Looking for info on some old ship kits (Heller etc.)

Bill,

      I've only done a few "sail-powered" kits. I want to build more.  My stash proves it!  I will gladly buy more new kits.

     I had written to Heller several years ago. My response to new ship kits was “ we still have all the original molds… including the Admiral Hipper.”

   I’m gonna put my soap box back under my painting table now.

                  Jim.

 

 (Edited/condensed 10/11/17  for clarity.)
 

 

 

Nino,

I concur with your view of Dave's Le Soleil Royal.  He did a masterful job.  I also agree with you about this being perhaps the most beautiful sailing ship model out there.

I have had an ongoing discussion for the past eleven years with the manufacturers about extending their lines of true historic sailing ships with little effect.  My discussions have centered on my belief that sailing ships could become a respected hobby again if the manufacturers would only offer variety.  After all, how many kits of the Victory, Cutty Sark, and Constitution do we builders need to purchase. They will not listen.

Heller was once considering manufacturing a 1/100 HMS Sovereign of the Seas but  then went into financial difficulties.  I wish they would reconsider now.

Bill Morrison

Don Stauffer

 

Only problem with the kit is that it is huge!  I didn't realize until after I built it that I have no place to display it, and after a contest season I am now looking for a place to give it away to.  I built it with the oars deployed- a big mistake.  Long ships can still go on a long shelf, but that model, with sweeps out, is fifteen inches wide!  I have no shelves that wide :-(

 

 

Don Stauffer

I am now looking for a place to give it away to.

Had a bro, who had an in-law in the display case business, so he could get acrylic cases (sorta) on the cheap.  Anything that would not fit i nthe house got a case and was donated entire to whichevet public library that had not been leaned on recently for a display (metro area allowed for many suburban library districts).

Cremé de la cremé was, after befriending a nearby univerisyt professor, who was also keen on research, he set up a display of models produced from the research as a "temporary" installation.  To my knowledge, more than a decade later, he still hasn't collected those back up, and they are still on display.

I also like the ability to conduct research from my den.  Recently, I was in a discussion on another site about the accuracy of Panart's model of the San Felipe.  My friend was stating that the kit could not be accurate because there was no Spanish ship of the line in 1690 called by that name.  I was able to counter that kit manufacturers often get their histories incorrect, and that there was such a ship built in 1732 by the name Real Felipe that was often called San Felipe.  I also found the drawings of the ship that showed that the Panart model is nearly identical.  The drawings are confirmed by several contemporary paintings that I found online as well.

This becomes germane to this thread in that the Heller kit of the Le Soleil Royal has been widely criticized as not being accurate based on the famous paintings by Berain.  However, I have found quite a few contemporary references online that convince me that the model is actually based on the second ship by that name.  Granted, the kit designers made several mistakes when they made their patterns after the model in the Musee de la Marine in Paris, such as leaving the quarter galleries closed instead of open, and leaving that big slot in the knee of the head, but those are imminently fixable.  I believe the Heller kit to be far more accurate than it has been given credit for.  Even the question of the kit's shallow draft seems accurate when matched by a French book entitled Les Vasseaus du Louis XIV.  The draft is correct if a given builder raises the waterline to the lowest wale as shown in Les Vasseaus. I love the model.

Bill

 

 

   

Bill,

     I've got the Big House, I've got the Big rooms. The wife is Very, Very, Understanding.  I may have crossed the line though with my Stash. It takes up a 72sq ft space (Floor to ceiling).  I did not realize how much I would need for storage/building vs how much might get used up in displays.  For me the good news is I really enjoy the building. Displays were never my intention. 

    One other thought…

     More and More I find the research is the most fun. God Bless the Internet, Free Libraries and the Almighty Good Forums and their Members. ( Long live Bondoman!)

   And another…

     I added a few more entries to my Sailing Ship Kit List. It’s up to 394 kits.  Many are Duplicates due to re-boxing by other manufactures but that is still a lot of kits.  Wish the Scales were more consistent.

     Thanks for the discussion.

       Jim.

P.S.  I was too embarrassed to say how many kits. I’ve got Lists made up so that I don’t re-buy the same kit. (Doesn’t always help though)

  

I have a small, three bedroom ranch style house. However, my wife agreed that the fully-finished basement would be my "museum".  That is where my ship displays live, including the old Chebec, several large plank-on-bulkhead ships-of-the-line, the Heller Le Soleil Royal, their HMS Victory, plus the Revell 1/96 USS Constitution and USS Kearsarge.  I also have displayed there quite a few 1/350 battleships and carriers.  There is something so appropriate about ships models in large scale.  God bless an understanding wife!

Bill

Don,

      I also picked up the La Reale awhile back.  Mine is the Aurora/Heller kit 6541.   You are right; it will take up a fair amount of room. Speaking of room, Hellers Chebec,  also a great kit, but at 1/50 scale, where could I put it?  I settled on the smaller Minicraft (IMAI mould) 1/80ish Chebec. Got it cheap. It’s missing a few parts- nothing that can’t be replaced.

     When I finally feel confident to build these big kits maybe I could suspend them from the ceiling like I did with my model planes when I was 9.  Oh yea, that didn't work. My Dad would walk into them as I hung them low so I could see them.

     The Professor had a bunch of kits he felt were real good replicas so I started my Sailing Ship stash based on that. This Post and a few like it were why I made a "list".  It kept me straight on which kits were really which.  Saved me Money Too!

      Jim.

jtilley

The only one I can discuss on the basis of personal experience is the 1/75 La Reale.  It's not a galleon; it's a beautiful model of a seventeenth-century French galley.  In my opinion it's just about the best sailing ship kit Heller ever made.  I believe it's in the current Heller catalog.

 

Only problem with the kit is that it is huge!  I didn't realize until after I built it that I have no place to display it, and after a contest season I am now looking for a place to give it away to.  I built it with the oars deployed- a big mistake.  Long ships can still go on a long shelf, but that model, with sweeps out, is fifteen inches wide!  I have no shelves that wide :-(

 

EPinniger

... I'm probably going to release an incomplete "work in progress" version of the list fairly soon. If I wait until it's totally complete it could never be finished, and this way I can get feedback from other modellers on what information needs adding or revising.
As mentioned before I'm also compiling a list of warship models in larger than 1/350 scale (my other ship modelling interest). Don't know how much interest in this there would be.

Another manufacturer I'm looking for more information on is Imai, their range of 1/350 sail training ships to be precise. I don't know a huge amount about these ships so would be interested to know which of them are sister ships (hence the kits are presumably identical other than decals and flags?) and whether the kits are all accurate representations of the vessel in question.

The ones I know of are:

Amerigo Vespucci
Eagle
Esmerelda
Gorch Fock
Kaiwo Maru
Juan Sebastian de Elcano
Mircea
Nippon Maru
Sagres II
Tovarisch

I'm fairly certain there are a few more, however.

 

Hi ;

 Here's what I can tell you .I have the OPTY in my stash .It's very small size as a 1/50 kit surprised me . I believe she may be a replica of the smaller fixed keel single masted boats raced in the fifties . I have raced 12 meter boats and she doesn't come close .Oh , that is R.C. 12 meter boats !.   Tanker - Builder

Thank You for such usefull info Emir!

Thank you for posting that link. I am still looking for a Radich. It must be the second rarest. I've only seen one and was outbid for it. I am jealous that you have been able to see so many of those ships.

rcweasel

Actually , Imai had 14 sail training ships and the 1/350 Cutty Sark was added later.

I was writing only about these 14 sail training ships, that have participated in "Operation Sail" and do'nt have in mind 1:350 Cutty Sark which is 15th sailing ship at 350 scale by IMAI - but not from the same Operation Sail serie.

I have Christian Radich kit - beautifull, as and others - but Dar Pomorza is rarest and i still searching for that kit.

By the way, my todays presentation of IMAI's Christian Radich kit on Lithuanian forum:

http://kvaksiuk.com/forum-lt/viewtopic.php?f=15&p=6873#p6873

P.S.

I was on Christian Radich's board, when he participate in Tall Ships Race Y2009 and was in Klaipeda port. Not big (as Sedov, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, Esmeralda, Kruzenstern etc), but nice ship.

Actually , Imai had 14 sail training ships and the 1/350 Cutty Sark was added later. The missing ship was at one time the most famous of them all, the Norwegian Christian Radich. She was the star of the 1958 movie Windjammer filmed in "Cinamiracle" a one time competitor of Cinerama. It had a limited release because it needed 3 screen for projection. At the time, television had heavily cut ionto ticket sails and all sorts of attempts were made to bring peoiple back. I've heard that the movie had been restored in a single screen version and has had some special screenings. There has been talk of it coming out on DVD, but that is not certain. There is a lot of tacky 50's travelogue, including (shudder) musical numbers, but how often do you see film of a full rigged ship in action. There are some shots of some of the other training ships, I believe including Pamir shortly before she went down in a hurricane with a loss of 86 including 55 cadets. The Christian Radich is based in Oslo and is still in use as a training ship and participates in the "Tall Ship" races.I know jtilley will cringe at the term, but that is what the call them in Europe.

Surface_Line

I do not believe Dar Pomoza was one of the kits released.

They blew an opportunity to also kit the Romanian Mircea, another near sister built in 1938

That's eleven - weren't there a dozen?

Dar Pomorza was released as and Mircea.

There was 14 kits, i allready have 13, one left - Dar Pomorza.

Take look at Dar Pomorza kit:

http://www.modelwork.pl/viewtopic.php?t=1844

Okay, my Goto Predestinacia kit from Alanger has arrived. It is the same kit as the old Ogoniok ones. Means, 1/96 scale, and not 1/72 as the box suggests. The quality is really fine, and it has little flash and sinkings.

Going to start building it today or tomorrow. It will be waterlined and put into a scene of a port, with a few boats moving around, figures, etc.

@Lee White - Orel is also 1/96, it is also reissued by Alanger. See my posting above for shop link.

1/100? Orel (18th-century frigate?) by Ogoniek

I got this kit at the IPMS nationals last week in KC for $1.00  (really!)

There doesnt seem to be any refrence to what scale it is, in the instructions, but then again, they are  not in English. I do have a digital camera, so if you want pics, or have any questions, please let me know.

Just two more kits I have questions about: the sailing yachts Opty and Polonez produced in 1/50 scale by the Polish company Mirage. I believe these represent modern Polish racing yachts.
These kits are quite recent releases (certainly by sailing ship kit standards) and are widely available in Europe and here in the UK.
Has anyone here built one, or has one in their kit "stash"? I'd be interested to know what they're like.
(As they're a fairly large scale they look like they might even be suitable for conversion to a sailing model if the hulls were weighted + sealed.)

I'll try and get a semi-finished version of the list available for download some time next week.

Surface_Line's recollections of the Imai 1/350 kits match mine.  The big Operation Sail celebration took place in 1976 - to coincide with the U.S. Bicentennial observances.  I was nursing a sunburned forehead on a highland overlooking Newport, Rhode Island when the ships came in at the end of their voyage from the West Indies.  I'll never forget the sight of those masts and sails appearing out of the mist on the horizon.  For the next few days the Newport waterfront was like a massive carnival.  I thought about going to New York for the "Parade of Sail" the following week, on July 4, but the traffic was too much for me.

My recollection is that the sail training ships were strictly waterline kits throughout their time under the Imai label.  I believe Imai offered a "waterline display mat" - a large piece of flexible plastic with "waves" molded in it, that came on a roll - separately for displaying several of them at once.  They were indeed lovely little kits - inevitably simplified due to the scale, but basically sound models.  Most of them (not quite all) seem to be available currently through Academy and Revell Germany; they're definitely worth seeking out.

The 1/350 Cutty Sark was indeed the "odd man out."  I think it appeared a year or two after the school ship series; I don't remember whether it got its underwater hull while still in its Imai box or not.  It's currently being sold by Revell Germany.

One of our Forum members some months back built a very impressive model of the Eagle from the Imai/Academy 1/350 kit.  He made some photo-etched parts for it - including a set of shrouds and ratlines for the lower masts.  In 1976 photo-etching was just making its appearance in the arsenal of scale modeling.  It works pretty well on 1/350 scale; it would be nice if somebody were to produce a generic set of parts that would cover all those Imai/Academy kits.  Given that the number of actually different kits in the range is actually pretty small, it seems like that wouldn't be impractical.

I'm a big fan of Harold Underhill's work.  Unfortunately he seems to have been - completely unwittingly - the source of the confusion regarding the four ex-German barques.  His book contains a nice set of plans for the original Gorch Fock (later Tovarisch).  In the accompanying text, Underhill explains that the four were all different in length.  Unfortunately, though, that set of plans has been sold many times over the years as representing all the ships in the class - including the Eagle.  Virtually all the manufactured Eagle kits - including the old Revell one and the Imai 1/350 version - have been based on them.  (The one notable exception is the 1/200 Imai kit, which seems to be based on accurate modern plans from the Coast Guard Historian's Office.)  The big problem with the Imai/Academy kit is that it's based on those plans.  As I remember (and I may not have this quite straight) it represents the Gorch Fock I's original configuration pretty accurately - but not the Eagle as she appears now (or, for that matter, as she appeared in 1976).  We took this up in another Forum thread some months back; the various transformations the Eagle has undergone during her 70-year career make for a rather interesting story.

I haven't seen the Imai/Academy/Revell 1/350 Cutty Sark outside the box, but on the basis of the photos on the box it does indeed look like a fine kit - subject, of course, to the limitations of the tiny scale.  I imagine it, like the beautiful Imai 1/125 version, is based on the George Campbell plans, which are among the finest I've ever encountered.

Again, thanks for the information, I'll add it to the list.
I've never seen the Dar Pomorza kit either, but it's shown on the aforementioned list - http://www.quuxuum.org/rajens_list/rajen.html
Imai definitely produced a kit of the Mircea - I've seen it for sale on eBay a number of times recently.

Where is the Winston Churchill currently based? I've never even heard of this ship before, let alone seen it, despite living in the UK.

I loved those Imai "Operation Sail" kits.  They represented a great percentage of the large ships that participated in the sailing ship get-together on the Atlantic in - was it '76 or '77?

First, it's odd that Cutty Sark has appeared with the line - she wasn't part of the original dozen kits.  The Cutty Sark is a valid clipper ship model (in this tiny scale, and to my eye; not necessarily to Prof Tilley's standards, I guess), but the rest were all real sail training ships of the late 1970s.   I'm pretty sure that the original clump of Operation Sail ships were waterline models only.  Later, when Cutty Sark appeared, she had a hull bottom option, and the later releases of the Eagle also had a lower hull half, I believe.

Harold Underhill's "Sail Training and Cadet Ships" is a great aid for studying these ships.  David MacGregor's "Square Rigged Sailing Ships" was very nice with great photos, but nothing like the copious drawings in Underhill's book.

I do not believe Dar Pomoza was one of the kits released.

They took advantage wherever possible of sister ships that could re-use models.

From memory -
The Spanish Juan Sebastian de Elcano shared molds with the ?Argentinian Esmerelda, and I think the sisters' hulls were different by 20 odd feet in length. 

Amerigo Vespucci, Winston Churchill and Danmark were the only one-offs, I think.

The following shared molds - Eagle, Sagres, Tovarisch II and Gorch Foch.  (They blew an opportunity to also kit the Romanian Mircea, another near sister built in 1938).  The real ship's hulls ranged from 203' length (Tovarisch II) to 293' (Sagres), with no two the same, but a standard 39' beam.  The rigs were similar except for different arrangements of sails and handling gear on the mizzen.

Nippon Maru and Kaiwo Maru shared molds.

That's eleven - weren't there a dozen?  I still have them tucked away - they're going to make beautiful models when I finally get around to building them.

Thanks for letting me muse a bit.
Rick

The Heller Nina and Pinta used the same hull - along with many other parts.  (I have to admit the designers did a rather good job of camouflaging the family resemblance.)  The Santa Maria hull turned up at least one other time; it was supposed to be a carrack, and I think the box had the name "Conquistador" on it. 

I want to emphasize again that I make no claim to a thorough familiarity with all those old Heller kits.  I was in college when they initially appeared, and I figured out fairly quickly that they weren't scale models.  (I vividly remember making a trip from my home town in Columbus, Ohio to Cleveland - about a 2 1/2 - hour drive in my '68 VW Beetle - for the specific purpose of buying the "Drakkar Oseberg" at the Cleveland branch of the Squadron Shop.  I got really upset when I got the thing home, compared it to a couple of drawings, and discovered that it bore virtually no resemblance to the real Oseberg Ship.

The Danmark is (at least I assume she's still in commission) a handsome, three-masted, full-rigged ship, the training vessel for the Danish Merchant Marine.  In a sense she was a predecessor of the Eagle.  When Denmark surrendered to Germany, the Danmark happened to be on a visit to the U.S.  Just after Pearl Harbor the captain placed her at the disposal of the U.S. government, and she spent the Second World War as a training ship at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.  She was returned to Denmark right after the war

The Sir Winston Churchill is a sail training ship for the British Merchant Marine.  She's an extremely modern-looking schooner with, I believe, three masts and a steel hull.  I imagine some British members of the Forum know a lot more about her than I do.

Thanks for the information!
What Heller kits re-used the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria hulls? I don't think I've ever seen a Heller kit which used a caravel or carrack hull.

From "Rajen's Ship Kit List", the other 1/350 Imai kits are:

Cutty Sark (no idea why I forgot this one)
Dar Pomorza
Danmark
Winston Churchill

The Dar Pomorza is a Polish sail training ship, no idea what the last 2 are, though presumably the Danmark is Danish.

I'd presume that the Eagle, Gorch Fock, Mircea, Sagres II and Tovarisch kits are all identical other than the box art, colour scheme, decals and flags. The Juan Sebastian and Esmerelda are sister ships (both built in Spain in the 1930s) so these kits are probably also identical to each other.

I think I vaguely remember buying a Heller kit called "La Stella" (or maybe it was "La Stella del Norte") when it was sold in a Minicraft box.  (The Heller sailing ships made their first appearances in the U.S. under the Minicraft label.  For a while some of them were sold in Aurora boxes - just before Aurora went belly-up.)  I think it was supposed to be Spanish - but it wasn't really a scale model of anything.  My recollection is that it was a typical early Heller kit - i.e., awful.  I think it had one of those oft-recycled hulls, with a couple of sprues full of neatly executed but highly-dubious "carved" decorations.  My recollection is that it had a row of oars, as well as a three-masted sail rig.  The thing bore only a faint resemblance to anything that ever floated.

"H.M.S. Elizabethan" obviously is an oxymoron.  (I haven't seen a definitive explanation of when the term "H.M.S." first was used, but it most emphatically wasn't used during the reign of Elizabeth I.)  I think the kit is another of those recycling jobs of which Heller was so fond - maybe the same hull as the "Stella."  For a while back in the seventies those things were coming out so fast, each one outdoing its predecessors in silliness, that I long since lost track of them.  (I have no idea, for instance, how many times Heller reused the hulls of the Nina, Pinta, or Santa Maria, or that disastrous mess that was originally supposed to represent the Oseberg Ship.)  It apparently wasn't until the very late seventies that the people at Heller figured out what a scale model of a sailing vessel was supposed to look like.

Regarding the 1/350 Imai kits - I'm fairly certain that the Eagle, Tovarisch, and Sagres II were essentially reboxings of the same kit.  (The three original ships were near-sisters; all varied in length, but model companies in general didn't catch that.)  The Gorch Fock presumably was intended to represent the second vessel of that name, which was built in the 1950s but was externally similar to the first one (which dated from the thirties).  I suspect Imai may have used some, at least, of the same parts for that one, but I don't know that for a fact.

I think the Kaiwo Maru and Nippon Maru probably are the same kit - but again I'm not sure. 

 

Two more Heller kits I've spotted recently: "La Stella" and "HMS Elizabethan". Both look like 16th century galleons, the latter obviously English and the former French (I think).
The two look suspiciously similar from the box art, so are these another example of Heller's hull recycling?

I'm probably going to release an incomplete "work in progress" version of the list fairly soon. If I wait until it's totally complete it could never be finished, and this way I can get feedback from other modellers on what information needs adding or revising.
As mentioned before I'm also compiling a list of warship models in larger than 1/350 scale (my other ship modelling interest). Don't know how much interest in this there would be.

Another manufacturer I'm looking for more information on is Imai, their range of 1/350 sail training ships to be precise. I don't know a huge amount about these ships so would be interested to know which of them are sister ships (hence the kits are presumably identical other than decals and flags?) and whether the kits are all accurate representations of the vessel in question.

The ones I know of are:

Amerigo Vespucci
Eagle
Esmerelda
Gorch Fock
Kaiwo Maru
Juan Sebastian de Elcano
Mircea
Nippon Maru
Sagres II
Tovarisch

I'm fairly certain there are a few more, however.

Actually, I just ordered the Goto Predestination. It seems to be now in production by the manufacturer Alanger in Russia. Listed scale is 1:72, but I suppose it is the same kit. I bought it from http://www.hobbyterra.com

They also have Orel, Krusenstern and Tovarisch too. The delivery to germany is rather expensive with 16 euro, but its ok.

also, the plans for the ship, as well as the scans of the original gravures showing this ship are free available on

http://www.shipmodeling.ru/draw/predestinacia/

Page is in russian, but the drawings are at the top of the page and easy to locate.

Have fun!

 

EP this will be an awesome source of reference indeed ! I thank you for this invaluable effort. When, approximately, this database will finish ?

I came also with questions :) I finally have the aurora's big three: Bonhomme Richard (special thanks and praises to Mr. Millard), Wanderer Whaler and USS Hartford. They are "2 feet" long but no scale is given. I learned that Wanderer is about 1/90 but for others, I don't have any idea. May you help me please ?

cheers

Okay, I used to build the Tovarisch, Orel and God's Predesination as a kid in Russia, those were the most widespread kits in ex-USSR, a must for each kid who liked ships.

What I remember is:

Tovarisch is Gorch Fock, german schoolship build in the thirties and gone to USSR past WW. As long as I know, in 2003 it was bought back by one german company and is now in refurbishment. Will be sailing as leisure/historic ship soon (or maybe already?). The scale would be around 1:150. The kit is different than the Revell one.

Orel is a "trade protection" ship, built for Volga River and Caspian Sea lane, to protect the trading ships on their way to Persia in 166x. It was captured by insurgents during the Stepan Rasin unrest, and grounded. When it was recaptured by the govermental troops, it was not repairable any more. The model had a nice quality, was well tooled and good passing quality.

God's Predestination (Goto Predestinacia, actually a latein? or dutch? name, due to Peter I'st love to all european) was built around 1699, being the first russian ship of the line. It is rated as 64 gun ship in russian sources. It was one of the fastest ships in Azov fleet, but was scuttled or given to the turks after 1711, when Russia lost Azov. Kit was really one of fantastic quality in terms of fitting, and good quality in detailing.

Both Orel and Gods Predestination are in 1:96. Actually, does anyone know where it is possible to buy those kits in Europe/Germany? I really would like to build them both once more.