Scale: 1:24. Full hull model of the mackerel driver 'Ebenezer' (1867). Built plank on frame, the model has a cutaway section and is decked, equipped and rigged, with the sails set. ‘SS340’ is on the port and starboard bows, the name ‘Ebenezer’ on the port stern and ‘St Ives’ is on the starboard stern.

The ‘Ebeneezer’ was a Cornish lugger built by William Paynter of St Ives and is one of the great fleets of this type working out of St Ives, Penzance, Portleven, Mevagissey and Looe. Paynter’s draughts are preserved in the NMM and this model was built from one of them. As a result, more is known about the design and construction of St Ives luggers than those which were built at other Cornish ports and harbours.

Because of the poor harbour facilities at St Ives, the local boats had to be massively built and flat bottomed, so they could lie on the sand without damage. Mackerel drivers of this type varied from 35 to 47 feet on the keel. They fished with long buoyed drift nets and normally carried a crew of six men and a boy. They were introduced in the middle of the 19th century as the fishing industry expanded to meet the increasing demand, brought about by the expansion of the railway network.