Nonsuch

Type

Ketch

Period

17th Century

Nation

Great Britain

Overview: Nonsuch was a small English ketch, built as a merchant vessel in 1650 and later commissioned into the Royal Navy, famous for the 1668-69 trading voyage to Hudson Bay that directly led to the founding of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. The ship type is best described as a ketch, a small two-masted rig common to 17th-century English coastal and trading vessels, which did not map cleanly onto the database's standard ship-type categories. Specifications: The ship and its replica measure about 54 feet (16 m) in length overall with a draught of roughly 6 feet (1.8 m). The original was an 8-gun ketch, while contemporary accounts describe her as about 75 tons burthen, 54 feet long and 17 feet 9 inches in beam; the 1968 replica instead carries six 2-pounder muzzle-loading smoothbore guns and reproduces period details like a peg board for tracking speed/position, a "charlie noble" chimney, and tiller steering (no wheel, since the ship's wheel had not yet been invented in her era). Service History: Sailing from England in June 1668 alongside the Eaglet (which turned back after storm damage), Nonsuch pressed on alone to Hudson Bay and James Bay, wintering over trading beaver pelts with the Cree before returning to England in October 1669 with furs valuable enough to prompt Charles II to charter the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. The original ship's subsequent history and fate are not recorded. Notable Facts: A historically-styled full-size replica was built in 1968 at J. Hinks & Son shipyard in Appledore, Devon, to mark the HBC's 300th anniversary, crafted with 17th-century hand tools and ornate period carvings, then toured the Atlantic coast, Great Lakes, and Pacific coast of North America before being installed in a purpose-built gallery at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg in 1973-74 that was literally constructed around the ship. Modelers should be aware that forum researchers caution the replica reflects mid-20th-century assumptions about ketch design that may not be fully accurate to the 1650s/60s original, with contemporary Van de Velde drawings of similar small Anglo-Dutch War-era ketches suggested as a better visual reference for an accurate build.