Scale: 1: 48. A contemporary full hull model of the eighth-rate despatch vessel ‘Vedette’ (1866). It is complete with its original decorated wooden base with stump tripod masts and a bowsprit fitted on deck. This model illustrates one of a series of eight men-of-war as proposed by Vice-Admiral E. P. Halsted, which carried guns, and turrets as designed by Captain Cowper Coles.

Measuring 332 feet in length by 47 feet in the beam and a tonnage of 5700 displacement, the ‘Vedette’ was the smallest of Halsted’s proposals. Although it was described as a despatch vessel it was to carry the same 9-inch guns as the larger class, though only two of them in a single turret.