In the early years of naval architecture, boat and ship designs were developed through model construction. The original purpose of the half-hull ship model was to allow the master shipbuilder to design a mock-up of a ship according to the specifications of the client. One half would be cut along the horizontal planes, known as "waterlines", at evenly spaced distances. The other half would then be cut vertically at evenly spaced distances, known as "stations". After the pieces were traced onto wood or parchment to represent a reduced version of the final ship, the dimensions were expanded by creating a table of sets to aid in calculating the true dimensions of the full-sized ship. When the process was completed, the "waterline" pieces of the model were often reassembled and one half of the model would be mounted in the master builder's office to show off the boats that the yard had built.

These half-model ships were used at the Bennett Shipyard in Hopewell Cape for ships built between 1860 and 1918. Included here are the ship models for brigantine ‘PJ Nevius’ (1860), and schooners ‘Vincent A White’ and ‘Meredith A White’ (1918), as well as barquentine Royal Harrie (1872), which was built at the neighbouring John Leander Pye Shipyard.