Two Models of Floating Beacons

Entry

Two models of an iron floating beacon, consisting of a buoy in the shape of a small boat, fitted with a mast with a screen, vane and bell.

One bell of the two models is missing. The buoys have a sharp V-shaped hull with a keel. The top is closed and has a manhole and a pump, which is sealed with a hexagonal screwcap. A shackle is attached through the keel for the anchor chain; this shackle can be set in three different positions. The mast is secured with four stays, which at full scale should be made of rod iron, two forward and two backwards. The screen consists of two semicircles aligned between the mast and the backstays. The vane has a V-shaped cutaway, the bell is set immobile in its belfry, the clapper ringing the bell as the buoy rolls on the waves. The two buoys differ slightly in hull design.

Obreen mentions one model in his catalogue of 1858,¹ but two have been found (NG-MC-839-1 and NG-MC-839-2). The models were studied and tested by Cornelis Jan Glavimans (1796-1857), who found them too heavy and of insufficient stability, especially when ballasted with gravel as was the original idea; one of his suggestions was to move the anchor chain further backward, and one of the two models has indeed been modified in this manner.