South Goodwin Lighthouse Ship

I have what I think is the same kit, only boxed by Revell Germany (I think ..)

Anyway, on mine, its a round, 4 spoked wheel, about 1/4 inch in diameter. Looks to be very close in shape and function to part #40.

Assuming the kits are the same.....

Thank you so much for the response. Not too many people out there with this kit.

BTW what is the helo that you show in your answer. Would love to do it especially in those Coast guard colors.Do you know if there are decals and a kit ?

The copter is an MH68 Stingray, and is based on the Augusta/Westland A109. It is assigned to the USCG HITRON unit, link below:

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/ac_hitron_history.html

There is no kit for this. What most folks plan on doing is using the 1/72 Revell A109 kit and modifying it. To the best of my knowledge, that is the only scale that has this bird. I'm making one for the Gunship GB on the Helicopter forum.

As for decals, its pretty much a cut and paste from other decal sets.

Glad I could help on the Goodwin. This boat and the Lindberg classic Nantucket lightship are in my stack of "gonna get to one of these days" pile.

Thanks for the info on both part #40 and the copter.

I decided to scratch build a life preserver and put it in place of part #41, like who will know the difference except for you and the other few people with the kit.

If you decide not to do the Nantucket, let me know. Originally I was looking for that kit when someone on Hyperscale said that they had the South Goodwin and sent it to me for the cost of shipping. I can understand why they wanted to give it to someone else. Talk about flash. This kit has more flash than plastic parts. I have spent real money buying metal ship fittings to replace a slew of plastic parts. Now I have to close up the rail holes in the upper deck and redrill them to be able to use the fotoetched railing that I bought.

Keep me in mind on the Nantucket, or if you see another kit out there, let me know. Thanks again,

Greg

Lightships are important ships, and make handsome, colorful models. Other than the two plastic kits already mentioned, I'm aware of only one currently-available kit. It's a solid-hull wood rendition of the Nantucket Lightship, from Bluejacket Shipcrafters (<www.bluejacketinc.com>). I haven't seen it up close, but on the basis of the pictures and the review it got in one of the ship modeling magazines, it appears to be an outstanding kit. The reviewer commented on how accurately-carved the hull was, and on the quality of the numerous cast and photo-etched fittings.

Flash, ack! Let me tell ya, the Nantucket is the same way. I think it's a Lindberg reissue from I don't know when, and either the molds weren't that good in the first place, or they are worn out, cuz it's bad. Plus, most of the flash is on the delicte stuff, which makes it harder to remove.

If I decide to cut her lose, I'll get a hold of you, but, I likely won't . I'm also an HO Model RR nut and the scale of the Nantucket (can't remember what it is) makes it pretty doable for the layout.

Although, I also have (1) car ferry, (2) RR car feries, (4) fireboats, (1) Tow boat, (4) USCG boats to put on there. Where they are all going to fit, I dunno!

I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think the Lindberg "Nantucket Lightship" kit is a reissue of a very, very old Pyro kit. The latter came out in the mid-fifties; it's a real museum piece from the medieval period of plastic kit manufacturing.

I guess Pyro is now defunct. The company made some rather nice kits for their time - pretty basic, but basically sound. In the vicinity of Bogota, New Jersey the firm was referred to as Pirate Plastics. Several of its kits were remarkably similar to the wood ones being produced by Model Shipways at the time. Others looked surprisingly similar to those of Marine Models, a wood kit manufacturer on Long Island.

The old Pyro kits have been reissued under several labels, some of them confusing if not downright deceptive. The one Lindberg currently sells as a "Civil War Blockade Runner," for instance, is the U.S. Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane, and the "Independence War Schooner" is the Revenue Cutter Roger B. Taney. The most ludicrous example of this sort of thing is the repackaging of the fishing schooner Gertrude L. Thebaud as an "America's Cup Racer." No America's Cup defender or challenger ever looked even remotely like that. But it's not a bad representation of a 1930s Grand Banks fisherman (complete with dories).

Sorry for the nostalgic diversion. Three cheers for lightships; they make great models.

the south goodwin is an old frog kit and the part that is missing in the new issues is the fog horn easy enough to scratch build that part too bad more companys won't take a chance and make some different Frog once made a british life boat a real neet kit

The South Goodwin Lightship was indead made by Frog as was the lifeboat. I have both models and can confirm that the missing part is indead the foghorn.
For information the South Goodwin Lightship was lost with all hands in the early fifties. The vessle survived but the crew was never found.
I was living in Newhaven, Sussex at the time and the Newhaven boat was one of the RNLI Boats sent out on the search.
Dai

Anyone interested in lightships might want to look into www.nightbeacon.com and some of their links. I happened across it on my way to the Columbia River Maritime Museum site. The museum is in Astoria, Oregon. They bought the lightship Columbia around 1979. We sometimes take our kids there on week-end day trips and they like exploring the decks and "below" in the Columbia more than all the other exhibits combined. The museum recently added a full sized coast guard diorama, a high-tech theatre, and some more models. That bright red lightship still draws them right past the museum building, and they're both in their early teens.

Following up on JTilley's comments:

The Lindberg Nantucket is indeed the old Pyro kit. Pyro went out of business around 1970 or so. Some of the Pyro aircraft kits later appeared in "LifeLike" boxes for a brief period. I believe Lindberg owns a lot fhe molds now.

When I was a lad, I was fond of Pyro kits-- they had the 1:1 scale historical firearms, a series of small scale historical sailing ships, unusual 1920s fighters, and larger ships, such as the Harriet Lane, the Baltimore Clipper, the lightship, etc. I remember the kits came with a little booklet that listed all the models in the line-you could mail order them directly from Pyro.

The Civil War Blockade Runner is indeed the Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane. This is one case where the re-boxing was histrorically accurate-- the Harriet Lane was captured by the Confederates in 1863, and used as a Blockade runner. I have an old Pyro version of the kit in my stash- it identified the model as The Harriet Lane. Later versions of the kit from Pyro identified the kit as a "Civil War Blockader", and later versions as the "Blockade Runner", the name that Lindberg used when they released it.

Both the Harriet Lane and the Nantucket are in 1/96 scale.

-Bill
(Also drifting down memory lane....)

Ah yes, memory lane...I remember buying the Pyro "Blockade Runner" when I was in about the sixth grade, having just read a book about blockade running. (Seems like there were more good history books for kids and "young adults" in those days.) I was utterly bewildered when I opened the box and found that the kit included several cannons. I'd read in the book that blockade runners were unarmed; that if they carried weapons they'd be guilty of piracy under international law. So I left the guns off my model. A few years later I got hold of a Model Shipways catalog, which contained a photo of that firm's Harriet Lane kit. At that point I figured out what was going on: that the Pyro kit was a reboxing of a Harriet Lane.

Still more years later I paid a visit to the Model Shipways factory (which was located in a tiny storefront at the end of a deadend street in Bogota, New Jersey) and mentioned the experience to Sam Milone, one of the two owners. He grinned rather wryly and said, "ah, yes...Pirate Plastics." I later found out that Pyro, in copying the Harriet Lane, Roger B. Taney, and Dispatch No. 9, came rather close to driving Model Shipways out of business at a time when it was just getting its feet on the ground. I'm pretty sure Pyro lifted another of its kits, the fishing schooner Gertrude L. Thebaud (currently masquerading as an "America's Cup Racer" in a Lindberg box) from another old wood kit company, Marine Models.

Still, those Pyro kits weren't too bad. I liked their system of imitating shrouds, deadeyes, and lanyards a little better than Revell's - though not much.