Model of a Gentleman's Yacht

Entry

Rigged wooden frame model of a yacht, mounted on a base.

The model is of a single-masted yacht with a cutter bow, round tuck, counter and small taffrail. It has one deck, a cockpit, a cabin and fore cuddy. The broad rudder with curved wooden tiller is fastened with a single iron pin, pierced through the gudgeons of the rudder and sternpost. The model has a winch fitted on the foredeck. The sheer is virtually flat, the model has one wale. The carvel-built hull is S-bottomed with a pronounced keel, longitudinally grooved. The model has an oval-sectioned mast, with a topmast, boom and gaff, a bowsprit and a deck horse. Remnants of fabric in the hold indicate that the model probably originally had sails.

Folkert Nicolaas van Loon, a shipwright from Harlingen, designed and built this yacht for Baron Van Tuyll van Serooskerken van IJzerdoorn in Hillegom in 1828,¹ to be used on lake Haarlemmermeer. The yacht was probably built at the Alta yard in Harlingen. The design contained two innovations: the grooved keel, which increased the size of the keel’s surface and thereby reducing leeway, and the oval mast, which was to lower resistance and increase the speed. Two schooners built by Van Loon in Ipswich between 1826 and 1828, were also fitted with grooved keels.²