Scale: 1:96. A modern full hull model of the composite clipper 'Thermopylae' (1868). An exhibition-style model ‘built in bread and butter’ fashion. The model is decked, fully equipped and rigged with furled sails and the yards braced. The hull has been sheathed with individual scale copper sheets, with the name ‘Thermopylae’ inscribed on port and starboard bows and stern. It is also complete with a number of flags: a house flag on the mainmast, a name pennant on the mizzen, and the red ensign flying from the peak of the gaff at the stern. There is also the inscription ‘Donec vivam ego canem’ on a carved plaque mounted on the deckhouse.

The ‘Thermopylae’ was built by Walter Hood and Co. of Aberdeen and owned by George Thompson’s Aberdeen White Star Line. Measuring 210 feet in length by 36 feet in the beam and a tonnage of 991 gross, it was renowned as a fast sailer making a succession of good passages including London to Melbourne in 63 days on its maiden voyage. After a notably successful career in both the China tea and Australian wool trades, the ‘Thermopylae’ was sold to the Mount Royal Milling and Manufacturing Co. of Victoria, British Columbia. In 1890 it was converted to a barque-rig and put into the Vancouver – Hong Kong trade. When the Portuguese government bought it in 1896 and re-named it ‘Pedro Nunes’, it intended to convert the vessel into a sail training ship. This proved to be too expensive and it was reduced to a coal hulk in Lisbon. In 1907, the hull was condemned and ceremonially towed out to sea and sunk by torpedo.