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Archiver > Dutch-Colonies > 2001-11 > 1005075429


From: Cor Snabel <>
Subject: [D-Col] Obsolete occupations - Rope maker
Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 20:37:09 +0100


Dear friends,

All things considered, the rope maker ought to be part of the
shipbuilding catagory, so the cider maker jumped the queue, or as some
of you wrote, does not belong among the obsolete occupations. ;-)

Regards,
Cor Snabel
The Netherlands

------------------------------------------------

Rope-maker (touwslager or lijn-draaier)

Rope-makers used to work on the rope-walk (lijnbaan), normally situated
along the city walls. In Amsterdam we still have the Lijnbaansgracht.
The workers on the ’lijnbaan’ were called ‘baanders’ and their foreman
was the ’lijnbaans-oppermeester’ (rope-walk master).
The ropewalk was about 2000 feet in length, 55 feet wide and surrounded
by a 3 feet thick wall. This was because of the fire risk due to the
tar-kettles, the drying of the tarred ropes and the stock of hemp. An
inner wall lengthways separated the building in two sections; in the
first part, the big walk, the cables were made and in the other part the
lighter ropes. In this last section was the stove to make the rope
flexible and here the hemp was hackled and the kettles were situated. In
the attics the hemp was stored with the empty barrels, ropes and other
ships’ supplies.

The raw material for the ropes was hemp, which had to be grown in
Holland, later on it was imported from Russia and Italy. The hemp had to
be inspected by an official inspector, before it was hackled and
cleaned. Then it was hackled, softened on wooden boards with iron pins
on it. By spinning yarn was produced and this was used on the ’lijnbaan’
to manufacture cables. From one pound of hemp 52 vadem (one vadem= about
six feet) single cable-yarn was made. The rope-makers (baanders) walked
backwards on the so-called spinning-path with the bundle hackled hemp
around their waist and with an ingenious spinning wheel they made the
rope. The single yarn was twisted double and even twenty times; the
thinnest rope was used for nets and as sail-yarn and the thickest as
anchor-rope for tall ships.

If you want to see a picture of the rope-maker, go to:
http://www.geneaknowhow.net/in/beroepen/luyken/lijndraaier.html

The translation/interpretation of the poem shown on the site mentioned
above is:
Rope maker
The path is winding, but the task is straight.

The winding path of the pious
As seen by him who does not see
Is after all a pure trade
Which will be handy at bad weather
Then the ship of life will be saved
By his twisted ropes


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