The
Royal Sovereign was launched in 1637, the
Prince in 1670, and the
Victory in 1765. Models of the three of them would do a good job of illustrating the history of the sailing ship of the line.
The
Royal Sovereign (originally named the
Sovereign of the Seas was one of the most elaborately decorated ships in history. Her hull was virtually encrusted with gilded carvings, from the figurehead (an equestrian statue of King Charles I) through a "frieze" of heraldic carvings along her bulwarks to the spectacular carved figures on her transom. She's always represented a challenge to ship modelers.
The Airfix kit was one of the first sailing ships the company made. (I believe the
Endeavour may have been the first, but I'm not sure about that.) It came out sometime in the early sixties. I built it several times when I was younger, but I haven't seen it for years. My recollection is that it was a basically sound kit in terms of hull shape, spar proportions, etc., but pretty basic by modern standards. The Airfix moldmakers made a valiant attempt to reproduce the carved decorations, but the results were sort of blobby. With some extra work on the deck details and the rigging, and a careful paint job, it could be turned into a nice model.
The "Airfix Classic" range of sailing ships was relatively small (compared to Revell's and Heller's), but pretty good - and the kits got better over the years. The Airfix H.M.S.
Prince that Ossian mentioned is a really nice kit, with much crisper detail than the
Royal Sovereign. I think my favorite of the Airfix kits, though, is the
Wasa. That one was designed with the collaboration of the
Wasa Museum in Sweden, and has some of the nicest "carved" ornamentation the plastic kit industry has yet produced. My recollection is that there were nine other kits in the series:
Endeavour, Revenge, Discovery, Great Western, Cutty Sark, Bounty, Golden Hind, Mayflower, and
St. Louis. Maybe some other forum participants can remember some I've omitted. (I'm not counting the series of tiny sailing ships from the fifties.)
The big problem with the Airfix sailing warship kits, from the standpoint of the serious scale modeler, was that the company took the chicken's way out when it came to the guns on the lower decks. On all but the weather decks the gunports were represented by recessed squares, with holes in their middles to receive stubby parts representing the gun barrels. In the earlier kits, such as the
Royal Sovereign and the
Victory, the recesses were only about 1/32" deep, and the results looked pretty phony. As the years went by the recesses got deeper; those of the
Wasa are deep enough that if you squinted and the light wasn't too good you could convince yourself that there actually were holes in the sides. Two solutions to the problem were available: glue all the gunport lids shut, or cut out the ports, install some sort of deck inside them, and fit them with guns from the spares box or the aftermarket.
Revell took a different approach to the problem. The first Revell sailing ship, the U.S.S.
Constitution (the 18" version, originally released in 1956 and still on the market), had a little integrally-molded shelf inside each gunport, on which the modeler was to mount a full-length gun with an integrally-molded carriage. By 1956 standards that was quite sophisticated. (The wood kit companies were using solid hulls and "dummy guns," rather like the Airfix approach.)
The Revell and Airfix H.M.S.
Victory kits demonstrate that same difference, with a twist. The Airfix kit (still on the market) has full-length guns and carriages only on the forecastle, on the quarterdeck, and in the waist, where the carriages are visible. The ports for all the other guns are in the form of shallow recessed squares, with "dummy guns" plugged into them. The modeler does have the option of gluing the port lids shut. Revell provides full-length guns for the full length of the upper deck. Most of the ports on the middle and lower decks are molded shut. A few of them, though, are open and have little shelves molded behind them, and full-length guns with carriages.
In my personal opinion the Revell kit is marginally better. It's a little older and smaller, but the detail on some of the parts is really remarkable. The hull planking of the real ship, for instance, is quite elaborate. Some of the planks are cut in the "anchor stock" pattern, with tapering ends. Revell's reproduction of the hull planking is a little heavy-handed (it's an awfully small model), but a touch of sandpaper and a careful paint job would give an excellent result. Airfix's rendition of the planking, though not bad, is coarser and more simplified.
The Airfix kit has another problem that would be difficult to fix. One feature of the
Victory that everybody who's seen her remembers is the bow. It takes the form of a series of subtly-curved wooden rails that sweep up artistically to the figurehead. Airfix did a good job on the figurehead itself (better than Revell did), but somehow managed to make an utter mess of the bow structure. The error is hard to describe verbally, but instantly obvious if you compare the kit to a photo or a set of plans. The whole structure of the bow is too low. The figurehead sits almost one deck lower than it should, and the curvature of the headrails is a travesty. Revell simplified the bow structure a bit, but got the basic shapes right.
One other point. I don't know who at Revell started the claim that the kit is on 1/146 scale, but it isn't. It's considerably smaller than that. Another member of this forum measured some of the parts against a set of plans and came up with the figure 1/220. I think that's about right. At any rate, the Airfix kit is quite a bit bigger. In those days (the late fifties and sixties) manufacturers tended to put their ship kits on scales that made them fit standard-sized boxes.
Regular participants in this forum know that I have a tendency to get long-winded about stuff like this. This post has gone on too long. Hope it helps a little. Good luck. It's a great hobby.