Jean-Baptiste Colbert, 61 years old, Secretary-of-State for the Navy since 1669, has established three schools of naval architecture for naval officers at Brest, Toulon and Rochefort. It may look strange to address such schools to officers rather than to apprentice shipwrights but this decision is consistent with the creation in 1671 of the ‘Conseils de Construction’ to collect feedback from the officers about the performances of their ships – which, in its beginnings, unvei
