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The
Hindeloopen Kayak
The same year, I visited the museum de Hidde Nij-land Stichting
in the old town hall in Hindeloopen. (The train drops you off
in a small gravel parking lot. Look for the steeple in the distance
and start walking.) This museum has displays representing local
history and artifacts, including a small representation of Hindeloopen's
whaling past-a kayak. In his book, Nooter refers to this as the
Hindeloopen kayak.
The
Hindeloopen kayak is also in poor condition. It exhibits hull-collapse
along much of the keel, and the shrinking sealskin has crushed
the ribs significantly. While Nooter's photographs show it suspended
from a ceiling, it was in a glass case when I saw it and was well
supported along the keel to prevent further damage. Its dimensions
are also quite extreme by modern standards: 18' 8" long with
a maximum breadth of 15 5/8" and an overall depth of 8"
(omitting the height of the coaming).
The
design of the Hindeloopen is quite different from the Brielle.
The former has low ends, a fairly short bow and a gradually inclining
stern of low height. The cross sections are also considerably
different: The Hindeloopen kayak is structurally hard-chined,
but its hull shape is multi-chined because of the gunwale's lower
edge protruding into the skin, and the breadth between its chines
is proportionately narrower than the Brielle's.
Both
of these kayaks exhibited evidence of deck lines at the bow, but
the deck lines were missing. Ivory pieces may or may not have
been present. Unlike the Hindeloopen, the Brielle kayak has another
pair of holes through the gunwales and skin-covering toward the
stern, evidence of another deck line.
Three
of the kayaks in Nooter's study, the Hindeloopen among them, were
painted with a white wave pattern along the waterline and a very
dark blue/green elsewhere. The illustration below depicts the
paint scheme. Similar paint patterns were applied throughout the
Netherlands and were used on Dutch ships during the 17th and 18th
centuries. The National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam has a pinnace
model from around 1650 with the same wavy white waterline painted
onto it.
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