Yes, the shallow waters were a limitation on the size: the bigger the ship the deeper the draught, obviously. They partially solved the problem by building wider ships. Which had the added benefit that they were much better gun platforms than the English ships. Think of the 4 Day Battle in which the English ships could not use their lower deck guns, thus eliminating the major advantage they had over the Dutch - heavier artillery.
On seaworthiness: the Dutch had a much more successful East Indian Empire than the English - at least throughout the 17th c. This involved exceptional voyages and these are not possible with bad ships. We know of many VOC wrecks, but the truth is that many, many times more ships made it safely there and back again. If their ships were truly inferior, than why all Europe bought from them? Why everybody aimed at hiring Dutch shipwrights?
This does not say that English ship design was bad. On the contrary - in the Restoration period especially, English shipwrights were innovative, design was generally successful - no doubt thanks to the exceptional competence of Charles II who was both interested in his Navy and was also technically oriented and competent enough to enforce some of the innovations: all of them successful.
Also, the Dutch tradition is not descended from the Viking tradition, but rather from the Cog tradition of bottom-based shipbuilding.
Closer framing: actually, no. The framing of a Dutch and English ship will not look that much different: both have uninterrupted band of solid timber at the bilges and the height of breadth - or wherever the toptimbers and second futtocks overlapped (on Vasa this is the upper deck, not the lower). This did change in the third quarter of the 17th c, when the English introduced a third futtock. All secondary sources claim that the English ships were much bigger and heavier timbered. For the First Anglo-Dutch war this undoubtedly is true. For the second and Third - this needs qualifying. Dutch specifications do not give sided dimensions - they were irrelevant for their method of building. The moulded however are about the same for similar sized ships. Their ships, however, carried a much lighter armament - nearly a quarter less broadside of metal. This worked to their disadvantage in battle. So much more one has to admire their courage, tenacity and seamanship that occasionally brought off victories and almost always avoided crushing defeats.
It is true that after the death of the de Withe brothers the interest in the Navy in the Netherlands weakened: Willem of Oranje was a land soldier. The financial burden of fighting Louis XIV also took its toll and eventually the navy sank into a secondary force. In the early 18th c there was an opinion in the Netherlands that English ships were superior and English/British by then/ shipwrights were invited to the Netherlands.
The main advantage of the English method was a bit more predictability and ability to copy successful design. It depended less on the experience of the individual shipwright, for it could pass on the acquired knowledge through paper medium. This is a gross oversimplification - yes.
As for Empire and the Navy - undoubtedly! The Navy was what made it possible
for England to gain and keep its Empire. The only serious naval challenge that
they met in the age of sail came from the Netherlands.
{Kroum Nikolaev Batchvarov}
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