Ship Modelers Database
Medway Longboat (1742)
Not preserved — the original ship's longboat has not survived, but two contemporary Georgian-era builder's models of it are preserved (off display) at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
The "Medway Longboat" refers to the ship's longboat carried aboard HMS Medway, a 60-gun fourth-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy launched in 1742. The boat itself is known today chiefly through two surviving contemporary builder's models in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, rather than from any surviving full-size example, and it is a popular subject for scale modelers as a detailed 18th-century ship's boat.
Kits of this ship
+ Add a kitNo image | Medway Longboat 1742 | Portland Scale Ship Co. | — | Plank-on-Frame | Available |
No image | Medway Longboat 1742 | Portland Scale Model Company | — | — | Available |
No image | Medway Longboat (1742) | Syren Ship Model Company | — | Plank-on-Frame | Discontinued |
Plans
No plan sets listed for this ship yet. Know of museum, archive or publisher drawings? Add them so the next builder can find them.
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Build logs
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Resources
+ Submit a resourceHistory & specifications
- Wikipedia: HMS Medway (1742)Website
General reference on the parent ship's specifications, service, and fate, providing context for the longboat it carried.
Museums & archives
- RMG Collections: Medway (1742); Warship; Fourth Rate; 60 GunsMuseum
National Maritime Museum record for the contemporary model of the parent ship HMS Medway, giving background on the vessel the longboat served aboard.
- RMG Collections: Small Craft (1742); Longboat (SLR0330, rigged model)Museum
National Maritime Museum object record for the fully planked, rigged contemporary model of the Medway longboat — useful reference for rigging and fittings.
- RMG Collections: Small Craft; Longboat (SLR0329, frame model)Museum
National Maritime Museum object record for the partially planked, unrigged frame model of the Medway longboat — useful for internal structure and framing detail.
History
Specifications
The National Maritime Museum holds the models at 1:48 scale. One, SLR0329, is a contemporary full hull model of a ship's longboat, said to be from the 'Medway' (1742), built plank on frame in the Navy Board style, partially planked and equipped with a large windlass amidships for use when handling the anchors, mounted on its original veneered baseboard. The companion model, SLR0330, is fully planked (carved from the solid), equipped and rigged and shows a large windlass amidships which was used for laying and retrieving the mother ship's anchors. For context, the parent ship was built by Elias Bird of Rotherhithe, the 'Medway' had a gun deck length of 144 feet by 42 feet in the beam and a tonnage of 1080 burden.
Service history
As the largest boat carried aboard the ship, the longboat was generally the largest boat carried on board ship and could either be pulled or sailed, and was used for carrying personnel and stores as well as mooring and anchors work. When not in use it was stowed in the waist between the fore and main masts lashed on the spare topmasts and spars, and was hoisted in and out by means of the large block and tackles rigged to the lower fore and main yards. Its parent vessel, HMS Medway, spent the early part of its career as part of a small fleet patrolling the Indian Ocean and took part in an indecisive action against the French Squadron off the Coromandel Coast in 1746, before being scuttled in 1748.
Notable facts
Two distinct contemporary models survive: an unrigged, partially planked frame model (SLR0329) and a fully planked, rigged model with oars and rudder (SLR0330), another model, SLR0329, shows the Medway longboat unrigged and in frame. The boat has also been reproduced as a modern scale-modeling kit; the Syren Ship Model Company's 1/2"-scale kit notes that this project was designed to replicate the contemporary models in the NMM, though the kit has since been retired from production.