Model of a Capstan with a Winch

...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-200

Construction model of a capstan, mounted on a base representing a wooden deck.

The capstan is for eight bars with a winch in the head and four pawls in the heel to prevent it from turning back. To engage the winch, the head is fixed to the brass spindle, which is set in the reinforced deck with a square heel by means of the small brass cover on top. The barrel has a toothed wheel beneath the head, which is driven by two cranks with pinions inside the head; the barrel thus turns beneath the head. The cranks can be disengaged with pegs. To use the capstan with the bars, the brass cover is removed and the head fixed to the barrel with two pegs, enabling head and barrel to turn around the spindle together. The barrel has six whelps.

The model, made after a design by Cornelis Jan Glavimans (1796-1857),¹¹J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 200. is almost identical to model NG-MC-199.

Scale (estimate) 1:10.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 200; J.H. Harland, Capstans and Windlasses: An Illustrated History of their Use at Sea, Piermont, NY, 2003, p. 50; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 72-75

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Rijkswerf Rotterdam, Model of a Capstan with a Winch, Rotterdam, 1835', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244012