Constellation

Many years ago Pyro made a small kit (it retailed for $1.00, if I remember correctly) that claimed to represent this ship.  It in fact represented (more or less) the ship that's now preserved in Baltimore, which, in those days, the people responsible for her claimed was the 38-gun Constellation of 1797.  (As you probably know, it's now been established to most experts' satisfaction that the ship in Baltimore is in fact a corvette designed and built in the 1850s, perhaps incorporating a few timbers from the old frigate - which was scrapped at that time.) 

The Pyro kit was small and not very sophisticated; it featured injection-molded plastic sails molded integrally with the yards.  It was part of a rather large series of "$1.00 sailing ships," a few of which have reappeared under the Lindberg label in recent years; I don't recall having seen that one in particular lately, but maybe some other Forum member has.

Unfortunately the only U.S. Navy sailing warship that's been at all decently represented by the plastic kit industry is the Constitution.  (Revell, Monogram, and Imai have reissued Constitution kits in slightly modified form with the name "U.S.S. United States" on them, but they're essentially the same old kits.  The only other USN sailing warship kit in plastic that I can recall is an old Pyro version of the late-nineteenth-century training ship Alliance.  That kit has shown up in a Lindberg box fairly recently - but doesn't amount to much as a scale model.)  A couple of wood kit manufacturers have tackled the Essex over the years, but I don't believe any of those kits is currently available.  One of the HECEPOB (Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank-On-Bulkhead) companies, Artesania Latina, used to make a Constellation.  I don't know whether it's still available or not; in any case, it was based (sort of) on the 1853 corvette, not the 1797 frigate.

This is, unfortunately, a common story:  the plastic kit industry just hasn't done a thorough job of covering the world of sailing vessels. 

Thank you for the information.  I've read your posts with great interest and have found them to be quite informative.  Even though it wasn't what I wanted to hear, it was what I suspected. I've seen several wooden models, but the price is prohibitive.  How much work would it take to convert one of the smaller scale Constitution kits to Constellation?  And, are there references readily available both online and in book form?

Again, thanks.

Best regards:

Charlie

Wow.  Converting a Revell 1/96 Contitution into a convincing 1797 Constellation to a reasonable standard of accuracy would be a huge project; I'm not sure it would be significantly easier than working from scratch.  Doing it with a Revell 1/192 kit might be a little easier, since nobody would expect the standard to be so high.

Howard I. Chapelle's History of the American Sailing Navy contains a redrawn version of the plans from which the original Constellation was built.  They don't contain a great deal of detail regarding such things as deck furnishings - and there's no sail plan.  I'm not sure whether any scholar has ever done much research on the details of that ship.

Two interesting books that deal with the ship are the extremely argumentative The Constellation Question, by Howard I. Chapelle and Leon Polland, and Fouled Anchors:  The Constellation Question Answered, by Dana Wegner and another gentleman whose name I'm embarrassed to have forgotten for the moment.  Both those works concentrate on the issue of the ship's history.

A few years ago the Naval Institute Press published another book, whose author's name I don't remember, which attempted (once again) to argue that the 1797 frigate and the ship now at Baltimore are in fact the same ship.  That book got an extremely negative reception in naval history circles; I can't recommend it.

One option that you might look into (if you want to work on a really small scale) is the series of cast-metal kits offered by the British company Skytrex.  They're on 1/700 scale, and are intended primarily for wargamers, but they're surprisingly well-detailed for their size.  I don't think Skytrex makes a Constellation, but I think the Chesapeake is in the range.  That might make a good starting point for a conversion.

Sorry to be so discouraging.  The sad truth is that the old ship just hasn't attracted as much attention as she deserves.

Discouraging?  Oh, well, I'd rather have a realistic answer.  Thanks for the research information.  I'll spend some time looking up the suggested material.

As an aside, there's some family history involved.  One of my father's relatives did some family history, and found a link between our end of the family and Midshipman James Jarvis who was on Constellation.  He was lost on her during the battle with La Vengance.

I may try the 1/192 version of Constitution as a starting point once I dig around a little bit and see what comes of it.

Again, thanks for your responses.  Much appreciated.

Best regards:

Charlie