistakes. Another obvious mistake in the 'lines plan' from Winter's book is that the main frame, frame 17, is not drawn symmetrically. You can see this clearly in the 'red drawing' in my initial post: we have two different main frames 17. That we have to make a choice in which main frame 17 to use is not a characteristic of a 'good research job' to me.
But there is also the obvious mistake that while the 'lines plan' from Winter's book is drawn on the outside of the planking, the 'lines plan' does not show the variation in the thickness of the planking of the outside of the hull of the model. The 'lines plan' from the book, for example, does not show the wales, we just see unbroken continuous lines. Very deceptive, and I think a lot of people have started making a copy of the Hohenzollern-model on the assumption that the 'lines plan' from Winter's book shows the outside of the frames, and not the outiside of the planking.

But, besides these obvious mistakes in the plans from Winter's book, there are also a lot of hidden mistakes in the plans in Winter's book. These hidden mistakes in the plans can be found when we compare the preliminary drawings with the plans from Winter's book.
I already showed one of these hidden mistakes: the difference in the rising line angle of the main frame in the preliminary drawings, 9,8°, and the rising line angle in the 'lines plan' from Winter's book, 13,7°.
But there are more hidden mistakes. When we, for example, compare the preliminary drawing of the section of the model, the 'blue drawing' from my first post, with its copy in the plans from Winter's book, the 'magenta drawing' from my first post, we see that a lot of measurements that were taken from the model and registered in the preliminary drawing, are indicated incorrectly in the plan from Winter's book, or are not indicated at all. Look for example at how the width of '17,5 cm' for the 'koebrug' is indicated in the preliminary drawing (blue), and how this width is indicated in the plan from Winetr's book (magenta), or how the width of '44,3' is indicated in both drawings. From this it is clear that Winter's draughtman, Wolf-Dietrich Wagner, made some obvious mistakes.

But the most problematic hidden mistake is that the 'lines plan' in Winter's book is based on faulty raw data. Let me explain.
The raw data, the measurements Winter took from the outside of the hull of the model, is registered on a couple of preliminary drawings. One of these preliminary drawings is the 'green drawing' from my first post. In this drawing we can find the coordinates of the several points on the hull as they must have been registered by Winter when he measured the Hohenzollern-model.
By placing these coordinates in a drawing, and comparing their position with the 'lines plan' from Winter's book, we can check if any mistakes were made while transforming the raw data into the 'lines plan' from Winter's book. And, when we do this, an inconvenient truth emerges: Winter's raw data is so faulty that the 'lines plan' from Winter's book, as drawn by his draughtsman Wolf-Dietrich Wagner, can only be described as a very rough approximation of the lines of the Hohenzollern-model.
To show you what draughtsman Wagner was up against, have a look at the drawing below. On this drawing you can find Winter's coordinates for the four lowest waterlines, WL2, WL3, WL4, and KWL, represented by red points. I drew a grey line through these red points to create the aforementioned waterlines:

And here are the lines for frame 23, again based on Winter's coordinates:

I hope we agree that these are not the fluent lines we were hoping to find, they are quite distorted.

As said in my first post, Winter did not take measurements below waterline 'WL2', and therefore the shape of the lower hull of the model presented in the 'lines plan' from Winter's book had to be determined by draughtsman Wagner. And, as we've seen, draughtsman Wagner chose to ignore the only measurement Winter took of the lower hull of the model, the angle of the rising line at the main frame. Why draughtsman Wagner chose to ignore the only measurement Winter took we will never know, but, as an excuse for Wagner, I think that he was confronted with an almost impossible task: transforming Winter's faulty raw data into a credible 'lines plan'.

To me all this shows that Winter did not register the coordinates he took from the outside of the hull of the Hohenzollern-model correctly: his raw data set is faulty. And, since the Hohenzollern-model does no longer exist, there is no way to restore Winter's faulty raw data set, or to retreive the correct lines of the Hohenzollern-model.

To me, the decision made in 1967 by author Heinrich Winter and publisher Hinstorff Verlag Rostock to publish a book that presents Winter's faulty raw data set of the Hohenzollern-model as a coherent representation of the Hohenzollern-model, is a tragedy.

Allow me a question. You say in your reply:
"In the shell first method you soon become aware that this ship does not have the shape it should have and I also modified the drawings of the hull for my construction in such a way that shell first was possible."
I am not sure what you mean with this. I think you mean to say it is impossible to build a model with a hull as shown in the plans from Winter's book with the shell first ship building method. But, since you say that you had to modify the plans from the Hohenzollern-model from Winter's book to make this possible, this would mean that you are not building a copy of the hull of the Hohenzollern-model, but a model of a hull of your own design. On what did you base the design of your hull?

It is good to see that you are aware of the posts of 'Jules van Beek' on MSW.
R.

 

[Steef66]

But why is it then that a forum member who wants to build a model of Akerboom, a Dutch warship of the 1660s, is advised to use the plans of the Hohenzollern-model from Winter's book? And why does another forum member who presents a reconstruction of a 'Dutch capital ship of ca. 1665', use the plans of the Hohenzollern-model from Winter's book? And why do you yourself say that 'the Hohenzollern model is not designed for the shallow waters around the Dutch coast line'?

I'm not going to give you an answer to that, because these persons have a good reason to do so. And in my opinion that you asked this is, is not because you want to know why but to just say they are wrong. And that last thing is disrespectful to this person. Ab, the person you talk about is a lifetime working on these ships and wrote a lot of books. If you don't agree with these books, you are free to write one of them by yourself, give your opinion and see if people agree and buy your books.

the same thing is about Heinrich Winter. He did the research somewhere in the 1940. There was no AutoCAD or computers to make beautifull scans of the ship. Everything was done by hand, even the drawings. And when you make a scan of a handmade drawing and work with that scan in AutoCAD you will find a lot of inconsistencies. CAD is to accurate. So when I say he did a good job, I mean what I said, because without him we had nothing.

Please do not use my words to support your rightness with these respected writers. Because I don't share your opinion.

Allow me a question. You say in your reply:
"In the shell first method you soon become aware that this ship does not have the shape it should have and I also modified the drawings of the hull for my construction in such a way that shell first was possible."
I am not sure what you mean with this. I think you mean to say it is impossible to build a model with a hull as shown in the plans from Winter's book with the shell first ship building method. But, since you say that you had to modify the plans from the Hohenzollern-model from Winter's book to make this possible, this would mean that you are not building a copy of the hull of the Hohenzollern-model, but a model of a hull of your own design. On what did you base the design of your hull?

I did choose to build a ship in the way these shipbuilders did in that time and I wanted to use the Hohenzollern as model.
I did discover in my work that the bottom of a shell first is of a typical shape. So my choice of the Hohemzolern and shell first don't match. That there where Dutch ships where build in that era that look like the Hohenzollern is a fact, because not all ships where build in this method. Cornelis v Yk is discribing another way to build a ship. See example below.


In this way it is possible to build a ship whit a more concave bottom like the HZ model.

On what did you base the design of your hull?

I used the book of Nicolaes Witsen to redesign the bottom of the ship. Everything below WL3 was a little adjusted to make a design that fit between the drawing of Winter and a flat bottom ship. So that shell first was possible to use. I did indeed look to the drawings of the 7P of Dik and Blom, but this was more to get a visualisation of the words of Witsen.
And the drawing? I can tell you that you don't actually need a drawing when you build a ship like this. I'm convinced that these shipbuilders on the Dutch yards where never using drawings. When you experience enough you can build these ships just with a certer.