Hi Wefalck,
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Yes, the invention of the wind-driven sawmill (with a crankshaft indeed) was an enormous enabler for the ship building industry on the river Zaan, north of Amsterdam. But you mention very rightly: the material came from somewhere else! Holland (meaning literally 'wood-land') never had large oak forests, as the country was, from Roman times until the late Middle Ages, much too wet for these. The softer and faster growing species like elm and poplar were more dominant here. In the early 17th century some forests for mast-wood fir were planted, the still existing 'Mastbos' south of Breda was the largest, you can still find very tall firs there today. Oak generally required higher and dryer ground, and grew too slow to provide a good and sustainable source for construction oak.
So the vast majority of all oak timber required for building ships came from abroad, mainly from the forests along the river Weser and Elbe, and around the Baltic, Denmark, Estonia and Latvia (Livland) in particular. The Baltic trade remained dominant throughout the 17th and 18th century for Dutch shipping, although the Far East and Transatlantic trade caught the limelight. Oak was also required for construction of large buildings, roofs, bridges andsoforth. Wood and shipping were really intertwined: transport over water of wood was vital, and the shipping relied on wood.
But not only the Dutch were in search for construction timber (and firewood!), so were all the other European peoples from the early Middle Ages on. Between us, we chopped down much of the forests of the continent, in some areas almost to the bare bottom: Scotland, southern Scandinavia, Spain, but also Holland. Around 1900 the the amount of forest reached a minimum, today the situation has become slightly better thanks to re-forestation programs. Really something to think about when we scold the Brazilians or the Indonesians for cutting down their rain forests. In Europe we did just the same, although in a slower pace over many centuries.
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But I will post again when I have something worthwile to show.
