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Oh my... If anything has surprised me lately, it is your entry. Thank you very much, Heinrich, precisely above all for the long overdue positive emotions experienced here. I also admit that the greatest pleasure is the potential usefulness of the results of this rather arduous quest.
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I will take this opportunity to draw attention to other presentations on the North Continental/Dutch way of shipbuilding. They are no less valuable because they reveal a delightful diversity in the approach and practical implementation of shipbuilding projects by the builders/designers of the period, something that has hitherto actually been unconscious or unrecognised in the conceptual perspective. At the same time, it is diversity in unity (this is probably also the guiding idea of the European Union?), because all these design methods shown so far have a common denominator, allowing the already clear distinction of a method, which can probably quite aptly be called North Continental/Dutch, from other methods or ways of ship design. Admittedly, there has been talk so far of a “Dutch” method, but until now I don't think anyone has really been able to define this conceptually.
More specifically, one can point to the smaller number of principal sweeps making up the contour of the frames, compared to the “competitive” Mediterranean/English method (that is, usually two sweeps as opposed to usually three, not counting the curves of the ship's bottom and possible reconciling sweeps), however, quite often or systematically of variable radius (except the simplest designs), and — equally importantly — a different order of design. Somewhat simplifying, while in the Mediterranean/English method the hull body proper was designed first, only to be combined, as it were, with the keel assembly in the next stage, in the North Continental/Dutch method it was the other way round: one started with the hull bottom, which was the design base, and this irrespective of the carpentry way of the execution of a project (be it shell-first or skeleton-first).
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Perhaps it is too early to draw further generalising conclusions, but it may well be that it was some of the features specific to the North Continental/Dutch method that allowed, upon adopting to the Mediterranean method, somewhere in the first or middle decades of the 17th century, the gradual creation of more sophisticated methods that can collectively be called English moulding. I am referring to the more convenient concept of the actual line of greatest breadth, replacing the hitherto “boca” line from the Mediterranean method, and, following this, the already methodical use of variable radius sweeps in frame contours.
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Particularly in the context of the value of Witsen's and van Yk's works, I tend to be in favour of reconciling the different sources rather than contrasting them. Hopefully, today's possible interpretative differences regarding these works are probably only the result of some unnecessary misunderstanding. Both works must be regarded as invaluable, reliable and even irreplaceable, it is only necessary to remember that in some respects they are not perfect, because they simply cannot be. It is probably not even possible to create a study that would contain the entirety of any one major issue in a complete and at the same time unambiguously precise manner. Unfortunately, such a painful shortcoming in these two works today is the almost complete omission by their authors of the conceptual aspects of shipbuilding (as opposed to the structural and carpentry aspects), moreover, in accordance with the general trend in that period and in this area, which is so evident in the ‘countless’ shipbuilding contracts oriented precisely on the structural and carpentry aspects.
Thank you again, and to all those interested in this contemplative, risk-free subject matter on an emotional and social level
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