Revell 1/230ish USCG Eagle and Gorch Fock kit questions

It's a rather interesting story.  We've discussed it several times here in the Forum; a search on "Revell Eagle" should bring up a couple of threads.  The outlines of the story, as I understand it, are as follows.

Back in the late fifties (or maybe it was the early sixties), the late Harold Underhill published a book called Sail Training and Cadet Ships.  Like most of Underhill's other books, it was illustrated with a large number of well-drawn plans.  One set, which ran over at least two pages, showed the class of barques built by the Germans in the 1930s.  I can never keep all the names of those vessels (each has had several names) straight in my head, but I think there originally were six of them.  Two were named Gorch Fock and Horst Wessel.  After WWII they were turned over to the Allies as war reparations.  The Gorch Fock went to the Soviet Union, and was renamed Tovarisch.  The Horst Wessel went to the U.S. Coast Guard and was renamed Eagle.

Mr. Underhill was careful to note, in the text of his book, that, though the six ships in the class were quite similar in most respects, they differed significantly in length.  I don't remember whether all six were of different lengths, but the Gorch Fock and Horst Wessel certainly were:  the Horst Wessel was something in the neighborhood of 24 feet longer.  The drawings in the Underhill book - as he explained quite clearly - depict the Gorch Fock.

Unfortunately, over the intervening decades those plans have been reproduced and sold many times, and somewhere along the line the fact that they actually just represent the Gorch Fock accurately has fallen by the wayside.  So far as I know, almost every commercially-produced model kit purporting to represent the Eagle has been based on the Underhill plans.  (The one exception was the 1/200 Imai kit, which apparently was available only briefly sometime in the 1980s.) 

It should be emphasized that nobody, so far as I know, has been practicing deliberate deception here.  Underhill was absolutely up front about the fact that the drawings were of the Gorch Fock - and so is the U.S. Coast Guard. 

To confuse things further, back in the 1950s (or maybe it was the early sixties; I'm not sure) the West German government built a new sail training ship and named her Gorch Fock II. (The earlier one is sometimes described as Gorch Fock I. Heller, incidentally, produced a nice Gorch Fock II on, if I remember correctly, 1/150.) 

The Revell Eagle, according to Dr. Graham's history of Revell, was originally released in 1958.  It was based on the Underhill plans - which is to say that its hull was about 24 scale feet too short.  Dr. Graham lists its scale as 1/254; on that scale the discrepancy works out to about 1 1/8".  Whether that's important enough to matter is, of course, up to the individual modeler.

The Revell designers apparently were trying to represent the Eagle in her then-current (i.e., 1958) configuration.  She'd changed quite a bit since the thirties:  her original double-spanker mizzen rig had been changed to single spanker, her original figurehead (a big eagle, with the swastika in its claws replaced by a USCG seal) had succumbed to rot, and had been replaced by a much smaller eagle (affectionately known as The Duck) that had originally been on the bow of an earlier CG training ship, the Chase.  And various modern fittings had been added, most conspicuously, perhaps, two big Coast Guard motor boats. 

So the original Revell kit was a reasonably accurate reproduction of...well, nothing.  It was sort of an Americanized, 1958 Gorch Fock.

I haven't seen the kit Revell Europe is currently selling as the Gorch Fock outside the box, but I've looked at the online instructions and the photos on the box.  It looks to me like it's nothing more or less than the old Eagle kit in a different box. 

The Revell kit probably could be turned into a nice model of the pre-war Gorch Fock I with some work.  Such things as the boats would have to be "back-dated," the extra spanker gaff would have to be added, and the modeler would have to do some research regarding the anti-aircraft guns that (I think) she carried. (I know the Horst Wessel had a couple of them.)  The modeler wanting an accurate Eagle (or Horst Wessel) will have to hunt up the old Imai 1/200 kit, or work from scratch.

That's the story as I understand it. Hope it helps a little.

Thanks for the information. I had my suspicions that the kit sold by Revell Germany as "Gorch Fock" was identical to the original Revell Eagle, it seems I was right. The kit I have, in a 1980s Revell Germany box, is actually described as Gorch Fock II, making it doubly inaccurate (the 1950s-built ship probably has very similar lines but surely has many differences in detail) 

I'll upload the photos of this kit to my webpage later, so you (and anyone else interested) can see the kit parts.  

When/if I actually build the kit it seems like my best option would be to build it as Eagle in 1950s fit, and ignore the hull length error; from your description, it sounds like it's closer to this ship and era than anything else, even if not totally accurate. But if I manage to track down an Imai 1/200 Eagle at a reasonable price (not impossible, if you're patient) then I'll probably end up selling the Revell kit.

One other kit that's worth mentioning is a 1/200 Russian kit of Tovarisch (ex-Gorch Fock I). I think this is currently sold by Alanger though it has appeared in other boxes in the past. Anyone know more about this kit - does it have any relation to the Imai one? 

Hello all,

yes, the 1:253 scale Revell kit of Gorck Fock (correctly it would be Gorch Fock II)
is a modified version of the earlier kit from USS Eagle. The Gorch Fock kit was issued around
1972 in Germany first, while EAGLE was issued around 1962. There was a third kit available from this tool, in the mid of the 1960s first time from Revell of Great Britain. This time it
was labeled the SEEADLER, a german imperial navy sailing ship from WW I,
commanded by the famous Graf (Count) Luckner, who was called the SEADEVIL.
Scale was stated 1:232 scale. The box scale of the model was referred to the actual
size of the ship. But as far as I know, the kit had nothing to do with the real SEEADLER,
because it had a totally different design. Originally this ship was a british vessel
captured by the germans. I have to dig in my collection, maybe there were small differences
between the models in a few details like bow figure, position lamps and so on.  

But let us return to the Gorch Focks:  In the early 1930s the German Kriegsmarine first
had received the Gorck Fock (today Gorch Fock I) as a training vessel. Then followed
slightly larger but not clearly visible, the HORST WESSEL and the ALBERT LEO SCHLAGETER.
A fourth ship of this class was built for Romania, which named it MIRCEA. This vessel is
still existing. After WW II the GORCH FOCK I was handed over to Russia, which named
her TOVARISHCH. A 1:200 scale kit of this vessel was produced by russian kit company
Ogonek, later the tool went to Alanger, who seem to be out of business at present.
After the Russion Union split, the TOVARISHCH was owned by the Ukraine, but lacking
money to preserve the ship, its condition went worse. In 1995 she was laid up in Great
Britain. After 8 longs years she finally was rescued by a grup of tall ships friends from Hamburg, Germany and now she is restored and moored at the port of Stralsund at Germany´s
Eastern Sea coast.

The HORST WESSEL was handed over to the United States who named her EAGLE.
Upon this, the Revell kit is based.

The ALBERT LEO SCHLAGETER was also handed over to the United States, but as
they only needed the EAGLE, the vessel was sold to Brasil. She was named GUANABARA
and used until 1961, then she was sold to Portugal who named her SAGRES II.
She still exists.

Finally, the GORCK FOCK II was built in 1958 for the new german Bundesmarine,
based upon modified plans of the 1930s vessels.  So, the Revell kit in 1:253 scale
which is around now, not perfectly represents the real GORCH FOCK II.
In a german forum I read, that the sail configuration of the rear mast is wrong
for the actual ship.

I hope this helps to show the differences and I will dig in my old kits to check
differences between the models.

In 1:350 scale the japanese company IMAI first issued EAGLE, GORCK FOCK II, TOVARISHCH,
SAGRES II and MIRCEA as kit in 1976. I also will check here, whether all have the same tool...
After IMAI went bankcrupt, the tools were used by LEE of China, MINICRAFT
and Revell of Germany, which seem only to have the Gorch Fock, Cutty Sark
and Amerigo Vespucci tools. But maybe they were only leased from Minicraft who
seem to posess most of the tools (Kaiwo Maru and Nippon Maru are at AOSHIMA now).
Not all ships of this series have been reissued.  Well, a very intersting odissey of the tools...

Greetings to all!

Axel    

Well, I can add a little more to this story.

I remember buying the "Seeadler" kit when it was new.  (That, according to Dr. Graham's book, must have been in or shortly after 1960 - the year I turned ten.)  I don't remember how long it took me to realize it was a modified reissue of the Eagle kit - but it wasn't long. 

Revell did make quite a few changes to make the parts look a little more like the real Seeadler (though not much).  The biggest was to add yards to the mizzen mast, thereby giving the kit a full ship rig.  (The Horst Wessel and her sisters were all barques - i.e., they had no yards on their mizzen masts.)  Two little guns were added to the forecastle deck, where the original kit had navigation lights.  The big U.S. Coast Guard motor launches, with enclosed cockpits, were replaced with smaller, rowed lifeboats.  The figurehead (which was cast integrally with the hull halves) was changed from the aforementioned undersized "duck" to a generic female head.  (Whether that bore any resemblance to the real Seeadler's figurehead I have no idea.)   There may have been a few other changes, but those are the ones I remember.  (By the way - the figurehead of the Gorch Fock II is a somewhat abstract modern sculpture of an albatros.  It bears virtually no resemblance to the undersized eagle on the Revell kit.)

A couple of years ago I bought a then-new book called The Cruise of the Sea Eagle:  The Amazing True Story of Imperial Germany's Gentleman Pirate, by Blaine Pardoe (Guilford, Conn.:  Lyons Press, 2005).  It's a biography of Count von Luckner, the captain of the Seeadler. The jacket blurb doesn't say much about the author's credentials, but a quick look at the text establishes that he spent a good deal of time digging through archival sources. 

One interesting detail of the story is described on p. 252 of that book.  In 1959 the count, then 78 , was invited to appear on the American TV show "This Is Your Life."  The guests included Lowell Thomas, who had written a book about the Seeadler's adventures, and several of the ship's former captives.  "At the end of the show, Ralph Edwards [the host] announced that the Revell model company was going to make a model kit of the Seeadler.  A percentage of the profits from the kit would be donated in the count's name to the Boy Scouts of America, one of his favorite charities.  Once more, the count would be inspiring young men to think of boldness and daring - and perhaps remember the days when a single man could run away and become the captain of a grand sailing vessel."  I recall that the instruction sheet (at least in the original issue) included a message from von Luckner "to the youth of America."  I wonder if the grand old man ever found out what was actually inside the box of the kit that allegedly represented his ship. 

Whether this stunt on Revell's part was more or less outrageous than the same company's Bounty/"Beagle" hoax is, I guess, debatable.  The error in the length of the hull in the original Eagle was, in all likelihood, an honest mistake; plenty of other folks misinterpreted Underhill's plans.  But the "Seeadler" stunt was nothing more or less than a marketing ploy.  In virtually any other realm, a manufacturer who played such games would be subject to indictment for deceptive advertising or outright fraud.

It's been quite a few years since I've actually had any of those little 1/350 Imai sail training ships in my hands, but I believe the company used the same hulls for the four kits Woxel mentioned.  (It's worth noting that on 1/350 scale the discrepancy of 24' in length works out to 53/64".  Given the widespread confusion over the Underhill plans, it's entirely possible that the mistake was an honest one.  And Imai was playing to a market:  the massive number of people who went "tall ship" crazy during the big "tall ships race" that celebrated the U.S. bicentennial in 1976.  Gawd, I get sick of that term "tall ship."  It's utterly meaningless except as a public relations/advertising phrase.)

Woxel's reference to the "sail configuration of the rear mast" undoubtedly refers to the spanker rig.  All the barques of that 1930s class featured the double spanker rig - a distinctly German arrangement whereby the spanker has two gaffs and one boom (the second gaff being about halfway up the hoist, and set at a slightly shallower angle than the upper one).  Shortly after the Eagle was taken over by the U.S., the Coast Guard modified her in various ways; among other changes, they removed the lower gaff, giving her a single, unusually tall spanker.  She sailed under that rig for more than forty years.  Then, in her most recent major refit (in the early 1990s), it was decided to reinstate the double spanker.  When I was working on my drawing of the Eagle (in 1994, for the CG Historian's Office) I had a chat with the captain and the boatswain about that point; they said she handled much more easily with the double spanker.  Early-twentieth-century Germany had some of the finest traditional sailing ship sailors in the world; when the designers of those barques chose the double-spanker rig they knew precisely what they were doing. 

Great and interesting addition from Dr. Tilley to my post!
Now I remember having seen an old SEEADLER issue with the Graf Luckner´s
letter to the youth of america. It was produced by the english Revell plant
in Potters Bar, Great Britain and had the old "Authentic kits" logo.

I also can confirm that the figurehead of the Gorck Fock II is an ALBATROS,
in difference to the EAGLE´S eagle. The actual figurehead is the fourth ot fifth
one, the others being lost or damaged. 

My apologies for using terms like "rear mast" or so. For a german who had visited
the United States about 7 times and speaking english rather fluently, I still have
to enlarge my knowledge especially in technical words. So I often try to
circumscribe a special part if I dont find a word for it.
So I enjoy this forum because I can widen my knowledge.

Axel Wolters AKA woxel
       

Believe me, Woxel, your English is excellent by any standard.  I wish the college freshmen (and sophomores, and juniors, and seniors) in my history classes could do as well.

My own formal foreign language training consists of one year of French and one of German - taken far longer ago than I like to think about.  If I tried to communicate in German in a web forum like this, I'd do nothing but make a fool of myself - if I didn't inadvertently declare war on somebody first. 

Thank you for the commendation Dr. Tilley. 
I think, first you learn the most important words of a foreign language,
and then the technical words will be added. Indeed, the english instructions
of many ship, modelcar and airplane kits helped me to enlarge my knowledge
of technical english.

Greetings from across the pond!

Axel Wolters, AKA Woxel 

Oops, I forgot to mention, that I just got the information
of one of Revell of Germany´s long time product managers,
that the 1:253 GORCK FOCK kit was issued in 1970 first.
I was not announced in the 1970 news folder, but was presented
in Revell of Germany´s Main catalogue later in the year then.

As the first kit of the Eagle was issued around 1962, its the very first version
of the Eagle / Gorck Fock /  Seeadler trio.   

Woxel's dates sound correct - in terms of the kits' European releases (by Revell Germany).  According to Dr. Graham's book (which I believe; his dates generally, as I understand it, are based on Revell catalogs) the Eagle was originally released in 1958 with the catalog number H-347.  It remained in the catalog under that number through 1971.  It was reissued under the same number in 1976, and again under the number 2651 (under Revell's "Advent" label) in 1979.  The "Seeadler" kit was first released in 1960 with the kit number H-331, and reissued (with vac-form "sails" added) in 1968 with the number H-331.  To my knowledge the kit never appeared in the U.S. under the Gorch Fock label.

So far as I know the Minicraft kit is identical to the old Imai version.  (The Minicraft one contains parts for the underwater hull.  The old Imai ones that I saw were strictly waterline kits, but as I understand it Imai did issue them with the full-hull option.)

Model Expo is currently offering a nice deal:  six of the ex-Imai 1/350 sail training ships for $39.99.  Here's the link:  http://www.modelexpo-online.com/product.asp?ITEMNO=MC11CB .  Beware, though.  I have an awful feeling that there are only three really different kits in this package.  I strongly suspect the Mircea, Gorch Fock, and Sagres are essentially identical, as are the Esmeralda and Juan Sebastian Elcano.

Slightly later edit:  I was browsing aroung the Model Expo website and bumped into a rather interesting disagreement in pricing.  On this page ( http://www.modelexpo-online.com/search.asp?PAGLEN=20&STARTPAGE=1&FNM=34&UID=2009083023553573&SKW=Minicraft ) the 1/350 Minicraft schoolships sell for $4.99 each, and the set of six for $29.99.  Looks like a typo somewhere.

Jtilley´s information is correct, the IMAI models came as waterline models first,
around 1976 or 1977 in the Operation Sail series. Later they also appeared
with full hull and a stand base. I have some full hull models in my collection too,
but I am not sure whether ALL models of the series were issued with full hulls.
It was not hard for IMAI to do so, because the waterline models had a flat bottom
part, similar to the 1:700 scale waterline ships. So they also could fit an
underwater part without modifying the tool.

Woxel 59

I have both the Imai and Minicraft Eagle in my stash-- they are the same kit.   The Imai kit sold for $20, and was a waterline model.  The Academy/Minicraft version is the same kit, with the addition of a green plastic lower hull, gold color chrome plated posts, and a brown plastic faux wood grain base.  The Minicraft kit sold for $10,  which made it quite a deal.  

The Minicraft kit came in a box labeled "USS Eagle"  (Ouch!).  The lower hull fits OK,  with some fit isses at the bow and stern. 

If you want one of these kits,  and have a choice, buy the Minicraft version. 

Hi,
I am here new and thanks jtilley , Epinniger and rcboater  for quantity information about Gorch Fock , Eagle, Sagres and other sister ships ( Seeadler too )  on this forum.
I am found  good information for comparison dimension  Gorch Fock I ex. Tovarisch, EAGLE ex. Horst Wessel , SAGRES
ex. A. L. Schlageter, Mircea and Gorch Fock II . on  this pages :

http://www.gorchfock1.de/front_content.php?idcat=5

Specifically proportions in technical data in this tables

Hello,

I came across your forum post after doing some research on some models that I have. One of them is a Revell, Cadet Training Ship USCGC Eagle (Model No H-347). From the box construction I beleive it is early production.

Despite it's age it is in remarkable condition with the contents still bagged. It also includes rigging and spindles of cotton for ropework. Instructions, decals, vacuum formed sails are all present.

I am wondering if you would know the value of this kit as I am looking at selling it but would like to get a good price for it and that it goes to someone who would value it.

Thank you for your time and if you would like photos please let me know.

Regards,

Jim

JIm

 According to the book "Remembering Revell Models"  the 1958 issue USCGC EAGLE could be worth $40.00-60.00 depending on 1) condition of box and content, and 2) a buyer that wants to part with $40.00-60.00. The re issues of the kit can sell for $9.00-25.00(Evilbay) as there is little interest in sailing vessels(blow boats ) in todays modeling community. Consider the few sailing vessels offered by model manufacturers(most re-issues of old kits), demand equals new kit releases. Modern steel hulled warships command  model companies production schedule, not wind propelled water craft. Good luck in your quest.

Jeez- thanks, T1!

Do we ever hear from John Tilley?