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

Object number: NG-MC-491

Polychromed and fully planked wooden half bracket model of the starboard side of a three-masted screw steamer, mounted on a rectangular, white-painted wooden backboard.

The side of the ship that is painted black is planked on top of frame moulds. Eighteen gun ports are painted on the side, placed in one tier. A white, horizontal band highlights the gun deck. At the bow and stern the bulwark is raised with square hances. The bow features a detailed beakhead with a gold-painted male torso in armour as a billethead. The stern is elliptical and has a single-storey quarter gallery. Below the stern an empty aperture for a screw propeller and a round-headed rudder with a rectangular blade and rounded corners are indicated. The model has a well for lifting the screw propeller. The sheer is virtually flat. One sheer rail is indicated. The hull is round and painted a metallic copper colour below the waterline. The keel rises from the sternpost to the rudderpost. The position of three masts and the bowsprit is shown in a truncated form, the foremast is missing but is still visible.

This model was sent from Flushing to the Department of the Navy in The Hague on 9 May 1857.¹¹See inscription; HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, inv. no. 3985. The 51-gun screw steamer Evertsen, measuring 63.5 to 67 metres in length, was built by Lambertus Katharinus Turk (1811-1873) at Flushing from 1854 to 1857.²²J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 491. Its steam engines were removed in Willemsoord in 1881. It was renamed Neptunus in 1893 and was finally decommissioned in 1921.³³A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 55.

The construction of the stern with the well for lifting the screw propeller, inspired by British examples and imposed on the Dutch engineers by Secretary of the Navy James Enslie and his advisor H.G. Jansen, proved to be a failure. It spoiled the lines of the stern, which vibrated so badly that it was feared that the entire stern would break off. In 1861 the whole affair escalated into a parliamentary enquiry on the performance of Evertsen and Admiraal van Wassenaer, which were both built to this design. Following Tromp’s advice, subsequent ships were built according to Lambertus Katharinus Turk’s (1811-1873) design.

Scale (on model) 1:50.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 491; L.K. Turk, Mededeeling omtrent het ontwerpen en den bouw van Z.M. fregat met stoomvermogen Evertsen, Flushing 1862; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 55; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘De introductie van de “waterschroef” in de Nederlandse Marine’, Industriële archeologie 7 (1983), pp. 80-96

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Rijkswerf Vlissingen, Half Model of a Screw Steamer, Flushing, 1857', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053772