Date Added: 02 February 2021
The four "Orlogschiffe" of the Bremen Town Hall in the upper town hall are heavily armed warships and were used in the 16th to 18th centuries to secure the merchant vessel convoys. The second oldest of these four warships, some of which are several centuries old, is named JOHAN SWARTING and dates from 1650. In shape and rigging, the model represents the type of a Spanish galleon. For the hull of the ship in a bottle very hard pear wood was used. The interior of the underwater hull had to be completely hollowed out in order to be able to balance it since the model, like its prototype, only swings under the opening of the fermentation balloon held by a long chain. The sails are made of white synthetic fiber, which was dyed for the "aging process" in a mixture of strong black tea, onion skin decoction and some red wine. The hull, which was split several times, was inserted peu à peu into the vessel, where it was stuck together. During rigging, each mast had to be brought in separately, the chaos of threads had to be organized, and the rigging boards had to be inserted into the sides of the ship with the tips of the cannulas cut off.
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