Jray47 makes a number of worthwhile and thought-provoking points. We've addressed several of them in other threads of the Forum, but perhaps it wouldn't hurt to think about them again.
There's no denying that the number of plastic ship kits is miniscule compared to what's available in the aircraft, armor, and even modern warship fields. Revell issued its last new sailing ship kit (a nice version of the Gokstad Viking ship) thirty years ago; the current Revell-Monogram catalog contains two sailing ships (both representing the same ship, the Constitution; one fifty years old, the other more than forty). Revell has in fact been out of the sailing ship kit longer than it was ever in it. Airfix and Heller are both bankrupt (though there are heartening signs in another Forum thread that Hornby may be resurrecting some of their kits). Pyro has been out of business for decades, though some of its kits are available currently in Lindberg boxes - frequently with silly names. (An "America's Cup Defender" with stacks of fishing dories on her deck. Right.) Imai, arguably the best of them all, went out of business about twenty years ago; some of its kits are being issued by Aoshima, at hideous prices. I have faint hopes for Zvezda, whose new medieval cog apparently is a pretty nice kit, but there's been no news from that camp for some time. The handful of plastic sailing ship enthusiasts is surviving on reissues and e-bay. If the plastic sailing ship kit isn't actually dead, it's on life-support.
This is a forum about scale modeling, and scale modeling, by definition, entails making reproductions of actual objects - in this case ships. I've commented several times in other threads about the discrepancy between the standards routinely expected (apparently) by plastic sailing ship enthusiasts and those taken for granted in other phases of modeling. Take a look at virtually any thread in the aircraft, armor, or auto sections of this Forum. Those people expect (by comparison) tremendously high standards from the manufacturers - and, nowadays, usually get them. I can't think of the last time I heard the phrase, "well, it doesn't look much like the real thing, but nobody who looks at it will know the difference" from an aircraft or tank modeling enthusiast.
The standards of historical accuracy routinely achieved by manufacturers in other areas have been steadily rising during the fifty years I've been in the hobby - and show no signs of stopping. A few weeks ago I bought, largely out of curiosity, a Dragon 1/35 Sherman tank. It has over 600 parts - including photo-etched brass details, a turned aluminum gun barrel, and metal springs that make the suspension units work. There are alternative parts for two versions of the commander's cupola. The ad on the box proudly announces that the machine gun barrels are hollow, having been produced by an expensive technique called slide molding. The kit is, in short, an astonishing example of the designer's and mold-maker's arts - and an extremely accurate replica of a Sherman tank.
Another example that I've referred to elsewhere: the Trumpeter 1/32-scale F4F Wildcat. The initial release of that kit had a fuselage that was distorted in shape by, as I understand it, about 1/4 inch. Some enthusiasts got a look at the first samples and screamed bloody murder. Squadron Mail Order refused to stock the kit. Trumpeter changed the molds.
My point is that the standards of the products have risen steadily, largely because of the pressure put on the manufacturers by serious scale modelers. I'm sure other factors have been involved, but the input of the knowledgable customer clearly has had a big impact on various phases of the plastic model business. I suspect that, if not for the pressure exerted by modeling enthusiasts and the modeling press, the manufacturers would still be plastering their aircraft kits with watermelon-sized "rivets."
There was a time when plastic sailing ship kits did represent the state of the art. Those old Revell ones of the mid- to late 1950s were, by the standards of the time, quite amazing - and some of them still hold up mighty well, even by twenty-first century standards. The little old Revell Golden Hind (vintage 1965) that I'm working on at the moment, for instance, has wood-grain detail and countersunk deck plank seams that can stand comparison with anything on a Tamiya or Hasegawa kit. It clearly was the work of genuine artisans who were interested in producing the highest-quality scale replica (or, in this particular case, reconstruction) they could - even if the typical consumer didn't notice how good it was.
It could, indeed, be argued that sailing ship kits, for a long time, set the highest standards in the industry. Airfix's Wasa, to my eye at least, is on a higher level of detail and finesse than any of the airplane kits the company was producing at the time (about thirty years ago). And Revell clearly lavished more attention on its U.S.S. Kearsarge than on any of its 1960s aircraft, tanks, or cars.
But somewhere or other the plastic sailing ship kit sort of sailed off the track. The first sign that something was wrong came, if I remember correctly, in 1960, when Revell issued a "Thermopylae" that was, in fact, a slightly modified reissue of the excellent Cutty Sark (which had appeared a year earlier). The following year, Revell pulled what may have been its most disreputable stunt: the so-called "H.M.S. Beagle." Recently reissued by Revell Germany, that kit can't be called a scale model without abusing the English language. It's a modified version of the same company's old H.M.S. Bounty, which actually bore scarcely any resemblance to the real Beagle. I contend that, in virtually any other field of merchandizing, such a stunt would be labeled consumer fraud and the perpetrators would be arrested. Such behavior in the model airplane, armor, or car field would result in somebody getting shot. (Imagine a 1/72-scale B-26 getting a couple of extra engines slapped on its wings and sold as a B-17.) But Revell got away with it. And in the next couple of decades both Revell and Heller pulled off marketing scams with their sailing ship kits that were almost as bad. Now Lindberg puts eighteenth-century frigates and seventeenth-century French warships in boxes with "Pirate Ship!" labels. And scale modelers are expected to grin and bear it.
I firmly believe that every modeler is completely entitled to establish his or her own personal standards of accuracy, detail, and everything else. I don't contend for an instant that because I think the Heller Soleil Royal is a piece of overpriced, incompetently-designed junk (which I do), nobody ought to buy it or build it. To each his or her own. Ship modeling is, for most of us, a hobby; the most important thing about a hobby is that it provide satisfaction to the hobbyist. If a hobbyist is satisfied with products like the Heller Soleil Royal and the Revell "Thermopylae" - great. But I do think the voice of the serious scale ship modeler deserves to be heard, and I hope I may be forgiven for thinking that forums like this one are appropriate places to discuss such issues.
Our counterparts among the aircraft and armor enthusiasts don't hesitate to air their criticisms of kits, and they've demonstrated that the manufacturers can be persuaded to listen. Even the modern warship modelers have had a big impact on the products that are being offered to them. (Tamiya has made major revisions to several of its 1/700 warship kits, because the old versions weren't up to current standards. And take a look at some of the comments in this Forum about Lindberg's big Fletcher-class destroyer.) I don't suggest that there's anything wrong with the modeler who doesn't pay much attention to historical accuracy, and takes the sort of approach Jray47 describes. I do, however, take exception to manufacturers who describe as "scale models" products that, by any rational definition of the term, are no such thing. That Revell "Stag Hound" kit just plain isn't a scale model of the Stag Hound, and, in my opinion, it's high time somebody said so. I don't imply that everybody who's bought one should throw it out. I just contend that the manufacturer ought to be aware that somebody sees through his tactics - and I think the consumer is entitled to make an informed choice. If a forum like this had existed in 1978, I wouldn't have spent a big chunk of my meager grad student income on a Heller Soleil Royal - and I wouldn't have spent two years attempting (with, at best, marginal success) to turn it into a scale model.
It's also worth noting, perhaps, that there is an alternative available to the serious scale ship modeler who wants something better than a Heller Soleil Royal or a Revell "Beagle." The American and British wood ship model kit industries have been improving steadily for the past few decades. (The same can't be said of the continental European manufacturers - the notorious HECEPOB companies - though one of them, Amati, is currently showing signs that it's figured out what a scale model is.) Bluejacket, Model Shipways, A.J. Fisher, and Caldercraft (aka Jotika) sell kits that, in terms of accuracy, are universally acknowledged to be excellent. (Unfortunately they're also expensive. Jotika's 1/72 H.M.S. Victory, here in the U.S., costs about $1,000.)
Some years back, Model Shipways issued a 1/96 wood McKay clipper Flying Fish. There was a significant goof in the plans; the designer had misinterpreted a set of contemporary spar dimensions, and had made all the yards too short. The ship modeling community, via several letters to the editor of the Nautical Research Journal and Model Shipwright, cried foul. The designer - a fine modeler and a true gentleman of integrity - revised the drawings, and Model Shipways revised the kit. Sounds remarkably like the case of Trumpeter's Wildcat. But I've never heard of anything comparable happening to a plastic sailing ship kit.
A strange mystique seems to surround the wood ship model kit. It shouldn't. The truth is that the modeler who has the necessary skills to build a good plastic model probably has what it takes to build a wood one. Start with something that isn't too time consuming; don't make a frigate or a clipper your first wood kit. But don't be scared of the medium. It has a great deal to offer - and though there are some hideously awful wood kits on the market, there also are some extremely nice ones.
Within the next few years the plastic sailing ship kit may disappear from the hobby shop shelves completely. I hope not. I've contended for many years that this sort of kit has tremendous potential - not only for casual modelers but for serious scale ship modelers and maritime history enthusiasts. And there have been quite a few really excellent sailing ship kits. (Maybe it would be a good idea for some of us to start another thread listing what we regard as the good ones, in an effort to offset the discouragement that Jray47 - probably correctly - detects.) If this phase of the hobby does die out, though, I don't believe the miniscule number of serious scale plastic sailing ship enthusiasts will have been responsible for killing it.
And I'd like to think that, through communication organs like this Forum, the manufacturers just may get the message that there are people out there who do know what a scale model of a sailing ship looks like - and are anxious to buy any kit that's reasonably capable of producing one. One of the pleasures of this Forum, for me at least, has been the discovery that so many modelers really are interested in plastic sailing ship kits; before I discovered this Forum I thought I was almost the only adult who bought the things and took them seriously. But I don't think that telling the manufacturers "well, anything that looks sort of like a sailing ship is good enough, because most people can't tell the difference" will do any good for anybody.
Sorry to have gone on so long. As is obvious by now, this is a topic about which I have some strong opinions - and care a great deal.