Object data
wood and brass
height 25 cm × width 25.5 cm × depth 25.5 cm
's Lands Werf Amsterdam (possibly)
Model of a Capstan
? Amsterdam, Le Havre, 1792
Inscriptions
- inscription, on the lower base: FORFAIT / Invent 1792 / Havre de Grâce
- label, on the lower base: 189 former inventory label
Provenance
...; ? collection Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1765-1837), Amsterdam, 1807;1 Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague; transferred to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-189
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Demonstration model of a capstan on a wooden frame with two levels.
The capstan is for eight bars without pawls to keep it from turning back. The wooden spindle comes down into a step on the lower level; it has two wheeled arms running up against the deckhead of the lower level and preventing the spindle from moving up. The deck around the heel has been raised with an inclined plane; around the barrel a ring with wheels has been placed to reduce friction. The purpose of this arrangement was to surge the rope up the barrel; the inclined plane can be adjusted to any angle.
Pierre Forfait (1752-1807), French engineer and Minister of the Navy during the first French Republic, invented this capstan as an improvement of the capstan design by Du Sahy (NG-MC-188). The French 40-gun frigate l’Indien was equipped with such a capstan.2 Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1755-1837), who observed this capstan on his voyage through France in 1797,3 mentions this model as part of the model collection of the Amsterdam Navy dockyard in 1807.4
Scale (estimate) 1:10.
Literature
J.P. Asmus, Rapport van een reize naar de Fransche zeehavens aan den Oceaan in den jaar 1797, op ordre van het Bataafsche Gouvernement-Verzameling van differente stukken gedurende de reize naar de Fransche zeehavens in den Oceaan in den jaare 1797, 2 vols., s.l. 1797-1801, manuscript in HNA 2.01.29.01 Dept. Marine, inv. no. 451-18, vol. 2, pp. 121-24; J.C. Rijk, Handleiding tot de kennis van den scheepsbouw, s.l. 1822, pp. 197-98, figs. 100-03; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 189; J.H. Harland, ‘The Design of Winches Used at Sea in the 1800s’, The Mariner’s Mirror 77 (1991), no. 2, pp. 151-65, p. 158, fig. 4C; J.H. Harland, Capstans and Windlasses: An Illustrated History of their Use at Sea, Piermont, NY, 2003, p. 84
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'possibly 's Lands Werf Amsterdam, Model of a Capstan, Amsterdam, c. 1797 - c. 1801', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244001
(accessed 23 November 2024 00:06:08).