Willem van de Velde the Younger's 'Ships in a Stormy Sea' (painting)

choi

Arthur Wheelock, Charting a Course with Assurance; The Dutch marine painter gained much from his own experience at sea. Wall Street Journal, Aug 28, 2021 (in the Review section that appears every Saturday).
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cha ... ainting-11630086678

Note:
(a)
(i) The English surname Wheelock is from name of a place of the same name in Cheshire, from River Wheelock.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Wheelock
("The name is said to mean 'winding river' [in Celtic, according to Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford Univ Press]")
(ii) The Dutch surname Van de Velde: the last word is derived from Modern Dutch veld (noun neuter): "field"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/veld

(b) the painter:
Willem van de Velde the Younger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_van_de_Velde_the_Younger
(ii) the painting:
Ships in a Stormy Sea. Toledo, Ohio: Toledo Museum of Art, undated
https://emuseum.toledomuseum.org ... ips-in-a-stormy-sea
("MEDIUM  oil on canvas; CREDIT LINE   Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey; OBJECT NUMBER  1977.62)

(c)
(i) spritsail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spritsail
("a four-sided, fore-and-aft sail that is supported at its highest points by the mast and a diagonally running spar known as the sprit, * * * Historically, spritsails were the first European fore-and-aft rigs, appearing in Greco-Roman navigation in the 2nd century BC")

View the sketch whose caption reads: "Diagram of a four-cornered spritsail."
(ii) Neither Meriam-webster.com nor Lexico.com (Oxford online dictionary) includes kaag, nor does en.wikipedia.org.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kaag
("(historical) a small single-masted flat-bottomed merchant sailing boat with leeboards, intended for coastal and inland shipping")
(iii) skipper (n; "Middle English [of the same spelling], from Middle Dutch schipper, from [Modern (Dutch) as well as Middle Dutch noun neuter] schip ship; akin to Old English [noun neuter] scip ship")
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skipper
(iv)
(A) tiller (n): "a lever used to turn the rudder of a boat from side to side"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tiller
(B) tiller
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiller
("F.1 - With a tiller steering * * * F.2 - With a steering wheel * * *")
(v) centerboard
(A) Seamanship - Sailing without a Centreboard. Caution Water! Oct 16, 2009
https://www.cautionwater.com/article.aspx?articleid=86

four consecutive paragraphs (emphases original):

"* * * Centreboardless sailing is one of the easier skills to learn.

"First of all, let's explore why we sail with a centreboard. It has two functions – one is to provide opposite force to the wind against the sail, which through the lift principle generates forward movement, although the centreboard is not essential for this – the boat will move forwards without it. The other key function is to stop sideways drift of the boat when attempting to move in an upwind direction. This is the function we need to be able to at least partly replicate without a centreboard. The boat will still move forwards without a centreboard, but at a big price – it will drift sideways terribly. So, why does the centreboard stop us moving sideways usually? The answer is because of its shape, it acts as a keel or rudder of sorts and provides sideways resistance.

"So, if we need to sail without a centreboard, we need to find something we can use that has a similar shape or will provide a similar function. * * *

"If you're sailing a 'traditional' displacement hull boat, such as a GP14 or an Enterprise, you'll find the bow is quite pointy, with an edge. Therefore if you can get enough of the bow into the water [see illustration], it will act somewhat like a centreboard and stop you moving sideways. * * *
(B) Tom Lochhaas, Choosing a Centerboard or Fixed Keel Sailboat. Liveabout.com, updated May 24, 2019
https://www.liveabout.com/sailbo ... -fixed-keel-2915583

Quote:

"As only a very general rule, most sailboats over 20-something feet have fixed keels. Most sailboats under 15 feet or so have centerboards. But there is a wide range of boats from 12 to about 25 feet with either a fixed keel or a centerboard

"On centerboard sailboats, the centerboard functions like a keel to keep the boat from being blown sideways. (All sailboats need a keel of the board for this reason: the narrow, flat surface of the board or keel produces little drag when the boat moves forward but resists motion sideways.)

The centerboard usually hangs down below the hull from a pivot at one end. It can be raised [become centerboardless] by pulling a line that swings the centerboard up into a centerboard trunk along the center of the boat, as shown in the photo.

• A centerboard can be raised or lowered, but can not be turned sideways (as a rudder can).
(C) keel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keel
(section 3 Hydrodynamic keels, section 3.1 Sailboat keels: "In sailboats, keels serve two purposes: 1) as an underwater foil to minimize the lateral motion of the vessel under sail (leeway) and 2) as a counterweight [ie, ballast] to the lateral force of the wind on the sail(s) that causes rolling to the side (heeling)" )

This is why a windsurfing board also has a centerboard. See windsurfing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsurfing
(sketch on the left, whose caption reads, "Illustration from US Patent 3,487,800, filed by inventors Jim Drake and Hoyle Schweitzer on March 27, 1968")
(vi) Kaags "were equipped with fan-shaped sideboards, one of which (on the windward side) is visible in Van de Velde's painting."

There are few returns if one searches images.google.com with kaag. The only kaag with a sideboard that is close up enough is a model (toy) kaag. See
Ab Hoving (maker), Kaag_21_LR.jpg
https://modelshipworld.com/galle ... century-workhorses/

When the fan is swung down, it is "Satenjacht_3_LR.jpg" in the same Web page.


(c)
(i) Zuiderzee (proper name; from [prefix] zuider- [southern] +‎ [noun feminine] zee [sea])
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Zuiderzee
(A) The English noun sea is derived from Old English.
(B) In Modern Dutch, south is zuiden (n), and southern is zuidelijk (adj).
(ii) Zuiderzee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiderzee
("was [note the past tense] a shallow bay of the North Sea * * * [With] the construction of the Afsluitdijk [a dam, whose construction was completed in 1932] * * * The salt water inlet changed into a fresh water lake now called the IJsselmeer (IJssel Lake) after the river that drains into it")

(d) Hoorn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoorn


----------------------------text
(a) the first four paragraphs of text (partial)

Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707) knew the sea and the ships that sailed it. Equally important, this great 17th-century Dutch painter could capture the thrilling rush of excitement when a boat, under full sail, ​surges through rough waters with spray crashing over its bow. ​* * * Van de Velde's 'Ship in a Stormy Sea' (1671-72) * * * Strong contrasts of light and dark heighten the drama, most emphatically in the juxtaposition of the brilliantly lighted, tawny spritsail with the dark billowing clouds looming behind it. * * *

* * * Van de Velde purposefully situated the large, wooden-hulled sailing vessel, called a kaag, off-center and heading toward an unseen harbor shrouded by a threatening cloud mass. As the kaag crashes through white-capped choppy water, the skipper [the black head and shoulder on the left] calmly steadied the vessel's enormous tiller under his arm and steers resolutely toward his destination, with the spritsail hauled close to the wind. Dynamic diagonals of the mast and sprit (the largest spar stretching from the bottom of the mast to the peak of the sail) emphasize the wind's force, as do the crossing curved shadows on the daut spritsail, particularly the sharp shadow caused by the sail pressing against a line on the boat's leeward side.

Kaags were frequently used as passenger boats on Dutch inland waterways, such as Zuiderzee (Southern Sea), where this scene could well have taken place. Although it was deep enough in many areas to allow three-masted ships (such as those visible in the distance in this painting) to sail from the North Sea to such major Dutch ports as Hoorn and Amsterdam, much of it was too shallow to accommodate large vessels. Kaags, designed to navigate shallow waters, had no centerboard; instead, they were equipped with fan-shaped sideboards, one of which (on the windward side) is visible in Van de Velde's painting. The sideboard on the opposite (leeward) side would be swung down into the water to allow the skipper to keep the vessel on course.

Those living along the Zuiderzee's low-lying coast relied upon kaags for transportation across the water. Each community had a different flag, and the ble-abd-wgite one here is likely that of Weesp, where Can de Velde lived early in his career. Although traveling on the Zuiderzee could be turbulent because of its notoriously choppy waters, many fully embraced this adventure. Van de Velde depicted one such passenger, the standing man wearing a broad-brimmed brown hat and coat, gesturing excitedly toward the wave crashing over the bow.

(b) the last two paragraphs of text (partial)

* * * In the winter of 1672-73, father and son [the younger] emigrated to England, where they were quickly embraced by discriminating collectors. Although Van de Velde painted "Ship in a Stormy Sea" in the Netherlands just prior to this move, the painting was soon acquired by an English collector. * * *

Van de Velde's painting remained in English private collections until 1977, when it was acquired by Toledo Museum of Art. * * *