Mortar Galiot La Salamandre (1754-). This model was made in a scale of 1:48 to precisely display the inner structure of the ship and is part of our exhibition about ship building on deck 3 of the museum.
The French model makers Jean Boudriot and Hubert Berti built this model of the Mortar Galiot “La Salamandre” using the original plans created by the famous naval engineer Joseph Marie Blaise Coulomb (1728-1803). The ship was built between 1752 and 1754 in the port of Toulon, birthplace of the engineer. Both artists worked on many projects together building models of historical sailing ships. They also wrote many excellent in-depth manuals explaining how to build those ships. One of those books is dedicated to “La Salamandre”.
In Europe, the end of the Middle Ages marked the point where ship building gradually turned from a traditional handcraft to scientific engineering. From that point on detailed building plans were made before the construction of most vessel. The 17th century saw a real improvement in the quality of shipbuilding plans. It was also a century in which highly scientific naval architecture manuals were written and it saw the birth of true scale ship modelling.
When conserved, this shipbuilding plans can be translated to scale, allowing us to make exact replicas of historical ships. This one was made in a scale of 1:48 to precisely display the inner structure of the ship and is part of our exhibition about ship building on deck 3 of the museum.