Lindberg's or Revell's San Gabriel

The San Gabriel is in the process of being re-released by Zvezda; if memory serves me right it originated with the Spanish or Portuguese company Occidental, and it is a rather strange looking ship. As far as I know there are no other ships that could me made into a nao on the market right now.

Jorit

Hello,

First, to dissipate confusion, let me mark that Lindberg and Revell issued two different models of carracks.

Lindberg's kit is in fact a Pyro plasitcs model: Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai a huge portuguese war carrack from c.1521. Scale is about 1/200. The kit is very old; first issued in early 1960's but can still be described as fair. It has good wood grain detail (albeit a little out of scale) with relatively few parts. The biggest problem are those molded plastic billowing sails and those horrible plastic chunks given as ratlines. If you scratchbuild the masts and rigging, It can be a good scale model however.

Revell's kit, Nao San Gabriel in fact was first designed and issued by a now (apparently) defunct Portuguese company named "Replicas Occidental". The scale is 1/100. This is a superb kit, produced as a result of thorough archival research, well detailed and accurately proportioned. While I'd rather hesitate to call her a true representation of Admiral Vasco da Gama's flagship; as we don't have any plans or pictures of that particular vessel, Occidental's kit is a fine representation of a generic medium sized Nao from mid to end 15th century.

Occidental produced two other interesting models: a 1/100 scale Portuguese Caravel and a 1/200 scale model of the 50 gun Portuguese frigate Dom Fernando II e Gloria (please correct me if I'm misspelling her name) from early 19th century. Both are equally superb in accuracy and detail. Occidental's molds are now in possession of Zvezda and San Gabriel was issued as Conquistadores Ship while the Caravela was issued as the Nina last year. Dom Fernando will be issued this year as the Acheron of Master  & Commander movie fame.

Apart from Santa Catarina and San Gabriel, there are three other nao models in plastic as far as I know: two Santa Marias and tha Catalan Ship. Of Santa Marias, one is from Revell in 1/90, first issued in 1950's the other is from Heller in 1/75, issued in 1970's (if I remember correctly). To start with, they are exactly of same lines, no doubt they are created from same plans. Both are well detailed and proportionate but I think they are ugly in shape and their accuracy (well by the way, how accurate you can be when reconstructing a ship that you know nothing but the number of sails and the tonnage ?) is somewhat suspicious as they relied to drawings prepared in 1940's, very dated research indeed.

The Catalan ship is from the phenomenal Japanese company Imai, now sadly defunct. Kit's scale is 1/60. The detail, as with all Imai kits, is breathtaking but unfortunately, this kit is totally misproportioned. It's not the fault of company but the that of the master model. Imai's kit is a reproduction of the famous "Mataro Ship", a votive church model from 1450, now in the collection of the Prince Hendrik naval museum in Holland. As votive models tended to be symbolic rather than accurate, I'll have serious doubts about proposing this kit as an accurate model.

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you for your replies.

So in effect, there are no good available plastic models of 15th or 16th C carracks unless something comes up on ebay.  Correct?  If so, I should look for the Revell or Replicas Occidental version first and then for the Lindberg/Pyro version.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Richard

PS  Even as a non-modeller, I could see that the Zvezda San Gabriel looked horrible.

 

 

kapudan_emir_effendi wrote:

First, to dissipate confusion, let me mark that Lindberg and Revell issued two different models of carracks.

Thanks for putting that right - I should have thought of the Santa Catarina, as I have one lying around somewhere, which indeed I remember as being quite acceptable, as you said, apart from the strange hard plastic sails. 

Revell's kit, Nao San Gabriel in fact was first designed and issued by a now (apparently) defunct Portuguese company named "Replicas Occidental". The scale is 1/100. This is a superb kit, produced as a result of thorough archival research, well detailed and accurately proportioned. While I'd rather hesitate to call her a true representation of Admiral Vasco da Gama's flagship; as we don't have any plans or pictures of that particular vessel, Occidental's kit is a fine representation of a generic medium sized Nao from mid to end 15th century.

I must admit I'm less enthusiastic about the San Gabriel, although admittedly my knowledge about late 15th/early 15th century ships is almost nonexistent. But she looks not really seaworthy to me, and the strange design of the upperworks doesn't help; particularly the forecastle is impossibly high. 

Occidental produced two other interesting models: a 1/100 scale Portuguese Caravel and a 1/200 scale model of the 50 gun Portuguese frigate Dom Fernando II e Gloria (please correct me if I'm misspelling her name) from early 19th century. Both are equally superb in accuracy and detail. Occidental's molds are now in possession of Zvezda and San Gabriel was issued as Conquistadores Ship while the Caravela was issued as the Nina last year. Dom Fernando will be issued this year as the Acheron of Master  & Commander movie fame.

Now that is indeed interesting - I have been looking for the Dom Fernando for quite some time, as it's one of the very few kits of a post-Napoleonic sailing warship; after all, she was built in 1843. It would make an excellent companion to Heller's La Belle Poule.

A good source for information is by the way the Portuguese maritime museum:

http://museu.marinha.pt , see under "galeria digital", "fotografias" and "modelos"

with a picture of a nice model of her.

Incidentally, there is also a model of what is supposed to be the San Gabriel on the museum site; compared to that the Occidental/Revell/Zvezda ship looks rather atrocious. Note that the hull is noticeably deeper than the kit one, and that the upperworks look much plausible.

I absolutely agree with your verdict on the Nina; it's a lovely kit and in some respects better than the Heller offering. 

Jorit

According to the NMM Santa Catarina was built in around 1510 for the East Indies trade. The NMM has a painting showing what the ship dressed for a state occasion in banners and shields.  

The San Gabriel model has a better and more practical hull, the masts are reasonably real, the foremast is stepped in a logical place, and the main mast is large but not impractical.  If you are looking for a model to represent a ship of this era for a painting, San Gabriel would do well.

Woodburner,

So you think that the Zvezda San Gabriel would be worth using or are you referring to the San Gabriel on the Portugese museum website which somehow looks a lot better?  It has more shear which I expected and the forecastle is set back onto a fuller bow, but I am no authority on carracks.   Since the Santa Catarina from any model company is presently out of production, I suppose that there is no other choice if I wish to paint a carrack, unless something turns up on ebay.

Where is the NMM painting of the Santa Catarina that you referred to.   I went there on line but found only drawings and prints. 

 Thanks,

Richard 

The only really reliable model kit available for a ship from this era is the Mary Rose kit, which is based on research and the surviving ship.  The NMM painting of the Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai is here 

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/mag/pages/mnuExplore/PaintingDetail.cfm?letter=P&ID=BHC0705

kapudan_emir_effendi wrote:

Occidental produced two other interesting models: a 1/100 scale Portuguese Caravel and a 1/200 scale model of the 50 gun Portuguese frigate Dom Fernando II e Gloria ... Dom Fernando will be issued this year as the Acheron of Master  & Commander movie fame.

 

 

Thank You for Your information, Kapudan. I always wondered what’s the origin of Zvezda’s planned Acheron. Do You have the kit of Dom Fernando II? Is it better that Heller’s La Belle Poule?

 

Btw. the review of 1/100 Caravel/Nina by Occidental/Zvezda (in German) can be found at:

http://www.modellversium.de/kit/artikel.php?id=1472

There are also reviews of other saling ships by Zvezda. Check the bottom of the page

http://www.modellversium.de/kit/hersteller.php?id=185

 

Stefan.

 

Further on the San Gabriel, here is the direct link to a fairly large picture of what looks like a fairly plausible reconstruction:

http://museu.marinha.pt/NR/rdonlyres/630ABBEC-F5F7-48B1-B8FF-E71E43BF9C0B/0/nausgabriel.jpg

The following is the Revell kit:

http://www.modelarstwo.org.pl/_OLD/szkutnicze/galeria/duvnjak/san_gabriel/san_gabriel2.jpg

Jorit 

OK this is for hard-boiled modelers but there is yet another carrack model: the Conquistador, made by Heller, scale 1/90. Supposed to be one of Cortez`ships of around 1519 and Heller claims that the model is based on the documents "Consolate del Mar" in Barcelona.

 While that may be true it is more obvious that it is actually based on the "shoe-shape"-Santa Maria. What you get is a complete Santa Maria in 1/75 plus LOTS of parts for altering almost the entire ship. The whole hull sides get add-ons to make it higher, a massive, two-level front castle is added and an equally big stern structure with side-balconies and all is topped by several wooden supports for big awnings.

While Heller has made a big effort to alter the Santa maria appearance, there are still some issues that make me shake my head. Okay, you get higher hull sides, but the main deck stays the same, so you end up with a "railing" height of around 3 meters! Everything from the bottom to the shelter deck is unchanged Santa Maria stuff and therefore 1/75 in scale, everything upwards from there is 1/90 - you can actually see that the ladders get finer and smaller as you climb upwards. Some of the masts need more length so you are supposed to add a plastic rod to the existing mast. How is that supposed to provide any stability?? A strange hybrid ship kit indeed. The base kit is one of Hellers first efforts and is a bit heavy and rough in the details while the add-on-parts are much finer in wood grain and detail.

 I have that thing and one day I might start by building a completey new, raised main deck, raise the waterline, replace all those stringers on the outside of the hull, discard the (far too big) guns, build new ladders etc. . The strange thing is that the model does indeed look great and I´m pretty sure with a lot of work could be made into something that resembles a scale model.

There is even a big wooden kit of the very same ship, called a "Carracca Atlantica". Even the colours are identical to the Heller instructions. That might be something of a prove that the design is not a fictional Heller "escapade", but, unfortunately, there are many occasions where the (European) manufacturers have based an expensive wooden kit on an existing plastic kit with no further research. Nevertheless, here is a link to a pic.:

  http://www.moduni.de/product_info.php/manufacturers_id/970397/products_id/2788600

 

This is the wooden one, the Heller kit is OOP but it pops up on eBay every now and then. At least the wooden kit seems to have the main deck on the correct level as you can see on the guns which are in a higher position than on the Heller ship. And the Heller one has only 4 guns due to the Santa Maria Origin, otherwise both kits look almost identical. The Heller boxart looks similar to the Zvezda San Gabriel reissue, but remember, it is a different kit.

Stefan,

Thanks for the photo links.   The period painting of the Santa Catarina is the type of ship that I am looking for.   They always appear too top heavy to be sailed but it is the unusual appearance that attracts me as a piece of historical technology.  The massive and top heavy appereance of the 15th and 16th C carracks is a wonder to me, especially with all of the medieval looking shields attached to the upper works.   Amazing! 

Thanks again,

Richard

So, do you think that I should add the Heller "Conquistador" to my list of OOP models to watch for on ebay in addition to Revell's Santa Catarina and Lindberg's San Gabriel?

If so then these are my choices, correct? (I'm trying to keep track of them through all of the posts.)

Revell/Replicas Occidental Santa Catarina (smaller carrack, best of the bad choices but OPP)

Lindberg/Pyro Santa Catarina  (larger carrack, leave out the ratlines, but OPP))

Heller Conquistador (rebuild to have higher bulwarks at the waist and other changes, but OPP))

Zvezda San Gabriel (awful looking and somehow crude in appearance, but available)

At what point in time did the rear of the carrack hulls become more squared and not rounded as they would have originally been?

Are the carrack hulls seen in the NMM painting  too tall?   I think that they look great...really intrigues me to think that they could sail and not capsize, but are they fanciful?

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/mag/pages/mnuExplore/ViewLargeImage.cfm?ID=BHC0705&letter=P

Thanks for your help,

 Richard

This is a very interesting discussion - I've certainly learnt a lot from it. I've never seen or heard of the Occidental "Dom Fernando" frigate before - I don't recall ever seeing this kit even on eBay. It certainly sounds interesting, there aren't many kits of sailing warships from this era.
The Revell "Santa Maria" looks fairly convincing to me, but I'm hardly an expert on the subject! Not sure how it compares to the Heller kit in terms of proportion and hull lines.

One other carrack-type ship available as a plastic kit is the Pyro "Henri Grace a Dieu", a large English war carrack or "great ship" like the Santa Catarina, and probably fairly close to the Mary Rose in appearance (though I think it is a couple of decades earlier) This is about 1/250 scale I think. I've seen it a couple of times on eBay US but I've never been able to find it over here.

A comment on proportion and accuracy in contemporary depictions of historic ships: I've recently finished scratchbuilding a 1/96 model of the 19th century monitor HMVS Cerberus, built in 1870. Whilst researching reference material for the model, I found quite a few contemporary paintings and engravings (most on this site) which get the proportions of the ship completely wrong - exaggerating the height of the superstructure, turrets and flying deck, and in some cases with serious inaccuracies of detail - one drawing shows the turrets as solid casemate-type structures, another shows both the turrets and the superstructure with bevelled tops.
So contemporary references (other than photos) often need to be taken with at least a grain of salt even for ships less than 150 years old - let alone 500.

I built the Lindberg Great Portuguese Carrack 'Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai' last year.   I set her in a "water base" made from Plaster-of-Paris with several coats of green tinted clear gloss polyurethane.  I did reference the picture "Portuguese Carracks off a Rocky Coast" but used more color, closer to the box art.  The molded sails painted off white and rigged look fairly good.  I did discard the molded shrouds, since they didn't fit well, and tie rat lines individually.

I have some observations on this ship. 

The main hull is stout, appearing quite similar to that of a caravel, and sits low with about 12 feet to the top of the rail at the waist. The super structure is very open and quite light, you can see right thru in many places.  Hence in the water she doesn't look unstable, merely very high. However, looking at this carrack, I can see how the Mary Rose could be unstable due to additional troops in the Castles. 

Her low hull means that it isn't possible to carry any guns below the main deck. Most of the guns are rail mounted breech loading man killers, with a few carriage mounted breech loaders, which could do damage to a hull, in the aftercastle. The aftercastle is obviously used for defence.  The forecastle is very high and in a head on attack would allow gun fire to dominate the waist of another ship, but doesn't provide much access for boarding.

She carries quite a lot of sail on four masts and the main and fore courses are huge.  Hence she would really fly before the wind, but deck space is extremely cramped so working sails must have been a real problem.  The forecastle especially is extremely cramped with room for perhaps a dozen men and poor access to sheets and tacks.  The high structures and poor sail handling means she really couldn't sail into the wind by tacking and even wearing is questionable.

Because she carries only a few guns capable damaging a hull and is unable maneuver quickly, close combat and boarding tactics are really the only option.

These "Castle Ships" were successful in combat with row galleys and Eastern junks, but it is clear why the introduction of galleons with heavy fire power and more maneuverability meant they fell out of use.

All in all Santa Catarina is a worth addition to my collection and building her was a good learning experience.

   Noting the other paintings the Santa Maria at anchor gives this ship a strange almost vertical aft section, which i believe is a bit out of proportion to the rest of the ship, good detail for the rigging and masts though, colors are subdued, and the painting Heemskirk's Defeat of the Spaniards at Gibraltar 25 April 1607 shows quite a few Santa Catarina type vessels in battle, they mutative been hard to maneuver in battle. these paintings are a good source for modeling, I recently acquired a 1:90 scale Heller kit the Conquistador, this model is from the works called " consolate del Mar " about 1519 commanded by Cortez to conquer Mexico, the box art is really good but the sail material ( thin plastic ) doesnt have the detail the box art depicts painted crosses although this could be done with paper, these ships are great models even though questionable but the molded ratlines must go. Karl

   Are there any paintings that show the colors of the bulwarks of these Catarina type vessels ? I'm thinking that they were maybe a dark color like a dark green, or brown most of these paintings show the ships as dark, any thoughts ? thanks.   Karl

Karl,

On page 89 of "Cogs, Caravels and Galleons", there is an engraving at the Science Museum, London of "The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover", 1520, which shows large carracks.   There is a period painting from which this is based showing dark brown hulls and all the upperworks are painted off white with multi colored shields lined up on the uppermost railings, but I do not know where the painting resides.  The painting is a perfect, color image of the engraving, from what I could see.  You may need to google this.

 Richard 

 

   Thanks hstry, I'll try that, sounds like a starting point.   Karl

My memory may be incorrect on this point but I believe the original painting in question hangs in Henry's palace at Hampton Court.  I remember being blown away by what appeared to be genuine gold leaf on the sails of Henry's flagship, the Henri Grace a Dieu, which appears in the background.  The painting was hanging in a relatively dark room, but those sails literally glowed.  (What the sails of the real ship looked like is another question.)

My memory about all this is not to be trusted, though.  I was last in England in 1997, and I think the last time I was at Hampton Court was in 1992.  That was before the awful fire that damaged the building; if the painting was there at the time, it may well have been moved since.  I certainly hope it wasn't damaged in the fire.

The painting in question is definitely currently at Hampton Court - I saw it last month when I visited the palace (which is only an hour or so's drive away from where I live)

Wow....For once my decrepit memory is proven right!  It's become a source of increasing frustration lately.  I can remember where I saw a painting almost thirty years ago, but I have trouble recalling where I parked my car outside the office.

Gentlemen,

Lindberg has announced that it is releasing the Santa Catarina.

Bill

Thank you very much for all the info above. It makes clear a real mess. I want to contribute with a piece of info. There are also versions at scale 1/250 of the "Ocidental replicas" caravel and Sao Gabriel, and all have cloth sails.

By now the Airfix Mary Rose is out. And the Zvezda 1/350 Santa Maria comes from a more recent set of blueprints.

Another mongrel, brother to the Heller Conquistador, appears under the name Mataro. Based as well on the Santa Maria.