Scale: 1:48. A contemporary full hull model of the iron three-masted barque ‘Chala’ (1885), mounted on its original turned brass pillars and wooden baseboard. This highly detailed model is fully rigged with most of it laid in wire. Messrs. Bullivant, the wire ropemakers, commissioned this model to illustrate the various uses to which their products could be put in the rigging of an ocean-going merchant barque.

The ‘Chala’ was built by W. Pickersgill and Son of Sunderland and launched in 1885. Measuring 213 feet in length by 34 feet in the beam and a tonnage of 1057 gross, it was owned by G. P. Wakenham and Son of Liverpool and employed mainly in the South American trade, presumably carrying guano and nitrates. Its last voyage, however, was from Falmouth, Jamaica, the port which it is reported to have left on 23 December 1913 in a fully seaworthy condition, being well equipped and with a complete crew. During a north-westerly gale on 13 January, the ‘Chala’ lost much of her rigging, and laid to the wind on the starboard tack. The bulwark was broken, causing the main rigging to slacken, making it necessary to cut the topmast rigging adrift.

The following day, the mainmast snapped and fell over the starboard side, but the crew managed to cut it clear. Almost immediately afterwards, the mizzenmast broke, to be followed at once by the foretopmast rigging. With the vessel now wallowing helplessly it was decided to abandon ship, and when the SS ‘Petroleum’ arrived on the evening on 15 January, the crew of the ‘Chala’ were taken off and later landed at Punta Delgado in the Azores.