Rig of Aurora's "Corsair" privateer kit?

No, this is not a Baltimore Clipper (though you can get a pretty good representation of one in the Lindberg Kit 'Revolutionary War Armed Schooner,' even though it is no such thing, and has also been released in the past as the 'Roger B. Taney').  The 'Corsair' is rigged as a true Brigantine, though sometimes this rig is confused with the square topsail schooner (as is often claimed for the 'Prince de Neufchatel'), but in fact, it is a Brigantine. 

Many thanks for the information!

I haven't managed to track down a Lindberg "Revolutionary War Schooner" yet; most of these kits seem to be rather hard to find this side of the Atlantic. I found the Corsair by chance at a collector's fair a couple of years ago, for £10 ($20). It's not a bad kit for its age, though the gun carriages moulded on the deck are a bit clunky. 

Sorry I bothered.

Actually, in period parlance, the 'Corsair' is indeed a Brigantine, and includes square sails and fore-and aft gaff sails on BOTH masts.  In modern parlance, the Brigantine ordinarily does not have square sails on the main mast, but there is ONE existing true brigantine with the proper rig, and it is named 'Eye of the Wind.'  Have look at the following reference:  http://sailing-ships.oktett.net/brigantine.html  and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite_brig

'Prince de Neufchatel,' which has the same rig as the Aurora 'Corsair' is variously referred to as either a schooner or a brigantine, depending on whether the author is using old, or modern parlance.  To make things even more confusing, sometimes this rig is referred to as a 'schooner-brig,' or even 'hermaphrodite-schooner.'  All are correct, but 'topsail schooner' is not!

 

As for Baltimore clippers, they are characterized by 'sharp' hulls (in cross-section, and in plan), with heavily-raked masts, ordinarily a lot of drag aft in the keel, and an enormous sail-plan for their size.

i have found to my puzzlement that this ship is what could be called a heraphrodite brig , with the added confusion of being laid out like a topsail schooner . i think back when this kit was made the thought was it wasn,t a ship of the line or a privateer . the idea of the rigging and the guns made it fascinating for the neophyte ship modeler , and the rig drew your eyes to all the line work and not to the innaccuracies of the kit . i believe many of the manufacturers back then thought the builder would be satisfied if it looked like the artwork ...   tankerbuilder

The "Ideal" kit of the Alexander Hamilton, a revenue cutter, is very close to this in hull shape, but the "Hamilton kit" was more of a topsail schooner, having only two yards on the foremast, and none on the main. Her foresail was loose footed, and her main, had a boom.  I can't speak to the "corsair", but Aurora's "Wanderer" had a discrepancy in the position of the main hatch, putting it farther forward than the photos I have, show it, and not leaving any space for the cooper's bench, aft of the triworks. The A.J. Fisher plans show the same hatch position. All that said.....I think this would still be a good kit to sharpen one's skills on, and the box art shows an attractive vessel, that would look good in a case on the mantle.

Thanks again to all for the help. The next version of my site (including the Corsair review) should be up by the end of the week.

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I just today noticed that Model Shipway's wood kit of the privateer Prince de Neufchatel has a very close resemblance to the old Aurora "Corsair"! I suspect that Aurora either based their kit on the Model Shipways one, or they simply used the same plans.

Since they're not often seen this side of the Atlantic, I'm not incredibly familiar with Model Shipway's range and had never seen the Prince de Neufchatel kit until today when I was browsing the Model Expo site. Otherwise I'd probably have noticed the similarity earlier.

Anyone know more about this? I know Pyro (aka "Pirate Plastics"...) were notorious for copying Model Shipways' kits, but this is the first Aurora ship I've seen that appears to be "inspired" by a wood kit. 

Not sure I would want to speculate on it, as the Aurora 'Corsair' came out in the '60's, and I have no idea when the Model Shipways model came out.  Prof Tilley is your man for this one!

The Model Shipways Prince de Neufchatel is a relatively recent kit; I don't know the date when it was released, but it's several decades younger than the old Aurora Corsair.  There's a set of plans for the ship in Howard I. Chapelle's History of American Sailing Ships, which was originally published in 1936.  My suspicion is that the Aurora kit was based on those plans.  It's also entirely possible that one of the other wood companies (maybe Marine Models or A.J. Fisher) offered a Prince de Neufchatel in the thirties or forties.  At any rate, I agree with EPinniger:  the old Aurora kit pretty clearly is based on that ship.  (I wonder if the adoption of the fictitious name, Corsair, was intended to camouflage the resemblance with a wood kit.  But that's pure speculation on my part.)