last revised 23/08/11

• A modelling project under development •

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.


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.

Botter MK53 (1919) from Marken, preserved in the Zuiderzeemuseum, Enkhuizen

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.

Botter models from the collection of the Zuiderzeemuseum

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

A.P. Schotel
© www.geheugenvannederland.nl

W.B. Tholen	A.P. Schotel		P.P. Rink	Volendam
© Simonis & Buunk			© www.geheugenvannederland.nl

Kwak (J. Siewers)	Volendam (J. Siewers)	Volendam (J. Siewers)	Volendam (J. Siewers)	Volendam (J. Siewers)	unknown
© www.geheugenvannederland.nl

unknown	Volendam (unknown)							Urk (unknown)
© www.geheugenvannederland.nl

Costumes from Voldendam and Marken
in the Zuiderzeemuseum, Enkhuizen				© www.geheugenvannederland.nl