Heller - Navire Viking "Reine Mathilde"

First - be warned. That kit is a modified reissue of Heller's "Drakkar Oseberg." It was originally released more than thirty years ago. I bought one at that time, thinking I was going to build a scale model of the Oseberg Ship, one of the two major surviving Viking vessels. But the kit bore scarcely any resemblance to the actual ship. The proportions were way off (the bow and stern were ludicrously tall in relation to the beam and length), and the Heller artisans had paid no attention whatever to the decorations on the bow and stern. They made those decorations abstract squiggles; on the real ship they're stylized snakes. I got the impression that the kit designers hadn't bothered to track down a set of plans. The moldings look like they were based on photographs - and not very good ones.

I imagine the name "Reine Mathilde" ("Queen Matilda") is supposed to make it look like a ship from William the Conqueror's fleet of 1066. I think Heller added some new bow and stern decorations, but didn't change anything else. I assume the proportions of the hull are just as bad as they ever were. The very title Heller has put on the box demonstrates that this kit is a merchandizing ploy. William the Conquerer wasn't a Viking - and neither was his wife.

To my knowledge there's been only one reasonably accurate plastic model of a Norse vessel. Way back in 1977 Revell made one, which was called simply "Viking Ship" and was originally issued in Revell's "Quick Build" series. (I guess the logic was simply that it didn't have many pieces. Nothing about it was especially simplified.) According to Thomas Graham's book, Remembering Revell Model Kits, the kit was based on a full-sized replica in Grant Park, Chicago. That replica, in turn, was based on the Gokstad Ship - the other major surviving Viking vessel.

The real Gokstad Ship was buried under ground, and the tops of the stem and sternpost had rotted away. Revell added a conjectural dragon head and tail, but otherwise, if my memory is at all reliable (which is questionable), the kit was a remarkably accurate and well-detailed reproduction of the Gokstad Ship. According to Mr. Graham, it was also the last new sailing ship produced by Revell of the U.S. Every Revell sailing ship kit released since then either has been a reissue of some sort or originated with Revell/Germany.

Frankly I wouldn't bother with the Heller kit; the Revell one is worth seeking out, but probably scarce. If you do want to try a model of a ship from William the Conqueror's fleet, the primary source to start with is the Bayeux Tapestry. It contains lots of "profile views" of ships, including at least hints of their color schemes. The Tapestry is reproduced in many books about the medieval period. (The old National Geographic book The Age Of Chivalry has a beautiful, fold-out version of the whole thing - which is over a hundred feet long, I believe.) There are quite a few good books about Viking ships. The classic is one from the 1930s, entitled simply The Viking Ships, by a Norwegian scholar whose name currently escapes me. It contains plans of the Gokstad and Oseberg Ships. The book The Viking, from the Tre Trekare firm, has lots of great photographs and some marvelous drawings. A good, basic modern source is the relevant volume in the Conway Maritime Press series, "Conway's History of the Ship." The Viking vessels are covered in the volume called The First Ships.

The only website I know of is that of the Viking Ship Museum, in Oslo. I looked at the site one evening; it's a good one, with some links. I don't remember the web address, but a search engine would find it.

Hope this helps - and isn't too discouraging.

Jake
jtilley sums that kit up pretty good.The kit I tried to build had a hull that was so warped I finally gave up.If you do build it natural wood color inside and out would be a good choice.Weathered quite a lot. In the 11th and 12th century paint was not used a lot.weathered yellow would be good pick for any gold type trim you do.Each clan or kingdom probably had flag or crest to be recognized by.This would be on the sail I think.
Rod

Jake:
Super-accurate kit or not (and I freely admit it's probably not), these were the sites I found most helpful:
http://eddys.www7.50megs.com/Skuldelev.html
http://www.sjolander.com/viking/plans/
http://www2.rgzm.de/navis/ships/ship001/Ship001Engl.htm
This one has an interesting detail of the mast anchor line attachment (all the way at the bottom of the page):
http://www.regia.org/Ships1.htm
There's a lot of textual material on the Internet, but almost all start out by saying that since remains of full rigging has never been found, a lot is conjectural. Most of the organizations that have built copies of Viking ships have found rigging to be an experimental process, and most say they're still (always) learning new insights.
Have fun. If you're not overly-concerned with doing a museum replica, the Heller kit can be quite impressive when "tricked out."
Greg

JTilley & the Rest of the Folks,

Thanks for a quick turn out on the ideas. I have the Time-Life Book that deals with the "Vikings" and explains all that you said. I noticed the "boat" behind the main one on the cover of the box has a correct styled prow from an actual Viking ship , there's a picture of the prow in the Vikings book.

The colors of the box art is foolish, I will choose a med-dark brown with a wash outboard and a lighter tan inboard.

Jake

Actually the box art isn't unreasonable - if (as I suspect is the case) it's intended to represent a vessel from the fleet of William the Conqueror. It seems to be an interpretation of one of the ships in the Bayeux Tapestry - which does show some coloration of planks on the hulls. My complaint is not with the box but with the contents of it.

The problem is that Heller started out by making a lousy model of the Oseberg Ship and then, by changing a few pieces, tried to make it look like a vessel from another nation and another century. An analogy: suppose Revell changed a few pieces on its old U.S.S. Missouri (a primitive reproduction of an Iowa-class WWII battleship) and labeled it a modern British cruiser. Or visualize an old Aurora WWI biplane kit with a few extra parts masquerading as an F-16.

For some reason the standards of scale accuracy that the scale modeling community takes for granted in aircraft, armor, and even 20th-century warship kits go out the window where period ship models are concerned. Heller isn't the only guilty party by any means; the vast majority of the wood kit manufacturers pull such stunts all the time. It really is a shame; the wood and plastic kit industries are perfectly capable of producing excellent sailing ship kits when they put their minds to it - and it's really not much harder to make an accurate model than an inaccurate one.

Boy, that rings true!

Jake