Object data
wood, brass, iron, rope and paint
lifeboat on cart: height 21.5 cm
width 65 cm × depth 21.5 cm
anonymous
Model of a Lifeboat on a Launching Cart
Netherlands, c. 1768
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-946
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Wooden block model of a lifeboat on a launching cart.
The boat is a flat bottomed double-ender with the sheer rising at both ends. The boat has four thwarts, a loose floorboard and a bulkhead fore and aft. It has a side rudder and four oars. Two anchor poles can be stuck through rings at the side of the boat. The boat is equipped with a grapnel. The front wheels of the four-wheeled launching cart can be steered. The cart has no floor, but five rollers on which the lifeboat moves. A windlass is fitted at the front of the cart. A separate frame with three rollers can be lowered, thus enabling the lifeboat to be launched from the cart.
This model was presented to the Navy Model Room in 1858 by Head Archivist R.C. Bakhuizen van den Brink.1 It was probably made in 1768 or 1769, and came with an etching attached to the resolution of the States of Holland and Westfriesland of 12 January 1769. In a report by the Court of Holland from 1768, it was stated that these boats were not new. They were the first lifeboats issued by the Dutch government and placed in several villages along the coast. Because they were rather primitive and unreliable, they were not used much.2
Scale unknown.
Literature
J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089 , no. 946; H.T. de Booy, Nederlandse kustreddingboten, Alkmaar (1966), pp. 4-5 with ill.
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of a Lifeboat on a Launching Cart, Netherlands, c. 1768', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200316001
(accessed 9 December 2025 20:08:59).