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Table of Content

Section I: Ship Design and Hull Geometry

Section II: Shipbuilding Practices

AppendicesEditorial Preface

3

Eric Rieth

9 First Archaeological Evidence of the Mediterranean Moulding Ship Design Method, The Example of the Culip VI Wreck.

Spain, XIIth-XIVth c.

Eric Rieth

17 La méthode moderne de conception des carènes du whole- moulding, une mémoire des chantiers navals méditerranéens du

Moyen Age.

(Reprinted from NEPTUNIA 2000, no. 220)

Richard Barker

33
Whole-Moulding: a Preliminary Study of Early English and

Other Sources

Richard Barker

67

A Venetian Ship Drawing of 1619

Eric Rieth

79
A Similar Atlantic and Mediterranean Ship Design Method: The Case of the French Royal Dockyards at the End of the

XVIIth Century

Eric Rieth

93
From Wreck to Shipyard: The Example of the Port Berteau II

Wreck, France (VIIth c. AD)

Richard Barker

103
"Cradles of Navigation" Re-Visited

Gilberto Penzo

171
La tecnica d'impostazione in cantiere delle barche altoadriatiche

Gilberto Penzo

183
Le "canovete" ossia i mezzi-modelli utilizzati nei cantieri adriatici

Appendix I: Workshop Participants and Organizers

195

Appendix II: Workshop Program

197

Appendix III: Further Relevant References

201
3

Editorial Preface

In November 2001 the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin held a three-day Workshop on "Shipbuilding Practices and Ship Design Methods from the Re- naissance to the 18th Century." This Preprint documents some of the most significant results of this meeting, which were made available by the authors after the workshop as original written contributions. It also gives guidance on how to find other material as- sociated with the workshop. From the viewpoint of the workshop organizers at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science the theme of the workshop was chosen as an ideal application of one of its significant long-term research interests, viz., the genesis and migration of knowledge in science and technology. Maritime scientific and technological developments offer an abundance of evidence on knowledge genesis and migration, regionally widely dis- persed and temporally spread over millennia. The topic of maritime knowledge history promises to be a fertile ground for science historians. To the specialists in shipbuilding history the workshop also gave a welcome opportuni- ty to review recent findings and to discuss novel methodologies in their subject area. This field has gained much new momentum in recent decades, not only by numerous new excavations by means of modern underwater archaeology, which has added signif- icant substance to our knowledge on historical shipbuilding and ship design, but also by important improvements in their evaluation and information extraction processes. Thus the historical reconstruction of ships and shipbuilding practice, which in the past had to rely more heavily on literary and pictorial sources can now be subjected to a critical re- examination of earlier hypotheses and conclusions. This leads to interesting new in- sights and may also shed new light on shipbuilding knowledge genesis and migration. The invitation to the workshop was extended to a group of selected international experts in the history of science, shipbuilding and ship design. Their contributions were solic- ited on a representative spectrum of topics in maritime science and technology, encom- passing the full range of shipbuilding practices and ship design methods. A group of about 30 participants attended the workshop (Appendix I). The Workshop Programme (Appendix II) was structured into six sessions with 23 presentations. A majority of these primary inputs was later posted on the MPIWG Website for access through the internet. These subjects covered a broad spectrum of interests. In the current Preprint we have restricted ourselves to 9 original articles submitted in writing by some of the authors corresponding to the main areas of interest addressed in the workshop. The material in this report is presented in two sections on "Ship Design and Hull Geometry" and on "Shipbuilding Practices," the two focal areas of discussion. This split is of course a bit arbitrary, as the reader will appreciate, because design meth- ods depend on building practice and vice versa. But in the two sections these fundamen- tally coherent subjects are approached from two different perspectives as the starting points. Yet the material presented here should be regarded as connected pieces of evi- dence on maritime knowledge history. Only in one case have we also included an earlier paper, first published by Eric Rieth in NEPTUNIA of 2000, which was reproduced here because it provides valuable back-

4ground to several articles in Section I and thus facilitates the understanding of other con-

tributions by the same author and by others. The workshop has concentrated on the period from the Renaissance to the 18th century. This was an eventful era in maritime history in Europe because many nations in Medi- terranean and Atlantic Coast countries were building up large fleets of military and mer- chant vessels for various political and economic interests. It was also a period of rapid technological change in ship size, ship speed, propulsion systems and other outfitting. These advances were driven by commercial competition and military rivalry. In this period - and hence in our workshop - the technology of building ships "skeleton first with carvel planking" plays a dominant role, at least for the larger ships built in the more advanced shipyards, even if simultaneously examples of shell-first and hybrid construction continue to exist. This technology imposes high accuracy requirements and reliable advance planning. Special design techniques for accurate, reproducible hull form definition became indispensable. New lofting practices for hull geometry and ship construction originated in Mediterranean countries, notably in the Venetian, Iberian and French traditions, all characterized by derivation from a single mould to define the en- tire hull form. Other practices and experience developed in the Atlantic Coast regions. This creates an interesting common platform of shipbuilding knowledge with some dis- tinct and contrasting practices. Section I of this Preprint discusses the origins and developments in these two traditions. Eric Rieth in his first article dates the first archaeological evidence on the Mediterra- nean method, the Culip VI wreck found off the coast of Catalonia, around 1300. This is well before the first written description of these methods beginning in the 15th c. in Ve- netian, Portuguese and French sources. All these Mediterranean design methods devel- op the hull shape from a single mould augmented by a few further shape control instruments and parameters. Rieth in his second article gives an overview and contrasts these Mediterranean methods with the later method of "whole-moulding," perhaps used for some time in England and maybe in other countries. Rieth suggests certain possible "ibero-Atlantic" migration paths. Richard Barker in his first contribution casts some doubts on these migration hypotheses, explains the limited evidence on the English use of whole-moulding and emphasizes that the classical English lofting method of "haul- ing up and down" has its own roots and does not belong to the single mould family. Barker in his second article also interprets an enigmatic Venetian drawing of 1610 in an intriguing analysis of a simple, pictorial document and addresses possible links in de- sign methodology between Venice and England. In the last contribution of this Section Rieth documents an explicit case history of shipbuilding knowledge migration from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Coast of France around 1700 when some master ship- wrights moved across and took their traditions in shipbuilding practice along. This Sec- tion highlights the coherence in and contrasts between ship design knowledge and shipbuilding practice over a wide region and in a large time frame, showing certain common roots and many independent blossoms. Section II describes instances of shipbuilding practices spanning a very long time frame. Rieth reports the excavation and reconstruction, performed from 1992 to 1997, of a small river and coastal freighter, whose wreck was found in the lower part of the river Charente, called the Port Berteau II wreck. This ship was built in about 600 AD.

5The ship finds suggest a carvel, frame-first construction and imply a well planned and

coordinated operation in the shipyard. Barker in "Cradles of Navigation" reviews the historical record of ship launching technology. This operation under the responsibility of the shipyard has always been one of the most critical events in a ship's lifetime. Its technologies objectively reflect the technical experience with and physical analysis of the launching process in terms of its forces and dynamics. The article on this rarely stud- ied subject gives a valuable sidelight on how shipbuilding practical knowledge and physical understanding developed concurrently. Gilberto Penzo wraps up this Section by presenting two articles on current shipbuilding and design practices in the Northern Adriatic region, where the heritage from the medieval Mediterranean tradition remains clearly visible. The facts and hypotheses presented in this Preprint merit a deeper analysis by the inter- ested readers and by the scientific community. The dialogue on open issues in maritime knowledge history in science and technology must continue. The Workshop and this Preprint are only intended as snapshot pictures of a dynamically advancing research field. An important spin-off effect of the workshop was also the opening of a specialized web- site at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science on the theme of: "History of Science in Naval Architecture". This website currently contains information on this subject, composed of:

17 electronic prints (digital documents) of workshop contributions

144 full texts, i.e., scanned versions of relevant and in some cases rare historical

literature

370 bibliographical entries as a roadmap to relevant material.

The scope of this database, which will serve as a collaborative network, is intended to be maintained and to be gradually extended, also with the assistance of the network us- ers. The access to this website is under revision. The editors, also on behalf of the Max Planck Institute express their sincere gratitude to all authors of this Preprint and to all participants in the Workshop.

Horst Nowacki and Matteo Valleriani

7

Section I

Ship Design and Hull Geometry

9 First Archaeological Evidence of the Mediterranean Whole Moulding Ship Design Method: The Example of the Culip VI

Wreck, Spain (XIIIth-XIVth c.)

Eric Rieth

Introduction

The Culip VI wreck, lying at less than 10m. deep in the creek of Culip, located close to the cap Creus, in Catalonia, Spain, was excavated in 1990 under the general direction of Xavier Nieto, director of the Centre de Arqueologia Subaquatica de Catalunya. The ex- cavation of the remains of the hull and the study of the data were my responsibility (1). The structure, of which only 11m. in length and 3m. in breadth are preserved (fig. 1), cor- responds to the bottom of the hull: keel, keelson, floor-timbers, planking, start of the stem and two mast-steps (main and fore masts). The artefacts in connection with the hull (ce- ramics produced in South Spain in particular) date the wreck to the end of the XIIIth-be- ginning of the XIVth century. The hull is built "frame first" according to the techniques of the medieval Mediterranean shipyards. The Culip VI ship, whose shipyard could be located in North Catalonia, is a coaster. Its restored dimensions are: 16,35m. in length, 4,10m. in breadth at the master- frame, 1,94m. in depth of hold. The burden is estimated at around 40 tons. The originality, and the scientific importance, of this small wreck lies in a particular or- ganization of the frames in relation to surmarks and Roman numbers engraved in the floor-timbers. For the first time, these surmarks and numbers were observed and recorded during an archaeological excavation. For the first time, also, these surmarks and numbers were interpreted in correlation to a corpus of written sources from Venice, Spain, Portugal and France, dated between the XVth and the XVIIth century. For the first time, at last, this comparison between archaeological data and written evidences has given the possi- bility to restitute the precise process of design of the frames of a medieval coastal freigth- er.

First question

What are the main archaeological data? 38 floor-timbers are preserved; 35 are nailed in the keel and 3 are nailed in the start of the stem. The 35 floor-timbers situated on the keel (M 104 to M 138) have a scarf near their extremity. This scarf corresponds to the joint between the floor-timber and the first futtock. This particular scarf, named in the French sources of the XVIIth century "écart à croc ou à dent" (scarf with a hook), can be inter- preted as an architectural sign of the Mediterranean tradition, different of the dovetail scarf of the Ibero-Atlantic tradition. The 3 floor-timbers localized on the stem do not have a scarf. The first-futtock is directly joint with the floor-timber. One floor-timber (M 113) of the first group has one scarf on one side and another scarf on the reverse side. From this particular floor-timber with reversed scarfs, the position of the other scarfs is fixed according to a very precise plan. Towards the stem, the scarfs are

10localized on the fore side of the floor-timbers and towards the stern on the aft side of the

floor-timbers. These two symmetrical groups of floor-timbers have also three other characteristics (fig. 2). One central surmark is engraved on a level with the middle of the keel. This central surmark has always an invariant position. Two lateral surmarks are engraved on a level with the scarfs. These two lateral surmarks have a variable position according to the narrowing of the length of the floor-timber. One Roman number is engraved be- tween the central and the lateral surmarks (Fig. 3). In the group of floor-timbers fully preserved (M 114 to M 138), the first floor-timber (M 114) is numbered I and the last one (M 138) is numbered XXV. In the second group of floor-timbers preserved in part (M 113 to M 104), the first floor-timber (M 113) is also numbered I and the last one preserved is numbered X. These archaeological data recorded during the underwater excavation give the possibil- ity to have a first comprehensive view of the organization of the frames. Two groups of floor-timbers can be surely identified: one group which corresponds to the central part of the hull; another which corresponds to the extremity of the hull. The first group, char- acterized by scarfs in the extremity of the floor-timbers, central and lateral surmarks, roman numerals, can be divided in two sub-groups from the two master-frames M 113 and M 114. The last floor-timber numbered XXV in the fore part of the hull is identified as the fore tail-frame.

Second question

How to interpret these archaeological data from the point of view of the ship design method? To recognize the significance of the archaeological data recorded during the excavation of the Culip VI wreck, a corpus of medieval and modern written sources from Venice, Spain, Portugal and France were studied. One example of this research concerns the identification of the surmarks engraved in the floor-timbers. In the Libro de Zorzi Trombetta de Modon, a Venetian manuscript (2) of the middle of the XVth century (c. 1445) which, probably, is a copy of an anonymous manuscript of the beginning of the XVth century, there are different rolls of proportions for galleys and navi. In relation with these written descriptions, there are schematic geometrical figures of master-moulds as, for example, the master-mould of a nave with a burden of

700 botte (around 350 tons). Two surmarks are pictured on the fondi which corresponds

to the mould of the floor-timber: one central surmark in relation to the middle of the keel and one lateral surmark at the beginning of the bilge. In another Venetian document - the Libro di marineria also entitled Fabrica di galere (3) - another copy of an anony- mous manuscript, probably of the beginning of the XVth century (C. 1410), the lateral surmark is not pictured but the text gives a numerical value of a particular point of the arc of the master-mould. This point is named in Venetian poselese de fondi or della par- aschuxula. In the French mediterranean documents of the XVIIth century, it is entitled "point d'escoue" and in the Atlantic documents of the same period "point du plat de la varangue." This point of the arc is superimposed to the lateral surmark.

11One of the first descriptions - with an illustration - of the making of these surmarks is

given by the Portuguese João Baptista Lavanha in his Livro primeiro da architectura naval (4) dated to the beginning of the XVIIth century (c. 1610). Lavanha, after the de- scription of the use of the mould of the floor-timber, explains that the shipbuilder en- graves a first central surmark (letters MS) in the middle of the mould and a lateral surmark (letters OP) near the extremity of the mould. Through the text and the drawing of Lavanha on the one hand, through the surmarks mentioned and pictured in the Venetian documents on the other hand, the surmarks ar- chaeologically attested in the floor-timbers of the Culip VI wreck acquire an historical significance. These surmarks can be interpreted as the material signs of a particular pro- cess of moulding the floor-timbers and, more generally, the frames from the master- frame to the tail-frame. From that time, it is possible to associate the organization of the floor-timbers of the wreck according to the position of two master floor-timbers, the lo- calization of the surmarks and, also, of the Roman numbers, with a precise ship design method. This moulding method is characterized by the use of the three traditional "in- struments": the master-mould, the french "maître-gabarit," the rising square, the french "tablette d'acculement" and another wooden scale to obtain the narrowing of the breadth-line, the French "trébuchet."

Third and last question

How to check this interpetation? Because the first-futtocks are not preserved, only two levels of the process of moulding were checked: the narrowing and the rising of the 25 floor-timbers preserved between the main floor-timber (M 114) and the fore tail floor- timber (M 138). What is the methodology used for the narrowing? The lateral surmarks of the master floor-timber and of the tail floor-timber give with precision the value of the narrowing. After some tests, the geometrical diagram named mezza luna (half-moon) in the Vene- tian manuscripts was selected to calculate graphically the intermediate values of the narrowing between the master floor-timber and the tail floor-timber. From the archae- ological record in scale 1/1 of the master floor-timber, a theoretical mould was recon- structed in small scale. With this scaled mould of the floor-timber on which the different theoretical values of the narrowing are inscribed, the shape of the intermediate floor- timbers is moulded always in theory. The comparison between the theoretical shape and the recorded shape of the floor-timbers shows a good agreement for the 13 flat floor- timbers which validates the interpretation. But for the other 12 floor-timbers, there is no agreement because the floor-timbers are narrowed but, also, raised. Using the same methodology - reconstruction of a rising mould on which the calculated values of the rising are scribed - , the shape of the raised floor-timbers has been moulded. The com- parison between the theoretical and the recorded shape of the raised floor-timbers shows a good agreement which validates the interpretation (fig. 4). 12

Conclusion

In conclusion, two aspects can be underlined. Firstly, an important part of the floor-tim- bers of the Culip VI wreck can be associated with a precise process of moulding (for the narrowing and the rising). This process is related to a ship design method defined in the French historical source as "le maître-gabarit, la tablette et le trébuchet" method. Sec- ondly, the Culip VI wreck, dated to the end of the XIIIth-beginning of the XIVth cen- tury, is actually the oldest archaeological evidence of this method of moulding. In this perspective, it will be very interesting to compare the Culip VI wreck with the extraor- dinarily well preserved medieval galley excavated during the last months in the Venice lagoon.

References

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