I couldn't get the link to work; it just took me to the Hobbytron homepage - and I couldn't figure out how to get from there to the ship model department. But I've seen the kit advertised elsewhere. I can't be sure without actually looking inside the box, but I think it's a rebox of an old Heller product from the late sixties or early seventies. (There seems to be some sort of link between Heller and Zvezda.)
If I'm right, the kit is a really odd one. In those days Heller sailing ships were characterized by three major features: excellent artisanship, an utter lack of understanding of how real sailing ships are built, and extreme ingenuity when it came to recycling parts to make "new" kits. I bought that "brigantine" with considerable enthusiasm back in the seventies, only to discover when I opened the box that it was a modified reissue of the exploration ship Pourquois Pas? That was especially remarkable in view of the fact that the Pourquois Pas? had a steam engine and a propellor.
I never got around to trying to build the "brigantine," but I remember some of its features. The original propellor assembly had been replaced with a simple sternpost, and the prominent deckhouses and other deck furniture had been taken out. The result was supposed to look like a small, generic nineteenth-century sailing vessel. With a lot of effort it just might have been able to pass for one - but it would have taken a LOT of effort. To my eye, at least, the overall proportions just didn't look right. As I remember, the foremast was taller than the mainmast. Not utterly inconceivable, but highly unlikely for the brigantine rig.
If this Zvezda product is in fact the old Heller one reincarnated, I can't recommend it.
The Zvezda line seems to include a fair number of reisses and some brand new products. I haven't seen any of them in the flesh, but on the basis of published reviews I have the impression that the genuinely new ones aren't bad. I'm particularly interested in the Russian warships from the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Fascinating, ugly-beautiful ships that, in their own depressing way, played a major role in history.
The most interesting of all the recent Zvezda releases to my taste, though, is the medieval Hanseatic cog. (It's advertised on the Squadron website: www.squadron.com .) Caveat: we should be alert to the possibility that it's based on a recycled Heller hull of some sort. (I wouldn't put it past those people to base a cog model on a Viking ship, or a Santa Maria.) If that's the case, it isn't worth buying. But if, as the box art makes it look, it's a brand new kit, it's kind of exciting - because it would be such a terrific kit for newcomers to sailing ship modeling.
The cog was a small ship; the Zvezda kit is on 1/72 scale. (My first recommendation to aspiring sailing ship modelers has always been "start with a small ship on a large scale.") It has one mast, but that mast has plenty of rigging; it would be a fine way to learn how rigging works without getting bogged down in repetition. Scholarly knowledge of the medieval cog is such that there would be almost unlimited room for personalizing touches. (I don't think anybody knows what the color scheme of a cog would have been.) And the scale (as the manufacturer undoubtedly figured out) is an open invitation to populate the model with crew and passengers from the various sets of medieval figures that Zvezda (and several other companies) makes for the wargaming fraternity.
When I saw the ad for that kit it occurred to me that the hobby industry finally had come up with a way to connect two of my hobbies: model building and music. (Actually it's happened once before. My to-be-built pile of kits includes a Revell Airbus airliner featuring a commemorative Austrian color scheme with a picture of Mozart on the fin.) I've been toying around with the idea of buying that Zvezda cog and building it as the ship from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. If I can find the right figures, I just might be able to make that kit into the world's first R-rated ship model.
The only drawback I can see is the price: $75.00. For that kind of money I'm not going to buy it unless and until I can get a look inside the box. But I think the idea of such a kit is great. The shortage of good plastic sailing ship kits for newcomers troubles me; this one could go a long way toward filling the gap.