Scale: unknown. A contemporary waterline model of the sheer hulk Kent (1857), mounted on a wooden sea base with mooring chains laid out. The hull is painted with blacktop sides and a white stripe longitudinally, and is rigged with cream-coloured sheer legs. On deck are fitted a number of mooring bollards, fairleads and hatched giving access to the hull. The sheer legs are mounted in a tripod formation with the two larger on the starboard side supported by shrouds rigged with ratlines and the third rigged from the port side rigged with shrouds only. The lifting spars or ‘derricks’ are not rigged and are laid on deck for storage purposes.

Since it was too dangerous to launch a ship with its lower mast stepped, the completed hull once launched, was towed and moored alongside these sheer hulks. Their role was a floating crane to step the lower masts on ships in a safe and controlled manner. In most cases, these vessels were old ships that had been retired from active service but were still seaworthy enough to be converted or rebuilt as sheer hulks.

In this case, the ‘Kent’ was originally a 74-gun third rate launched in 1795 at Perry’s Yard, Blackwall, London. Measuring 182 feet in length by 49 feet in the beam, she was later rebuilt with a circular stern in 1817–20. She then became guardship for Plymouth and was re-rated to 76 guns in 1839. From 1857 the ‘Kent’ became a sheer hulk, eventually being broken up in situ in 1881.