Want to see Just how Big some of these Vessels Were?

[capt dom]

My wife and I wnet to the Batavia Exhibit in Holland
in 2007 so as to get a feel
for what components of a 17th century period sailing vessel
were made up of....

Some of these girls were monstrous! Take a look!

I had to take some "private" time for relaxation
and brought some reading along...

My wife got the shot!

 

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[sniffer]

that's one biga$$ boat. nice pics

 

[capt dom]

Now these were East India Merchant Ships
But even if ours was a third of the size there
were definitely a lot of moving parts!

 

[aquanut]

Capt Dom,
Great Pics! Those Manila Galleons were absolutely beautiful!
Thanks
Aquanut

 

[FISHEYE]

Thats a nice looking ship.I like all the carved figures on the stern.Did you get any pics of the engine room?

 

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

Thanks Capt Dom, Love the detail. Do you have any photos of the inside?
Here is one Spain is building. http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_25520.shtml
Ossy

 

[Alexandre]

Somehow, they just forgot how to launch them - without the masts.

Look at this footage from 1940 and watch secon 45´...

 

[Trond]

Great photos :P

 

[FISHEYE]

You can launch a ship with the masts up,providing you have enough ballast to keep it upright.From the looks of the capsizing ship in the video,it had very little ballast if any at all.Where is that ship at today?

 

[Lucky Eddie]

So help me out here.

I am reasonably certain (from anecdotal info) that the above depicts / shows a wreck outline.

I've used red lines to demarcate what I think is the outline, to make it easier to envisage.

Here you will see the Google Scaling info I used for these measurements.

Obviously I redacted the GPS co-ords for obvious reasons.

Without diving it YET, to confirm it - I have an issue I'll explain below.

What I need to know is, just HOW BIG do old timber wrecks get?

Menzies books talk about Chinese Junks of 400 feet in length as being much larger than subsequent East Indiamen and Portuguese vessels? but he hints at even bigger vessels......with up to 7 masts.

I've a anecdotal report that this wreck contains very large timbers, 2 bulkheads, 7 masts & possibly Chinese porcelain of "Ming" variety.

I've a problem with it - and that is - I've scaled it off the google image using the google scale, and it appears "too large" to be any timber vessel I'm aware of - of that age.

I'm currently of the opinion that......it might just be an unusual natural anomaly on the sea floor that happens to LOOK a lot like a wrecked ship.

So - any idea what the largest wooden ships that ever plied West Australia's coastline, might measure in length?

That photo above from Holland of the Batavia exhibit, sure looks to be a mighty big wooden ship.

I've flown over the Batavia wreck site maybe a dozen times and seen the hole in the reef the wreckage was pulled out of.
I've also visited the Fremantle maritime museum and seen the reconstruction of a portion of the stern of the Batavia ship...from salvaged/treated timbers.

The sailing vessel in the Batavia pictures above - looks way bigger than the hole that the wreck lay in morning reef at the Houtman Abrolhos Islands and way bigger than the stern portion at the WA Maritime Museum of the original Batavia.

So how long would such a vessel as the one depicted above actually be?..
Larger than Menzies 400 foot Chinese Junks?
I read that the original Batavia was 59 meters (~200 feet?) in length.
I'd be very grateful to get a handle on just how big these timber ships were, if anyone can help out?
The diver who first dived it claims it to be: 700 feet, 7 masts and 2 large bulkheads!
I scaled it off the google earth image & scale at....... 700 feet (well 698 give or take).

Who or what had a wooden 7 masted vessel of 700 feet with two bulkheads in West Aussie Indian Ocean waters, before the Dutch?

The Chinese?....as Menzies claims, "super junks"? Man that's some Junk in the trunk!

In Wikipedia.....

A 260 AD book by Kang Tai (康泰) also described ships with seven masts, traveling as far as Syria.

15th-17th century junks (Ming Dynasty)
[edit] Expedition of Zheng He
The largest junks ever built were probably those of Admiral Zheng He, for his expeditions in the Indian Ocean. According to Chinese sources, the fleet comprised 30,000 men and over 300 ships at its height.[citation needed]

The 1405 expedition consisted of 27,000 men and 317 ships. The dimensions of Zheng He's ships according to ancient Chinese chronicles and disputed by modern scholars (see below):

* "Treasure ships", used by the commander of the fleet and his deputies (Nine-masted junks, claimed by the Ming Shi to be about 420 feet long and 180 feet wide).
* "Horse ships", carrying tribute goods and repair material for the fleet (Eight-masted junks, about 340 feet long and 140 feet wide)
* "Supply ships", containing food-staple for the crew (Seven-masted junks, about 260 feet long and 115 feet wide).
* "Troop transports" (Six-masted junks, about 220 feet long and 83 feet wide).
* "Fuchuan warships" (Five-masted junks, about 165 feet long).
* "Patrol boats" (Eight-oared, about 120 feet long).
* "Water tankers", with 1 month's supply of fresh water and sustainability.

Recent research suggests that the actual length of the biggest treasure ships may have rather lain between 390–408 feet (119–124 m) long and 160–166 feet (49–51 m) wide instead,[8] while others estimate them to be 200–250 feet (61–76 m) in length.[9]

14th century junks (Yuan Dynasty)
A 15th century Ming Dynasty junk, Fengzhou

The enormous dimensions of the Chinese ships of the Medieval period are described in Chinese sources, and are confirmed by Western travelers to the East, such as Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta and Niccolò da Conti. According to Ibn Battuta, who visited China in 1347:

... We stopped in the port of Calicut, in which there were at the time thirteen Chinese vessels, and disembarked. On the China Sea traveling is done in Chinese ships only, so we shall describe their arrangements. The Chinese vessels are of three kinds; large ships called chunks (junks), middle sized ones called zaws (dhows) and the small ones kakams. The large ships have anything from twelve down to three sails, which are made of bamboo rods plaited into mats. They are never lowered, but turned according to the direction of the wind; at anchor they are left floating in the wind.

A ship carries a complement of a thousand men, six hundred of whom are sailors and four hundred men-at-arms, including archers, men with shields and crossbows, who throw naphtha. Three smaller ones, the "half", the "third" and the "quarter", accompany each large vessel. These vessels are built in the towns of Zaytun (a.k.a Zaitun; today's Quanzhou; 刺桐) and Sin-Kalan. The vessel has four decks and contains rooms, cabins, and saloons for merchants; a cabin has chambers and a lavatory, and can be locked by its occupants.

This is the manner after which they are made; two (parallel) walls of very thick wooden (planking) are raised and across the space between them are placed very thick planks (the bulkheads) secured longitudinally and transversely by means of large nails, each three ells in length. When these walls have thus been built the lower deck is fitted in and the ship is launched before the upper works are finished.

So I have my 7 masts (or as many as 12) & I have my 2 bulkheads - but NOT so far my 700 feet / 215 meters length!

I scaled the beam at 200 feet, this 700 x 200 does NOT seem to mesh with Chinese junk proportional ratios above of ~2:1!.
This vessel is much more "modern/slim" proportioning IMHO 3.5:1.

The more I learn the less I understand.

Cheers.

 

[Lucky Eddie]

So,

Can anyone explain what we are looking at here?

I can't rationalize it except to say it apparently was dived on and is timber 7 masts and 2 bulkheads.

Damned if I can tell what it might have been.

Do I report it the our maritime museum peoples?

Or go dive it first and try to figure out what it is?

Is there anything comparable anywhere else?

So many questions - I thought this whole wreck bidness would be easy!

TIA