Shipbuilding
Dutch Navy
De Zeven ProvinciĂ«n was a Dutch ship of the line, originally armed with 80 guns. The name of the ship was also written as De 7 ProvinciĂ«n. The literal translation is “The Seven Provinces”, the name referring to the fact that the Dutch Republic in the 17th century was a confederation of seven autonomous provinces. The vessel was originally built…
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Korean naval bolt-firing cannons (Chongtong)
The first one is a chija-ch’ongt’ong which was the second largest of the cannons that appeared in the mid-1500s. The second was a pyorhwangja which was a swivel gun variant of the smallest cannon, the hwangja, which appeared during the Imjin War or shortly after. The third was a hyonja…
Ottoman Naval Gunnery in the Eighteenth Century
Ottoman ship-of-the-line which name is Peleng-i Bahri 1777s (Tiger-sea) with 58 guns The first time cannons were used on Ottoman ships was during the siege of Constantinople to hit the city walls from the sea. Guilmartin, however, tells about a contemporary Turkish sketch preserved in Topkapi Palace showing two Ottoman…
The Introduction of Copper Sheathing into the Ottoman Navy
Copper sheathing of Cutty Sark Ottomans seem to have been aware that the copper-sheathing technique, when it first appeared in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century, had offered significant advantages. Among them were protection from wood-eating worm; the creation of a surface on which external weed and…
Foxtrot on the Brink
The Foxtrot class was the NATO reporting name of a class of diesel-electric patrol submarines that were built in the Soviet Union. The Soviet designation of this class was Project 641. The Foxtrot class was designed to replace the earlier Zulu class, which suffered from structural weaknesses and harmonic vibration…
Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
Full-scale replica of a Dutch sailing ship – a VOC-ship in the Golden Century of Holland. The “Prins Willem”, built in 1651 at Middelburg, Zeeland (the Netherlands) was one of the largest of East Indiamen to be constructed during the 17th Century. Built to withstand long and often hazardous sea…
MEDIEVAL SHIPBUILDING
Early medieval Europeans received from their predecessors two broad ranges of wooden shipbuilding traditions, one in the Mediterranean and the other in the northern seas. At the same time Chinese shipwrights had already developed the central features of the design of the junk. Its watertight compartments, adjustable keel, and highly…