Model of a Ship Camel

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

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-25

Construction model of a small ship’s camel, mounted on a base. The camel is not planked. The hull is rectangular and has a swimhead bow. The camel has sixteen pumps in two rows, two capstans, two riding bitts, a cathead at the bow and four cocks down below for flooding, operated with auger-type keys on deck. In the middle part of a mast is indicated, there are rudder irons on both sternposts, but only one broad rudder; the other is missing.

This ship’s camel or lighter was specifically designed for the transportation of the 60-gun frigate Waal (length 54 metres, built in Rotterdam by Pieter Glavimans Jansz (1768-1850) from 1828 to 1840, renamed Prins van Oranje in 1844 and broken up in 1897),¹¹A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 11 from the Rotterdam Navy dockyard to one of the sea ports. Several camels like this one were to be used for the operation, but the design was rejected and the camels were never built.²²J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 25.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 25; G. Boven and A. Hoving, Scheepskamelen & waterschepen. ‘Eene ellendige talmerij, doch lofflijk middel’, Zutphen 2009, pp. 46-47

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'possibly Rijkswerf Rotterdam, Model of a Ship Camel, Rotterdam, c. 1840', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.242750