Nicolaes Witsen and Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age

"It is 25 years since Ab Hoving first introduced 17th century Dutch shipbuilding to an English-speaking audience. He has since become well known internationally as a superlative modelmaker, moved to a senior conservation post at the Rijksmuseum, and produced a goodly number of books and papers on Dutch shipbuilding. The principal characteristic is shell-building of carvel hulls, all adapted to the shallow waters of Amsterdam. His work was widely cited in nautical archaeology, even before important wrecks revealed the characteristic shipbuilding he has described, based primarily on studies of Witsen (but also the rather different methods described by van Ijk for the southern area of Rotterdam). His work has included consultation on various recent reconstructions of historic Dutch vessels such as Duyfken, the Utrecht Statenjacht and De 7 Provinciën. This translation of Hoving’s 1994 book on Witsen’s Scheeps-bouw-kunst open gesteldt has been long awaited. It is not an edition of Witsen, which is a massive and impenetrable tome, but a re-working of the most significant material into a more coherent order, with new illustrations, and comparisons with van Ijk’s methods. It includes a foreword by André Wegener Sleeswyk. Anyone who has had to rely on brief accounts of Witsen in English will find this volume to be full of interest and surprises."--Richard Barker

"This is a wonderful book about the best ships of the seventeenth century, written by the best specialist on this subject. Ab Hoving hs deciphered, organized, and explained the amazing work of Nicolaes Witsen in a clear and exciting way, making this book a must in every nautical archaeology library."--Filipe Castro

"The book written by Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717) and published in Amsterdam in 1671 was until now at he same time famous and unknown: famous because regarded rightly as the oldest treaty of naval architecture published in Holland; unknown as only some very rare historians and archaeologists of Dutch naval architecture had read and studied in its entirety this difficult and often confused, but however much essential, book. Aeloude in Hedendaegsche Scheepsbouw in Bestier (Ancient and Modern Shipbuilding and Management): this fundamental book for the knowledge of art to build ships in Holland during the XVIIth century is from now accessible to many people - researchers and students in nautical archaeology and maritime history, shiplovers, modelmakers... - thanks to the years from theoretical and practical research (through model making), with the talent of draftsman, the historical scholarship and the quality of writing A. J. Hoving on the one hand, and with the competences of translation (Dutch/English) of A. Lemmers on the other hand. In a remarkable way, the "Master-Shipbuilder" A.J. Hoving operated a second reading and a complete rewriting with many new technical and historical commentaries of the work on N. Witsen, following the logic of the technical processes of the shipyards of the area of Amsterdam. The result of this immense work is his book entitled Nicolaes Witsen and Shipbuilding in the Dutch Gold Age. By the texat, but also by the drawing, one follows thus under the erudite, specifies, rigorous and always comprehensible and harmonious direction of "Master Hoving", the 122 sequences of the construction of a pinas of 134 feet length as if one were at the XVIIth century in a shipyard, looking at working of tens of carpenters in the noise of adzes, axes and saws, in the ordors of oak, fir tree and hot pitch. There is not any doubt that 340 years after the publication of the treaty of N. Witsen, its edition by A. J. Hoving constitutes (and will remain it a long time) a major scientific event for all the scientific community and, more largely, for all the community of shiplovers."--Dr. Eric Rieth, Director of Research, National Center for Scientific Research, LAMOP, National Maritime Museum