Scale: 1:48. A contemporary full hull model of the ‘Dolphin’ (1731), a 20-gun ship, built in the Georgian style. The model is decked and on an original base with one half built as a slipway with keel blocks. The port side depicts the ship as built, while the starboard side shows it converted into a fireship as in 1747. The model has been made to show how the combustible material was secured in the hold and on deck. It also illustrates the layout of the ventilating shafts together with gun port lids that hinge downwards which would stay open to maintain the draught for the fire.

Sailing or sending fireships on a tide onto an enemy fleet at anchor was an ancient form of warfare that was still in use up until the beginning of the 19th century. A skeleton crew would stay on board to set the charges before quickly escaping through the large ‘sally-port’ on either side of the ships quarter, taking to the boats towed astern.

The ‘Dolphin’ was a 20-gun sixth rate built at Deptford Dockyard in 1731, measuring 106 feet along the gun deck by 30 feet in the beam and a tonnage of 428 burden. It was renamed ‘Penguin’ in 1755 and eventually captured by the French in 1760.