Accession Number

2003.011.0001

Description

Model of slave ship Wildfire. 

In 2002, the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum commissioned David Harrison Wright, a local maritime artist, to construct a model of the slave ship Wildfire for a new exhibition The Last Slave Ships.  

Wright constructed the model at 1:44 scale to be able to better capture the details of the ship's construction and rigging.  The original ship measured 128 feet 4 inches in length (on the deck) with a breadth of 27 feet 4 inches and the depth of the hold at 10 feet 6 inches.  The model is nearly 4 1/2 feet long. 

Wright constructed the hull to be watertight and even took it for a sail before delivery to the museum!