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

Object number: NG-MC-532

Model of a tubular boiler with a telescopic funnel.

At the front, two doors to the smoke box in the middle are indicated and two doors for the furnaces at the sides. The model has ninety-eight tubes. On top of the boiler a telescopic funnel, operated with two handles (now broken), and a steam chest with a manhole are positioned. The funnel and steam chest can be removed. In the bottom mudholes are placed. No points of junction for the steam pipe or other pipes are indicated on the model. The use of tubes in this kind of boiler, in which the steam was heated, diminished the volume of the boiler and enabled it to be placed below the waterline. When sailing, the funnel was retracted to reduce drag.

This model of a tubular boiler was made at the Koninklijke Fabriek P. van Vlissingen & Dudok van Heel in 1855.¹¹J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 534. The boiler was designed for the 8-gun screw schooner Vuurpijl, 40 metres long, built by August Elize Tromp (1801-1871) in Amsterdam from 1853 to 1854. The schooner was renamed Montrado in 1854²²J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 532. and sold out of the service while in the Dutch East Indies in 1867.³³A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 85. It was the first vessel in the Dutch Navy to be fitted with a tubular boiler. It had a single boiler and a 50-horsepower engine.

H. Huijgens, ‘De scheepsstoomketels’, Verhandelingen en berigten betrekkelijk het zeewezen (1853), no. 2, pp. 46-86 and pl.; H. Huijgens, ‘De schroefmachine’, Verhandelingen en berigten betrekkelijk het zeewezen (1853), no. 2, pp. 295-332 and pl.; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 532; J. Bourne, A Treatise on the Steam-Engine in its Various Applications to Mines, Mills, Steam Navigation, Railways, and Agriculture, London 1861 (5th ed.), pp. 34, 211, fig. 152; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 85; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘De Nederlandse Marine als pionier in de technische ontwikkeling. Ontwikkeling en gebruik van stoomketels in het tweede kwart van de 19de eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 11 (1992), no. 1, pp. 41-57, pp. 52-53, fig. 7; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘Problemen en oplossingen bij de ontwikkeling van de stoomvaart in Nederland’, Erfgoed van Industrie en Techniek 3 (1992), pp. 74-90, p. 87

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of a Tubular Boiler, Netherlands, 1853', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200315819