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La Belle’s rigging assemblage has provided a rare and valuable source of knowledge of
17th -century rigging in general and in particular , French and small -ship rigging
characteristics . With over 400 individual items including nearly 160 wood and iron
artifacts , this assemblage stands out as one of the most substantial and varied among all
available rigging assemblages and currently is the only assemblage of 17th -century
French rigging published . Furthermore , French rigging in general has not been as well
defined as English rigging , nor has the 17th century been as well researched as the 18th .
As such , La Belle’s rigging assemblage has provided a valuable source of knowledge
whose research will hopefully provide a valuable foundation on which future studies can
be built . Specifically , this project has attempted to catalogue these artifacts and
reconstruct a plausible 17th -century French rig . This project has further attempted to
define the differences between the better known English rigging features and those more
characteristic of the French and Dutch . The reconstruction is based on the specific
details derived from La Belle’s artifacts as well as contemporary French and other
continental sources such as rigging assemblages , ship models , treatises , and nautical
dictionaries . Together , these have suggested that La Belle probably carried a relatively
simple rig with decidedly seventeenth -century characteristics and a Dutch influence . |
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