Object data
wood, brass and ivory
height 23.9 cm × width 50 cm × depth 24.8 cm
Duncan Christie
Model of the Stern of a Ship with the Screw Placed behind the Rudder
Netherlands, 1854
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-559
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Wooden block model of the stern of a ship.
The frame of the screw is replaced by a brass frame for the rudder. The rudder has a rounded blade which is divided into an upper and a lower section. The propeller shaft goes through an oval eye in the rudder post, between the two sections of the blade of the rudder to the back of the frame, where it is fitted with a common two-blade propeller. The propeller can be turned by means of an ivory handle at the front of the model. The rudder has a brass hand tiller.
Duncan Christie1 was an engineer of the Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij in Rotterdam at the time that he designed this model. In the United Kingdom this design was known as the Beatties’ screw. Its purpose was to increase the efficiency of the screw by placing it further backwards, particularly on vessels that did not have a sharp stern the fullness of the stern could obstruct the operation of an ordinary screw.
The screw was used on the first Dutch-built ocean bound iron steam vessel Belgique, 84.73 metres long, built at the Koninklijke Fabriek P. van Vlissingen & Dudok van Heel in Amsterdam in 1855, and on the ships Constitution and Congres.
Scale unknown.
Literature
J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 559; J. Bourne, A Treatise on the Steam-Engine in its Various Applications to Mines, Mills, Steam Navigation, Railways, and Agriculture, London 1861 (5th ed.), p. 387, figs. 519-20; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘De Nederlandse marine als pionier in de technische ontwikkeling. Schroefvoortstuwing in het tweede en derde kwart van de negentiende eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 12 (1993), no. 1, pp. 13-26, p. 29; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 196-97
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Duncan Christie, Model of the Stern of a Ship with the Screw Placed behind the Rudder, Netherlands, 1854', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244373
(accessed 27 May 2024 18:34:27).