Lindberg's War of Independence Schooner

 I remember first building this kit as the "Belle Isle" from Heller, back in 1966. They put out the Harriet Lane as "Le Sphinx" and the Gertrude L Thebaud as the "Duchesse Anne". All lovely models, and the first sailing ships I ever built.

jtilley wrote:

May that kit stay available for a long, long time.

I, too, have always had a fondness for this kit. That was one of th reasons I went looking for it. 

Too bad it isn't available now.  I spent a couple of months looking for one-- they only come up on ebay once every couple of weeks, and kept selling for more than I was willing to pay.  I finally was able to snag one for $30.  

I have to confess to a considerable feeling of nostalgia for this old kit.  I built it quite a few years ago, and it was the subject of the first article I ever had published (in August, 1974 issue of the late, unlamented Scale Modeler).

I agree with most of the above comments - including the one about the anachronistic guns.  A few other points:

1.  The kit was based, almost completely, on the Model Shipways solid-hull wood Roger B. Taney kit.  (The two gentlemen who founded, and for many years owned, Model Shipways were in the habit of referring to Pyro as "Pirate Plastics."  Pyro also lifted the Model Shipways plans for the Harriet Lane, the Fair American, the tug Dispatch No. 9, and the trawler Hildina.  The kit Lindberg currently calls an "America's Cup Racer" was originally the Pyro Gertrude L. Thebaud; it, in turn, was pirated from a Marine Models wood kit.)

2.  The "closed" gunport lids are represented by raised lines - and in at least a couple of cases the lines on the insides and outsides of the bulwarks don't line up with each other.

3.  The thwarts in the small boat don't reach the gunwales.

4.  The blob at the end of the headrails doesn't represent a "billethead" figurehead well.  Replacing it with one made from Milliput, or some other epoxy putty, would make quite a difference.

5.  I don't think either the Model Shipways or Pyro/Lindberg kit actually represents the Roger B. Taney.  I think Model Shipways based its original plans on the plans for the Morris class revenue cutters redrawn by Howard I. Chapelle for his first major book, The History of American Sailing Ships, in 1936.  Chapelle seems to have assumed - quite reasonably - that the Taney, usually being described as a member of that class, was built to those plans (which he'd traced from an original in the National Archives).  A few years later, though, Chapelle found another set of original drawings with the name of the Taney on them.  He published a redrawn version of those plans in his later book, The History of the American Sailing Navy.  This set shows a slightly fancier ship, with somewhat more elaborate decorations and a few other differences from the generic Morris class plans.

For all that, I still like the kit a great deal.  It does indeed form a good, sound basis for a scale model of a Morris class revenue cutter - and it's the sort of kit that can be tackled successfully by a newcomer to the hobby.  (There are, unfortunately, few plastic sailing ship kits in that category on the market at the moment.)  I especially like the stand - the little one-piece, trapezoidal block that supports the forward part of the ship, while the stern rests on the baseboard.  Simple but effective.  May that kit stay available for a long, long time.

I think you may be interested with that thread:

/forums/653208/ShowPost.aspx

 I am just finishing my third attempt (in 41 years) on this kit, an original Pyro version, and I could not really do anything with the hull, not even scribe a waterline. So I left it as it is, totally black. I agree that the guns do not look right, though just what is wrong is hard to say. They look too small and the blocks look too big. But it makes up into a reasonable looking model. My copy has chain, which helps. Good luck with your building.