Cutting and shaping large trees for use in ship construction was laborious and time-consuming. Nevertheless, once workers had assembled the needed materials, Rochefort's shipbuilders constructed the Belle in a scant two months, a fact belied by the remarkable attention to detail apparent in the ship's construction.
Part of a 1677 drawing of
shipwrights constructing a vessel at Toulon on the Mediterranean coast of
France.
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Image: Musee De La Marine, Paris.