Eduard Sebastiaan

Ship model of the Dutch bumboat
“Eduard Sebastiaan” – KW-6

Dimensions: 79 x 22 x 63 cm.
Scale: 1 : 33
Price: Euro 1150,00
Incl. 19% VAT
Excl. display case
EXW Papendrecht.
Not an antique
SOLD

A bumboat is designed to do what every other ship would try to avoid, to run ashore. The Dutch coast was in the old days one continuous beach from Huisduinen in the north till the estuary of the river Maas in the south, the so called “Zijde” (side). That was the reason that the bumboat sometimes was called “Zijdse Bom” (side bumboat) . As there were no harbours, this was the appropriate fishing ship for places like Scheveningen, Katwijk and Noordwijk.

The ship had a remarkable shape with a length/wide proportion of two to one and looked like more a floating platform than a ship. So they were slow sailers but very suitable for the job they were designed for, a cheap fishing ship of considerable measurement for driftnet and trawlnet fishery. She was seaworthy under all circumstances and could go ashore fully loaded and under sail over and over again. The large deck offered the crew sufficient space for handling the herring they caught.
With the construction of a harbour in Scheveningen began the end of this type of fishing ship. In 1916 the last two bumboats went to sea and thereafter this kind of ship was history.

When they where lying on the beach, large and heavy, resting from their wanderings in the boundlessness of the sea, their singular charm had a large attraction on painters. They were often the subject of paintings from painters like Mesdag (from Panorama Mesdag), Toorop and Munthe. Many of these paintings can be found under www.documentatie-munthe.nl