Porque Pas' (Spelling?) Where to get a 1/96 scale version kit?

As for the Heller/Zvezda Pourquoi Pas? kit, I must say imo it is a fantastic kit that builds into a very good replica despite the wood grain etc. What I don´t like is that the deck is split into 3 parts and there are some more issues that have to do with the multi-use of the base kit. The hull maybe right for a generic Brigantine, it is WRONG for Sirius (Heller never claimed it is a Sirius, they called it Oriental Star and later Occident, only Zvezda had the idea to sell it as Sirius) but it is spot-on for Pourquoi-Pas - I think it is worth while getting it. www.moduni.de are selling the Zvezda reissue.

There are -or were- at least two wooden models on the market, one of which is from Billing Boats of Denmark, scale 1/75. I have that one and it is very good but the Heller model isn´t far away in terms of details. 

I'm pretty certain the copies of Smithsonian plans at Mystic are precisely that:  copies, which the Mystic Library presumabley bought for reference purposes. 

The Smithsonian ship plan collection is enormous.  It includes drawings from a wide variety of sources. Howard I. Chapelle, who was a curator at the Smithsonian for many years, left the museum all the original drawings that were reproduced in his books.  The drawings from the Historic American Marine Survey are there, as are plans for many models the Smithsonian commissioned.  (George Campbell's plans of the Constitution, which later formed the basis of the Revell 1/96 kit, are in there, for example, along with Merritt Edson's plans of the Bear and the Harriet Lane.) 

The Smithsonian sells copies to modelers (and anybody else who wants to buy them) for quite reasonable prices.  Unfortunately the ordering process is a little complicated.  There is (as yet) no online list of the available plans.  There are three printed catalogs - one for warships and two for merchant vessels.  You have to order the appropriate catalog by mail, look up the plans you want by number, and send in your order, along with your check, by mail.  Here's the link to get started:  http://americanhistory.si.edu/csr/shipplan.htm

Amen to getting the kit manufacturers to getting out more CG models. I didn't know the the Northland ever went over to Israel. Thanks for that. As far as hulls, I did notice that there were hull differences. I think the Smithsonian gave their plan collection to Mystic Seaport up in CT. I got a chance to peruse their collection, and noticed that they had many copies from the Smith. The Northland would be an awesome subject as well.

Thanks for taking the job with the historians office, any more light that can be shed to my service's rich history is gratefully accepted!

-Todd

Bear and Northland are both subjects I'd like to build as large RC models.  There are some great pictures of Northland under full sail in Scheina's US Coast Guard Cutters and Craft of WW2.

The Coast Guard Museum Northwest has a big model of  the Bear as she appeared in her glory days.  As you mentioned, she has a complicated superstructure, and would be a real challenge to build as an operating model-- providing for access to the interior would be tough.
 

Wasn't the Pourquois Pas? used as a "Q-ship" during World War 1? I seem to remember reading this somewhere.

In my personal opinion - probably not.  I bought the Heller Pourquois Pas? (French for "Why Not?" - maybe the only ship name ever to include a question mark) a long, long time ago - when Heller ship kits were being sold in the U.S. under the Minicraft label.  It was one of the company's earlier efforts - and those who are familiar with the evolution of Heller kits know what that means:  over-stated "wood grain," blobby details, nonsensical rigging instructions, etc.  Heller reused the hull several times; I'm pretty sure the kit they called the paddle steamer Sirius was based on the same hull, as was the one they call a "brigantine."  I think both the latter have been reissued recently under the Zvezda label.

There is a similarity between the Pourquois Pas? and the Bear all right, but it doesn't run very deep.  Both had iron-reinforced bows for breaking ice, and both had screw propellers.  That's about as far as the resemblance went, though.  I had to study the Bear rather seriously a few years back when the Coast Guard Historian's Office hired me to make a drawing of her.  The Smithsonian has a nice, detailed set of plans for her, drawn by the late Merritt Edson.  She was, if I'm not mistaken, considerably longer for her beam than the Pourquois Pas?  And the Bear's superstructure was mind-bogglingly complicated.  She was, as you probably know, a converted seal chaser, and over the years so many deckhouses, guns, boat davits, and other apparatus got added to her that the drawings and photos are sometimes rather hard to figure out.  She'd make a fascinating model, but I'm inclined to think that converting an existing plastic hull for the purpose would be virtually as difficult as working from scratch.

The history of the Coast Guard is full of ships that would make nice model subjects, if the manufacturers would just realize it.  One that has enormous potential is the Northland.  She was launched in 1927, a 216-foot, white-painted icebreaker with a modern-looking superstructure, diesel-electric engines, screw propeller, welded steel hull (with cork lining for insulation)a pair of six pounder guns on her foredeck - and a huge, brigantine sail rig.  During the thirties the sails were removed and the masts cut down, and she was fitted with a big crane to handle a Grumman Duck aircraft.  She served throughout World War II on the Greenland Patrol, having the distinction of making the first American capture of the war (a German-manned trawler named Boskoe) in September, 1941.  After the war she was sold out of the service, but turned up a while later in the Mediterranean, carrying Jewish refugees to Palestine.  She thereupon became the first, and for some time only, ship of the newly-created Israeli Navy.  Now there's a subject for a model....Resin manufacturers, are you listening?