Ships, Folk Art, and Whimsey in Bottles

This model, built by Alan Rogers, is the Canoa da Picada an extremely elegant Portuguese sardine-fishing boat, with a flush deck, a huge lateen sail on the foremast and a little jigger mast at the stern. It was built in a perfume bottle with an overall length of 12.5cm and a width of just 2.5cm at the widest part, tapering to nothing in all directions and an internal neck opening of just 7.5mm. The hull was carved from a piece of scrap, split in two down the centreline and fitted with bulwarks of thin wood veneer. The transom was not included since the stern section with jigger mast was added once the hull pieces were in the bottle and joined with small dowels. The large lateen sail, like the jigger was cut from linen which was rolled up to go through the bottle neck and then un-rolled very easily without any creases which paper might well have done.