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

Object number: NG-MC-828

Balloon made of an oiled bladder, tied at one end around a wooden tube, the mouth piece, sealed off with a rounded wooden cap.

The balloon was intended for two purposes. It could be used as a messenger buoy, to which a watertight tube with written messages was attached and that, floating on the surface of the water and propelled by the wind, could be used to communicate over greater distances. With fifty or one hundred of such bladders tied together in a large bag, to which a line was attached, one obtained a ‘floating balloon’, to effect communication between a vessel wrecked on a lee coast and the shore. When thrown overboard, the wind would blow the bag to the shore; people on shore would then secure it and haul in the cable tied to the other end of the line.

The balloons and other inventions by A. Scheerboom¹¹A. Scheerboom, A Brief Account of the Royal Patent Ship & Life Preservers Invented by A. Scheerboom and Co., London 1833, pp. 21-23. were tested with success at Scheveningen on 10, 11 and 13 June 1826.²²HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 2/6/1826 N21, 11/7/1826 N108, 1/9/1827 N35, 12/9/1827 N4.

A. Scheerboom, A Brief Account of the Royal Patent Ship & Life Preservers Invented by A. Scheerboom and Co., London 1833, pp. 21-23; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 828

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'A. Scheerboom, Floating Balloon, Netherlands, c. 1826', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053990