Flyboat

The flyboat (also spelled fly-boat or fly boat) was a European light vessel of Dutch origin developed primarily as a mercantile cargo carrier, although many served as warships in an auxiliary role because of their agility. These vessels could displace between 70 and 200 tons, and were used in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The name was subsequently applied to a number of disparate vessels which achieved high speeds or endurance. At the beginning of the 17th century they were replaced by the fluyt, which in England was also known as a fly-boat. The name "flyboat" is derived from Dutch vlieboot, a boat with a shallow enough draught to be able to navigate a shallow vlie or river estuary, such as the Vlie. Armed flyboats were used by the naval forces of the Dutch rebels, the Watergeuzen, in the beginning of the Eighty Years' War, and comprised the Dutch contribution to the English Armada. The type resembled a small carrack and had two or at most three masts, a high board, and a dozen iron cannons. Small, inexpensive, and manoeuvrable, it was ideal for privateering activities in the European coastal waters, and was soon imitated by privateers or pirates of other nations. The Dutch navy, and their enemies, the Dunkirkers, at first extensively employed flyboats. In 1588, the army of Alexander Farnese was blocked in Dunkirk by a fleet of 30 Dutch flyboats commanded by Lieutenant Admiral Justin of Nassau, preventing him from joining the Spanish Armada to invade England. In the early 17th century, the warship type became obsolete by the invention by the Dunkirkers of the frigate, then a small galleon type, although flyboats continued to be adapted in wartime for naval use until the 1670s. However, civilian Dutch vlieboten continued to be built and evolved during the 18th century into much larger cromsters (kromstevens), then flat coastal cargo ships up to 1200 tons. At the same time, the term flyboat was used for a swift fishing vessel on the Atlantic. In the 19th century, the term was used in England for canal boats, resembling small Dutch cromsters.