Sailing Forever–
Inside a Bottle

By Pat Brodowski

Look closely . . . this bottle has a sailing ship inside. It’s a tiny ship, floating over white-tipped waves. Sails puff from masts held into the wind by ropes of thread. On deck, a tiny sailor navigates.

It’s a day at sea captured in miniature. But how did it get inside a bottle? It seems like magic, but it’s not.

One of the secrets, model-maker William Westervelt will tell you, is that the ship is built first. Then it’s launched through the bottle-neck to sail upon an ocean of clay.

A sailor probably made the first ship in a bottle. In the 1800s, ocean voyages took months. A sailor had time for carving, knot tying, and model making. His model was secure inside the bottle and could be given as a gift when he returned home.

Making such a model takes many hours. Westervelt often begins by finding a sunken piece of history–a shipwreck. Wood from the wreck becomes his model’s hull. He finds pictures of the ship, then collects stories of its life at sea.

After research, the first step is to carve the hull. It can take up only about one-half of the diameter of the bottleneck because masts and sails will take up the other half. Masts are made out of tiny dowels lashed together to imitate those of real ships.

There’s a secret to sailing ships into bottles. Each mast is hinged to the ship’s deck with tiny wooden pins. The masts and their paper sails fold against the ship’s hull like wings on a bird.

How the masts unfold inside the bottle is another secret. On real ships, ropes called rigging attach masts and sails to the deck. On models, the rigging is thread. Long rigging threads are slipped through holes drilled through the hull. These threads extend out of the bottle after the ship is inside.

Once the ship is nestled into its soft clay sea, Westervelt pulls the extended rigging threads, lifting the hinged masts up and setting the sails straight. Later, he trims the extra thread.

Now you know the secret of sailing a ship into a bottle. It’s not magic, but it is tricky. Maritime museums often display these models, so the next time you’re near the ocean, take a look for these tiny ships, sailing forever–inside a bottle.