Heller and Airfix are now owned by the same people. Kits that originally were sold by Heller often show up in Airfix boxes - and vice versa. Airfix is a long-established British company; Heller is French. In England, this is a big year for models of H.M.S. Victory, because it's the bicentennial of the Battle of Trafalgar. (One suspects the French are less enthusiastic about that particular anniversary.) Early in the year Airfix announced with considerable fanfare a "Special Edition" Victory kit on 1/100 scale. It is in fact just a reboxing of the Heller kit, which dates from about 1977. From what I can gather, Airfix didn't even replace the notoriously wretched English translation of the instruction book.
It is in most respects an excellent kit; I'd probably rate it among the top five plastic sailing ship kits that have come to my attention. It does suffer from a few fairly significant errors, and some of the components really show the limitations of the injection-molding process. To do that kit justice really requires either a good bit of scratchbuilding or a considerable financial outlay for aftermarket parts (e.g., blocks and deadeyes). It also requires a great deal of time. I don't think many part-time modelers could finish it to even a reasonably high standard in less than a year.
Airfix makes a smaller Victory (about 18" long), but I can't recommend it. It suffers from some severe distortion in the area of its bow that, to my eye at least, really devastates the character of the ship. My recommendation to anybody looking for a not-too-ambitious Victory kit is the old Revell one. It's not very big, but it's quite accurate in its basic shapes and remarkably well detailed for its size. It's currently in the catalog of Revell Germany; good hobby shops in the U.S. and U.K. carry it or can order it.
Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.