Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:12:Minerva... (Alan Sinder)

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Besides being the showcase high tech marvel Merchant Ship — Minerva is the Roman Athena. That Daniel Waterhouse spies an a Rubens painting that seems to be Minerva and Mercury conduct the Duke of Buckingham to the Temple of Virtue at one point in his London wonderings should MEAN something! Minerva is often paired with Mercury. Macrame and speed?
MINERVA
as a figurehead

Authored entries

The Merchant Ship Minerva

Minerva seems to be a three masted Barquentine retrofitted with rot resistant Malabar teak and odd modern improvements such as a new-fangled balanced ship's wheel. This fine vessel is commandered by pirate-hating Captain van Hoek.

Many of her international crew seem literate and capable of practical math. One odd feature are double spiral staircases (that could symbolized a DNA double helix) designed to avoid collisions during work and battle. Daniel Waterhouse is the sole passenger on a late 1713 North Atlantic voyage to London financed by George I of Great Britain's daughter-in-law Princess Caroline and arranged by Enoch Root.

The self made monster Blackbeard is reckoned by Dappa to want the Minerva as his new flagship. A rot resistant teak hardwood Malabar-built Merchantship retrofitted into a Dutch Flute-ship: (from fluit) was exactly what the former Privateer Blackbeard desired.

The British-built ship French Guinea slaver La Concorde, destined to become Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge in 1717, underwent its first design change in 1711. The vessel was remodeled in the style of a Dutch flute , which had been a popular design for European merchant ships in the seventeenth century. In Quicksilver, the book ends in the month of November 1713, so the Queen Anne's Revenge is in his future.

She was in the style of a Dutch flute, which had been a popular design for European merchant ships in the early 1700's. Not content with the 26 cannons she was already carrying, Blackbeard increased the number to 40. Any Dutch Flute was a prize in the early 18th Century.
A Dutch-style Flute
identified as being a replica
of the HMAV Bounty

Primarily a prize for the shipping world, the Flute was an impressive 300 ton, 80 foot ship that proved inexpensive to build as well as man. The Flute needed only a dozen seamen. With a flat bottom, broad beams, and a round stern, this ship soon became the favored model of a cargo ship. A large part of the popularity of the Flute for commerce was her incredible cargo capacity; about 150% that of similar ships. In this, they soon became a common prey for savvy pirates.

The Flute-ship

One suspect the actual name of the van Hoek's ship would be the Juffrouw Minerva. And a Dutch designed ship would be bigger than the the British La Concorde.

A Dutch flute was a big ship for the time — 38 meters from stem to stern — a three-masted ship. This would make it one of the biggest merchant ships of the day. Typically, a flute would carry about 20 guns, to fight pirates with twice the number. (E.G. - The Risdam and Anne-Maria) - First Dutch flute ships in Amsterdam designed circa the 1620s with approximatel dimensions of 121 feet * 31 feet (38.1 meters * 9.5 meters).

There are two ways to construct the planking of a wooden vessel. If the planks are laid flush at the seams, the vessel is carvel-built. If the planks overlap, the vessel is clinker-built. Most merchants would be carvel-built (karvel) — method of hull construction in which the longitudinal strakes forming the skin of the hull are flush at the edges. In carvel construction, the planks are fastened to a pre-erected frame. Daniel the Royal Navy boffin hadn't mentioned which.

As the Minerva resists zog — the area around the keel had to be constructed clinker-style — as the overlap cushions and creates a hydroplane defeating drag. Above its' cargo hold — where drag is moot, it doesn't matter. We can identify the Minerva as a flute from its' barrel like construction noticed by our protagonist. We await Dappa to give Daniel the Narration. Being a flute-ship allows the Minerva to have the 30 year age seen by Daniel.

The Minerva has: * A Forecastle Deck: Originally, a built-up structure comprising several decks in the forward part of a ship, from which archers or gunners could fire into an enemy ship (expect swivel guns to be mounted here). * A balanced ship's wheel: incorporating the rudder down to the huge rudder room hung on the centerline at the stern and used to steer. * A Poop Deck: which acts a roof to the passenger cabin and a perfect platform for a swivel gun. * Quarterdeck: acting as a sterncastle deck and platform for the wheel (expect swivel guns to be mounted here). * Upper Deck: the main deck. * Two Spiral Staircases: A double helix? * Gun Deck: housing bigger cannons and their gun ports; the stern rudder room and tiller. * Enormous Cargo Hold: which appears to be an upside down church.

Hollandse Fluit (Dutch Flute ship):

The Dutch Flute ship was a freighter for European shipping, mainly for the transport of bulk goods on northern routes. The strakes of the hull did not end against a flat escutcheon but were bent around the stern contrary to the pinnace . The buoyancy of the stern and the capacity to carry a heavy superstructure aft was much less because of that, but on the other hand the round stern caused much less drag. (What first mate Dappa calls “zog” meaning “suckage” in his pirate attack briefing for his passenger).
A Model of the Hollandse Fluit

The flute-ship came into being at the end of the 16th century. A larger cargo capacity only seemed possible by scaling up, resulting in a deeper draught and less manageable rigging. All this was going against the transport market trend of shallower draught to go farther inshore and at much lower operating cost needing a smaller crew.

The flute ship was born from experience with coasters such as the smack, herring boat and fly-boat which met these demands perfectly. Built at Hoorn in 1595 for the first time, it satisfied the requirements so well that it soon became the most important freighter in Europe.

These later evolved into the Hollandse Walvisfluit (Dutch Whale Flute Ship) possessing the round fore and stern, large cargo capacity and shallow draught. The deck was kept as small as possible because taxes were levied on its surface area.

Explorers Willem Barentz and Cornelis de Rijp, searching for the fabled the north-east passage to Asia, found large numbers of whales on their way in the Arctic Ocean and started Dutch whaling which experienced plenty of problems at first, because the English thought they had the exclusive fishing rights in the Arctic Ocean.

The “Noordse-Groenlandse Compagnie” (Nordic Greenland Company) was founded by the shipowners and whalers in 1614 with the support of the State. Whale oil smokehouses were built by this company on Spitsbergen and on Jan Mayen island. Later these smokehouses were not necessary anymore, because the whales were driven out to sea further and further. This heralded the end of the “Noordse Compagnie” and was subsequently finished by the start of the English Civil War.

But the ship designs were technologically advanced and desired by knowledgeable seamen — honest merchantmen and evil pirates.