Dutch Fluyt

Welcome to the Forum!  I wish we could start off with a more pleasant subject, but I'm afraid I've never heard of a Dutch fluyt in plastic either.  For that matter, just about the only plastic Dutch sailing ship kits I can think of are an ancient, tiny version of Henry Hudson's Half Moon from Pyro and the Revell Batavia.  (I've never seen the latter kit myself, but on the basis of photos it looks like a good one.  It is, however, not in the current Revell Europe catalog.)

Sorry to be so depressing, but the sad truth is that the number of plastic sailing ship kits ever produced, by anybody, represents only a tiny fraction of the number of interesting, important, and attractive subjects that history has to offer.  The situation in the realm of wood kits is a little better, but not much. The modeler who's really interested in studying the history of the sailing ship really needs to get into scratchbuilding.

 

Hmmm!  Interesting question!  Yes, the Fluyt was around for a long time as a standard trading ship, and Prof Tilley is right, there just isn't a plastic model out there specifically designated as a 'fluyt!'  That said, I seem to recall reading somewhere a long time ago that the Mayflower was actually a Dutch-built Fluyt, or at least a Fluyt design, but I may quite well be wrong on this (looking at a variety of published Fluyt designs, the Mayflower doesn't look too 'fluyty' to me!).  You CAN however get a waterline metal model of a Dutch Fluyt in 1/1200 scale, which can be found here:  http://www.rodlangton.com/anglodutch/anglodutch.htm

And here:  http://www.rodlangton.com/anglodutch/2fluits.htm

These are really quite excellent kits, and are wonderful for wargaming....

JRL

Pyro did a couple of Dutch ships back in the sixties. Dutch Staten Jacht and the the Gouda Dutch Man o war. The Gouda would be closer to a Fluyt than the Staten Jacht. The Gouda is a larger model. The kits are not to bad with a little  extra work could be very respectable. You might also find them by Life-like. Both kits are a little rare but can be found. The Gouda is kit #B212 and the Staten Jacht is kit #B261

Rod

Thanks to everyone for the help; your posts up to now have confirmed my suspicions regarding the mass-produced plastic/wood ship model kit world. As for the fluyt, I've seen the Pyro models as well as Lindberg's Gouda, but unfortunately none looked too promising. Scratchbuilding sounds fun...hmm, I may have to take the Professor up on that.

The ex-PYRO Gouda Dutch man o war can still be found in the
LINDBERG programme, as one of the pirate ships.
The "big" sailing ships in this line were reissued several times,
under their orginal names (Gouda, Sovereign of the Seas, Wappen von Hamburg,
La Flore) and then as pirate ships. Gouda and Sovereign of the seas as
formerly PYRO kits had injection moldes sails, while Wappen von Hamburg
aka Captain Kidds Pirate ship and La Flore aka Jolly Roger or Flying dutchman
(glow in the dark) had vacu formed sails.

The BATAVIA from Revell of Germany was produced in cooperation
with the dutch Batavia Wharf which has made a reconstruction of the
original ship. See the website    www.bataviawerf.nl

The model was reissued once and hopefully will be back soon.

There you also will find their new project " De zeven provincien" another dutch
sailing ship of th 17th century. I hope that REVELL will consider this as a future
model too.....

     

Millard's observations about the two Pyro kits are, of course, on target.  (They aren't fluyts, but they are Dutch.)  I've always had trouble taking those kits seriously, and I tend to forget they're out there.  That's probably a mistake on my part - at least with regard to the larger Pyro kits (such as the Gouda).  They don't represent the state of the art (and they didn't represent it when they were new), but it might well be easier to base a serious scale model on one of those kits than to work from scratch.

BTW: The "Wappen von Hamburg" is quite Dutch in it's design and appearance as well, probably a most "dutch"-looking ship awailable. It was built by the Dutch for a German principat, I beleive

I think that it offers LOTS of conversion potential: germans wanted it ridiculously over-gunned, so if extra cannons are removed, along with weird for'cstle, it will really resemble some of the ships in the Texel diorama - one I am thinking of is "Beschermer" - http://www.modelshipworld.com/phpBB2/gallery/album175/album208/

Still, no fluit for you :)

DD1 wrote:

BTW: The "Wappen von Hamburg" is quite Dutch in it's design and appearance as well, probably a most "dutch"-looking ship awailable. It was built by the Dutch for a German principat, I beleive I think that it offers LOTS of conversion potential: germans wanted it ridiculously over-gunned, so if extra cannons are removed, along with weird for'cstle, it will really resemble some of the ships in the Texel diorama - one I am thinking of is "Beschermer" - http://www.modelshipworld.com/phpBB2/gallery/album175/album208/ Still, no fluit for you :)

I've always liked the Wappen, and have been considering building it. I like the Beschermer even more, and I think I'll take you up on the Wappen - Beschermer conversion project. Thanks! and btw, does anyone have any suggestions on how to better convert the Wappen? 

jtilley wrote:

Millard's observations about the two Pyro kits are, of course, on target.  (They aren't fluyts, but they are Dutch.)  I've always had trouble taking those kits seriously, and I tend to forget they're out there.  That's probably a mistake on my part - at least with regard to the larger Pyro kits (such as the Gouda).  They don't represent the state of the art (and they didn't represent it when they were new), but it might well be easier to base a serious scale model on one of those kits than to work from scratch.

Using the Gouda as a base for a conversion project sounds like a good idea, jtilley. I'll take you up on that..well, now I've got two projects on my hands. So it's off to work, I'll most certainly post everything her for you guys to see my progress. Thanks again!

Well, IMHO, neither the Gouda, nor the Wappen von Hamburg are at all suitable for a conversion to a Fluyt.  Though they are both Dutch ships, they were designed to be warships, which a Fluyt most certainly wasn't.  For a Fluyt conversion, you might do better with the Mayflower, or the Batavia.  HOWEVER, one big problem with both of these is they have flat transoms, and a Fluyt most decidedly does not, instead having a rounded and swept-up stern with an enormous rudder going most of the way up the stern.  Also, the stempiece is quite rounded in profile, and is more along the lines of the more recent Dutch craft, such as Hoekers, Tjalks and Boeiers....... Altogether a very different and unusual ship, with no really similar types.... You can see some good Fluyt designs in 'The Heyday of Sail,' which was one of Conway's 'History of the Ship' series.....

searat12 wrote:

Well, IMHO, neither the Gouda, nor the Wappen von Hamburg are at all suitable for a conversion to a Fluyt.  Though they are both Dutch ships, they were designed to be warships, which a Fluyt most certainly wasn't.  For a Fluyt conversion, you might do better with the Mayflower, or the Batavia.  HOWEVER, one big problem with both of these is they have flat transoms, and a Fluyt most decidedly does not, instead having a rounded and swept-up stern with an enormous rudder going most of the way up the stern.  Also, the stempiece is quite rounded in profile, and is more along the lines of the more recent Dutch craft, such as Hoekers, Tjalks and Boeiers....... Altogether a very different and unusual ship, with no really similar types.... You can see some good Fluyt designs in 'The Heyday of Sail,' which was one of Conway's 'History of the Ship' series.....

searat12,

My "youth and enthusiasm" made me a bit giddy at the suggestion at such a half-scratch converstion, but after a night of dedicated research I came to the same conclusion as you. Thanks for your input, IMHO you're essentially right.

btw, I found this model online, and it looks to me to be an accurate representation of a fluyt...despite bearing in mind that you all know what a fluyt is/looks like, I'm still going to post the link. 

http://www.modelships.de/Derfflinger_I/Derfflinger_I_eng.htm

 

That looks to be a very GOOD representation of a Fluyt!  Note the rounded, not flat transom, the rounded and curved stempiece (not the beakhead, the stempiece...  Most fluyts didn't have a beakhead, though a few, like 'Derfflinger' did!), and the pretty extreme tumblehome... pretty hard to get another model to 'adapt' to this, I think!