Model of a Three-Masted Ship

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

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-655

Wooden frame model of a three-masted ship with rudimentary rigging.

The model is only planked on the port side. The most remarkable features are the shape of the hull and its construction. The hull has a V-shaped bottom with an S-keel, which is very thick at the bow and becomes narrower towards the stern. At the bow the ship is wide and the hull becomes narrower towards the rear in a straight line. The stern has a high deadwood. The sheer is completely flat, the model has one wale. The sides come in above the wale. The ship is not built according to the regular frame-and-skin method, but the sides are made up of timbers lying on top of each other and forming layers, their outer side smoothed for the planking. Only four solid frames hold these timbers together. The wide, flat forebody of the ship has an almost vertical stem and no beakhead. The stern has a square tuck, a hollow counter and a small, closed taffrail. The rudder is straight but has a round head: the main piece is rounded at the front and turns within a hollow sternpost. The helm port is round and closed, the tiller comes on to the poop. Besides the poop, the model has one main deck. It has a three-mast polacre rig with standing rigging only and one yard to each mast. The foremast is the largest, the mizzen mast the smallest. It has a bowsprit with jibboom, and a gaff and boom for the mizzen. There are no channels but chainplates, which go all the way down to the keel underneath the planking.

According to Obreen this model was built according to the plans of a ship ordered and built in a yard at Bickerseiland in Amsterdam in 1779, and sailed from Texel under French colours in 1780.¹¹J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 655. It was never heard of since. It was probably used as a timber ship, and, similar to the timber ship designed by Charles Wood,²²See models NG-MC-108 and NG-MC-506. to be completely deconstructed on arrival. At that time, France suffered a great shortage of masts and shipbuilding timber, which were considered contraband by the British. The round-headed rudder on the model is the earliest example found yet.

Scale unknown.

Catalogue of the International Ship Model Exhibition, exh. cat. London (?) 1882, cat. no. 157; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 655; A.J. Hoving and A.A. Lemmers, ‘Smokkelwaar ten tijde van de Vierde Engelse Oorlog’, Scheepshistorie 8 (2009), pp. 76-80; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 80-85

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of a Three-Masted Ship, Netherlands, c. 1780', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244470