Ship-bottom breaker

tool that can, with a light blow, brake a board in the bottom of a ship

The model represents one of the weapons used to sink enemy vessels. With a violent tear it would crack one of the wooden boards in the ship bottom. The device consists of an iron U-shaped spring, small and resistant, and by three screws. One of the ends of the spring is tightly fixed to a board in the bottom. The other end, which can be stretched, and the middle screw, which supplies the tearing force to the spring, are screwed into two other boards. After having been loaded by means of the middle screw, the tool is released from its brake. The counterforce of the spring acts violently on the second screw and smashes the bottom of the ship. The sheet contains various drawings among which two instruments for breaking the hull of a ship.
Ashburnham code 2037, sheet 6 r.