last revised 23/08/11
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Zuiderzee-Botter
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• A
modelling
project under development •
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Botters
in the Zuderzeemuseum Enkhuizen |
History
and
context
Looking at old maps it is amazing to
see how land and water intertwined once in the northern part of the
Netherlands, Noord Holland and Friesland in particular. It is even more
so, when one drives through Noord Holland and reminds oneself that this
once was a patchwork of islands and shallow stretches of sea. The Dutch
fought - and continue to fight - the sea and at the same time a good
part of
the populations lived off the sea. The
Zuiderzee once was a
vast bay of the North Sea, reaching deep into the country, nearly down
to Amsterdam. It
served as throughfare for transport and as a rich fishing resource.
However, pressure on the scarce land was high and the sea was a
constant menace to the low-lying shores and islands. As part of their
struggle against the sea, the Dutch dammed up the bay by a large dike,
the
Afsluitdijk,
completed
in
1933.
This
put
an
end
to
much
of
the
fisheries.
The
already
in
its
southern
part
brackish
Zuidezee
finally turned into a
large freshwater lake, the Ijsselmeer.
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Botter
BU130
built 1875 in Spakenburg and registered at Bunschoten. Now
preserved at the
Zuiderzeemuseum, Enkhuizen. Photographed in 2009
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Over the course of history there have been various types of sailing
fishing vessels with numerous
local variants. The best-known is probably the Botter (and its larger
variant
Kwak). At one stage it
was estimated that there were over 1000 in operation at the end
of the 19th century. The places around the Zuiderzee with the most
botters were Enkhuizen, Volendam/Edam, Monickendam, Marken, Bunschoten
and Urk. Spakenburg was an important building place.
Man's tools to win a lifelihood constantly change and are being adapted
to changing circumstances, new needs and fashions as well. Thus methods
of fishing evolved in order to increase efficiency and in response to
changes to the fishing grounds and other environmental circumstances
that influenced the availability of the resource 'fish'. The history of
the botter is not easy to trace as no artefacts have survived and
artistic renderings are not so reliable bevore say the late 18th
century. As with all small boats, they were built without any drawings
well into the 20th century. The botter or its somewhat larger version
the Kwak as we know it today developed over the past two hundred years.
Sizes vary, but a typical botter has a keel of about 34 feet long.
Sources
There are quite a number of
comprehensive printed works on the botter and its history (see below).
These include also drawings. Some original drawings are preserved in
various museums in the Netherlands. However, like so many traditional
small boats, botters were usually built without any drawings. The
museums also preserve various model built from about the early 19th
century onward. There are also surviving quite a number of original
botters, the oldest being from the last quarter of the 19th century.

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Botter
MK53
(1919)
from
Marken, preserved in
the Zuiderzeemuseum,
Enkhuizen
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These boats survived because they
have
been adapted as pleasure craft.
Obviously a lot of concessions had to be made in this case to
accomodate the modern leisure-boaters and therefore these boats are not
useful for a reconstruction. In more recent years some of these have
been reconverted into a state that is more like their original workday
appearance. Also, from the end of the 19th century onward some botters
had been built als pleasure craft for private owners. They usually
deviate somewhat from the work boats and are often fitted with a cabin,
as is found e.g. on boeiers.
The
Zuiderzeemuseum
in Enkhuizen preserves a late botter in its boathall. The
Zuiderzeemuseum
also has a large
collection of ship- and boatmodels,
including several botters. Some of the models appear to be
contemporary, while others have been built in more recent times.
The Model
The model is based on the resin kit
produced
by
Artitec
in 1:90 (HO) scale.
This company has developed a real mastery in casting complex and large
resin parts. In addition to the hull, the kit contains castings for the
mast and spars, for rigging blocks and, somewhat strangely perhaps, the
taken-down sails. Of course, these kits are mainly meant as accessories
for model railway layouts and people not knowing a lot about these
craft. The kit also contains a small fret of etched parts, mainly for
the ironwork of the rigging. While the etched parts are well made as
such, they
are for the most part not really useful for representing the forged
ironwork. For instance, masthoops are, of course, flat in the
horizontal direction, while they should really be short tubes. Other
parts simply lack the needed plasticity. Hence most of the etched parts
will not be used. Similarly, the cast rigging blocks will be replaced
by
home-made ones and 'real' sails will be made. I bought the kit 'second
hand' and the at some stage the characteristic high stem head was
broken off and a new one will have to grafted on. Various other details
will be improved for better definition of the shapes. Although the
casting is well made, there are certain limitations due to the casting
process. A company policy of
Artitec
is to limit the number of parts and to cast-on as many details as
possible. Thus for instance the spill is cast onto the foredeck. There
are limitations to undercuts in the silicone rubber molds, hence the
barrel is not completely free. I shall have to remove the material
underneath the barrel using a scalpel etc.

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| The Artitec polyurethane resin castings
(note that the stem head is broken off) |
Not only are
Artitec masters in
casting kits, but also in painting them as is evidenced for instance by
the diorama of the
Texel
Roadsted and models in various other museums around the
Netherlands. Below is a finished botter model from their Web-site.
- 03/10/10
The building begins with removing the
casting pips. It appears that the
model was cast upside-down, so that excess resin is found only at the
bottom of the hull. This excess was cut off with an abrasive disk in
the hand-held powerdrill. The bottom was then ground flat onto the
waterline on a piece of wet-and-dry sanding paper. It is important to
hold the hull securely during the various building steps. To this end
two 2.5 mm holes were drilled into the solid part of the hull and
tapped for M3 screws with which it can screwed down on a piece of wood
for safe handling. The tapped holes will also used to hold down the
model in its dioramic setting
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Holding
the
model
for
working
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Bow
with
spill
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Spill (© van Beylen
1985)
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Stern without horse for
main-sheet
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Main-sheet horse (©
van Beylen 1985) |
- 10/10/10
The hull casting was then inspected
for any flash and it removed with a
scalpell and files. Luckily, there was hardly any flash. As the next
step the hull casting was compared with drawings from the literature,
mainly BEYLEN (1985) and DORLEIJN (2001),
as well as the above photographic images. As is discussed below, it
will assumed that the model represents a botter from Marken. Botters
from different regions differed in characteristic details and these
should be represented as true as is reasonably possible at this small
scale. When going over the casting a number of 'problems' were noted:
a) the spill lacks some definition of detail, although the general
shape is well represented; also a pawl bit is modelled, while normally
the pawl would be pivoted on the inside band of the bow; b) the horse
for the traveller of the main sheet is foreseen as an iron bar (an
etched part), while the more common arrangement is a wooden horse
integrated into the slightly raised stern-platform; c) the leeboards
are meant to be glued onto wedge-shaped protrusions on the main
bollards; on the prototype, the leeboards are suspended on a pin that
ties into a band that is laid around the bollard; d) the horizontal
wooden knees left and right of the stem-head are missing, but the whole
stem-head has to be rebuilt anyway. In addition, holes for thole-pins
etc. have to be drilled through. There are other little bits and pieces
that need to improved, but they will not all be listed here.
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Main bollard
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Leeboard hinge (© van
Beylen 1985) |
Cutting
the
slots
for
the
handle
bars
of
the
spill
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Milling
the
ratchet
wheel
of
the
spill
on
the
dividing
attachment
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Parting-off the ratched
wheel
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The parts assembled on the
spill stem
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Free-hand turning of the
spill ends
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Milling
the
eight
sides
of
the
winding
drum
on
the
dividing
attachment
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The finished spill drum
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The
spill
installed |
Improved
main
sheet
horse |
Improved
rudder |
- 03/11/10
Given the problems with the spill, it
was cut completely from the
moulded hull in order to be rebuilt as a separate item. Square holes
and recessions cannot be easily machined from the solid. Therefore the
spill was built up from a number of parts that would allow machining,
The 0.5 mm x 0.5 mm holes for the handle bars were cut as slots into a
section of 4 mm round brass bar. The ratchet wheel was cut on the
milling machine with a dividing attachment. All part had a 1 mm hole
drilled through to take up a 1 mm brass rod. Brass was chosen in order
to be able to soft-solder all parts together for the subsequent
machining operations and to provide an axle. The cigar-shape of the
spill was turned with the Lorch free-hand turning device. The piece was
then transfered back to the dividing attachment on the mill and the
eight sides of the winding drum were milled on.
In between, the hull-moulding was
freed from cast-on belaying and other
pins as well as the collar for the leeboards. All parts that will be
replaced in metal for better definition. The respective holes for
belaying and thole pins were opened up properly. The missing stem-head
was fashioned from an off-cut piece of polyurethane resin. Bands and
rubbing strakes for the forestay haliard were added from styrene sheet
and copper wire. On close
inspection it was found also that the stern piece was too narrow to
accomodate the pintels for the rudder. It was widened with a piece of
resin
stuck on. The tiller from the kit didn't look quite like what I had
seen in the literature and on real boats. Consequently a new one
was rough millled from a piece of plexiglas and finish filed to shape.
The tiller was completed with the band from styrene that holds it
together. in the prototype.
The horse for the traveller was
also fashioned from a piece of
Plexiglas that had just the right thickness. All seams were filled with
putty. From putty were also sculpted the stem knees. The horse also
received rubbing strakes from thin copper wire.
- 16/03/11
The leeboards are cast in resin, but due to the casting process in an
open mold, their back is flat and without any sculpting. In reality,
they are not just flat boards, but they have a cross-section almost
like a propeller. In fact they are hollowed out over some part to
create some hydrodynamic lift that counteracts the leeway and also
pushes the leeboard against the boat. Using files and diamond rotary
burrs the appropriate shape was given and also the separation of the
individual boards of which the leeboards are composed were marked out.
There are various belaying clamps distributed around the hull. The kit
has photoetched parts for these, but somehow they appear rather flat.
In addition some or all of them would have to be of the single-horned
variety, rather than the more common double-horned one, as forseen in
the kit. Replacements were milled raw from a strip of brass and sliced
off on the lathe. They were finished using the hand-held power-drill
using small grindstones and polishers.
Again, the casting of the hull is nicely done, but Artitec were a bit
overenthusiastic in depicting a rather worn state. If there were such
big gaps in the hull, the boat would sink to the bottom of the
Zuiderzee like a sieve. To counteract the rather rustic appearance,
fly-tying silk was glued as 'caulking' into the gaps using varnish.
The cast mast was nicely done by Artitec - in principle, but was too
short for a boat of this size, did not have the right chocs for a boat
from Marken and above all was warped. A new mast was fashioned on the
lathe from a piece of steel rod - I did not have suitable stock of
boxwood or similar and brass, aluminium or plexiglas would have not
been stiff enough. The mast was turned in steps on the watchmakers
lathe. This also allowed to turn-on the mast bands. It was then
transferred to the dividing
attachment milling machine to mill on the squares. The various
eyebolt and cranes were fashioned from copperwire and soldered or glued
on.
- 23/08/11
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Turning
the
boom
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The gaff, still without
bands on the drawing from VAN BEYLEN's
book
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As the mast, the boom was turned on the lathe from a 2 mm steel
rod. The flexing of the rod was utilised to obtain the taper towards
both ends. Again the bands were turned on and the boom was tranfered to
dividing apparatus for drilling the holes.
The gaff has a rather odd, pear-shaped cross-section. In addition its
longitudinal shape is rather crooked. It was fashioned from a piece of
brass wire that was tapered off and bent to the right shape. A piece of
brass sheet was cut to follow the curve of gaff and hard-soldered to
the brass wire. The pear-shape was filled-up with soft solder. Then the
claws that were fashioned from brass were soldered on. Finally, the 0.2
mm holes for the line with which the sail is attached were drilled.
To be continued ...
Dioramic Setting
The kit is actually for a waterline
model, which somewhat limits the
possibilities for dioramic displays. It was originally envisaged to
show the boat on a slip such as that preserved in the
Zuiderzeemuseum
in Enkhuizen, but being a waterline model this is unfortunately not
possible.
In developing a scenic setting some
sort of story-board is of great
help. It sets down the wheres, whys and hows, and thus helps to make
the scene consistent and logical. Having lived for several years in
Noord-Holland, the inspiration for the setting to be developed came
from a winter visit to the
Zuiderzeemuseum
and a subsequent trip along the coast of Isselmeer towards Volendam.
Quite rare today, the canals and part of the Isselmeer were frozen
over. There was a thick accumulation of 'pankake' ice floes around the
coast, while the canals where frozen black, there having been no snow.
Appropriately the museum showed wintery footage of locals ice-scating
around frozen-in boats, taken in the 1930s in Volendam and Marken.
Hence, the idea developed to show exactly this scene: a botter from
Marken trapped by the ice in the harbour of Volendam; the sails were
too stiff to be taken in and are still half-set; the net is hoisted to
dry, but would also be frozen stiff; the skipper and his mate, dressed
in the charakteristic Marker dress with 'culots', while locals in the
Volendam dress - the men in baggy black trousers and tight black jacket
and waist-coat, the women with the well-known white lace bonnet - scate
past; there will be also a couple of kids on a push-sleigh. The time
would be around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.
The area of Edam-Volendam and Marken has coined very much our mental
picture of the Netherlands, thanks to the numerous painters who came to
this area from the last quarter of the 19th century onwards. They were
attracted by the picturesque towns and villages as well as the locals
who still wore their traditional costumes. Thus we came to think that
the baggy trousers of Volendam and the culots of Marken were the Dutch men's costume.
Similarly the women's dresses with a striped apron and the peaked lace
bonnet became synonymous for the
Dutch women's costume. They are picturesque, without question and
somewhat exotic when seen together with the large wooden clogs. So,
some fisherfolk in these costumes will add greatly to the atmosphere.
Photographs and paintings are another
source
of inspiration for a dioramic setting and below I provide the link to a
number of them together with an identification of the source, as the
material might be copyrighted:
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Kwak
(J. Siewers)
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Volendam
(J.
Siewers) |
Volendam
(J.
Siewers) |
Volendam
(J.
Siewers) |
Volendam
(J.
Siewers) |
unknown
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© www.geheugenvannederland.nl
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to be continued ...
Literature
ANONYM (1935): Nederlandsch Historisch Sheepvaart
Museum, Platen Album.- 61 p., Amsterdam.
BEYLEN, J. VAN (1985): De botter -
Geschiedenis en bouwbeschrijving van een Nederlands visserschip.- 223
p., Weesp (De Boer Maritiem).
CRONE, G.C.E. (1926): Nederlandsche Jachten,
Binnenschepen Visschersvaartuigen en daarmee Verwante kleine Zeeschepen
1650 -1900.- 309 p., 85 figs., Amsterdam (Swets & Zeitlinger,
reprint 1978 by Schiepers, Schiedam).
DORLEIJN, P. (2001): De Bouwgeschiedenis van de Botter.
Vierendertig voet in de kiel.- 168 p., Lelystad (Uitgeverij Van Wijnen).
HUITEMA, E. [Ed.] (19652): Ronde en platboden jachten.-
300 p., Amsterdam (P.N. Van Kampen & Zon).
NEDERLANDSCH HISTORISCH SCHEEPVAART
MUSEUM [Ed.] (1969): Descriptive Catalogue.- 104 p.,
Amsterdam (Nederlandsch Historisch Sheepvaart Museum).
NOOTEBOOM, C. (~1925): De inlandsche scheepvaart. Deel
11 van de gids in Het Volkenkundig Museum.- 79 p., Amsterdam
(Koninklijke Vereeniging ‘Koloniaal Instituut).
OSTROM, C. van (1988): Ronde en platbodems schepen en
jachten.- 144 p., Alkmaar (De Alk b.v.).
SOPERS, P.J.V.M. (196?): Schepen die verdwijnen
(bearbeitet von H.C.A. van Kampen).- 162 p., Amsterdam (P.N. Van Kampen
& Zon).
VOORBEIJTEL, W. (1943): Bechrijvende Catalogus der
Scheepsmodellen en Scheepsbouwkundige Tekeningen 1600-1900.- 191 p.
Amsterdam (Nederlandsch Scheepvartmuseum).
Selected botter-links
http://www.botters.nl/ -
Daysailing in botters
http://www.bottercompagnie.nl/
- Association of botter-owners that undertake tours etc. against payment
http://www.botteruitje.nl/ -
Daysailing in botters - Daysailing in botters
http://www.botterverhuur.com/De_BU39.htm
- History of the botter that is offered for daysailing.
http://www.fonv.nl/vbb/ - Association for the preservation of
botters.
http://www.fonv.nl/vbb/botterwerf.html - Boatyard specialising in
botters.
http://www.garnkwak.nl/ - Garn-Kwak VD172
http://www.huizerbotters.nl/
- Botter foundation of Huizen
http://www.windenwater.nl/index.html
- A botter building and repairing yard
Other links of interest
http://beeldbank.nationaalarchief.nl/
- Historic photographs from the Dutch National Archives
http://www.beeldbank-nh.nl/ -
Historic photographs from the Noord Hollands Archives
http://www.dirk-advies.com/prod01.htm
- pictures from the Zuiderzee
http://www.kustvaartforum.com/
- Discussion forum for Dutch coastal shipping
http://www.punterwerf.nl/ -
Building and repair yard
http://www.zuiderzeeambachten.nl/
- Zuiderzee pictures and stories
Contact:
webmaster at wefalck dot eu