Heller "Corsair" ship

A Privateer. A privatelly owned armed vessel hired by usually a country.

Not meaning to cinfuse the issue, here is my two cents worth.

Although it could be a privateer, the American Heritage dictionary refers to it as a pirate like that used on the Barbary coast (North Africa) or a privately sanctioned pirate. There is no mention of the word privateer.

In my years of reading and researching maritime history, I have never heard the word corsair widely applied to privateers. Usually, when one sees the word privateer, it refers to a government sanctioned, privately owned ship operating in favor of whatever government sanctioned its use.

Corsair is most often associated with pirates. A pirate operates without any such government sanction. The word corsair has roots in Latin, French, and Italian that all refer to pirates.

However, it may be that one man's pirate is another man's privateer, so the issue can be argued either way without much chance of anything being decided. I'll leave it there. :) 

 

Russ 

 

I seem to recall some discussion of this particular kit elsewhere in this forum.  If I remember correctly, it's actually a slightly modified reissue of the Revell Golden Hind. (I think Heller changed the figurehead and transom ornamentation, but little else.)  I may be mistaken about that; my memory plays lots of tricks on me these days, and I've never actually seen the kit.  Jssel - would it be possible for you to post a photo?

Heller has, at various points in its history, been notorious for doing things like this.  (At one point it was selling the ancient Aurora Cutty Sark with some sort of utterly fictitious French name on it.)  As a reconstruction of the Golden Hind that old Revell kit is excellent - in my personal opinion one of the top dozen or so plastic sailing ship kits.  "Corsair" is a sufficently generic term that it could, I suppose, be applied reasonably to Sir Francis Drake.  (One could call him a "pirate" without much fear of contradiction.  The latest scholarly biography of him, by Harry Kelsey, is titled Sir Francis Drake:  The Queen's Pirate.)  What we're dealing with in that Heller kit, though (assuming my memory of it is right) is nothing more or less than a marketing ploy by a kit manufacturer.

Somebody posted a series of building photos of the kit at http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a173/srkirad/Heller%201-150%20Corsair%20ship/

The kit has two lateen-rigged masts, with a topsail on the foremast.  The hull is very Mediterranean-looking. 

 It looks nearly identical to the drawing of the French tartane in 1810, in "The Story of Sail" by Veres Laszlo and Richard Woodman.  That would bring up the question of "Is this the same kit that Heller marketed as 'La Tartane' some years ago - 1977 or so?"  I recall that that kit was very well received by folks who wanted simpler rigs, and weren't stuck on square-rigged ships (like me).

Rick 

Well, that obviously isn't a Revell Golden Hind.  Strike all the comments in my last post.  This one seems to be based on one of the generic hulls that Heller used for various smaller sailing ship kits in the seventies.  I'm not knowledgeable enough about Mediterranean types to comment intelligently, but it certainly looks more reasonable than a lot of the kits Heller was producing in those days.

My poor old memory has been worrying me enough lately that I did a Forum search to find out whether I was completely mistaken this time.  Turns out that, for once, I wasn't:  http://kitbox.free.fr/ouvreboite/OB0510_P/page2.html

The kit in question is way down at the bottom of the page.  The Revell/Elizabethan origins are perfectly obvious. But that "figurehead" shown on the box top is one of the more ridiculous things I've ever seen in a plastic kit.

Hello,

I have the kit at home; the description on the box says:

"Originally built for trading and for fishing, this small ship, because of its lightness and speed and all its rigging possibilities, was often used as a war ship. It was most commonly armed with 4 guns and 4 to 6 blunderbusses. The Corsair was typical of the Mediterranean "Race War" during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Specifications: Overall length: 33m - Width: 6,70m"

The kit is a fairly accurate representation of an armed tartane of 1810 such as depicted by the plans of the "Association des Amis du Musee de la Marine" of Paris.

Since tartanes existed in so many styles, one could easily modify the kit to represent a tartan from another period, such as "La Diligente" (1738).

The "Corsair" kit has, needless to say, nothing to do with the kit mentioned by Tilley ("Pirates & Corsairs")...

I just wanted to thank everyone who posted a message reference the "Corsair."  At this time I have a folder that contains around 60 pictures of this model including one set of in progress shots.  I broke one of my cardinal rules that states that I do a search on the discussion boards before asking for assistance.  What google could not provide, you fine folks really came through.  Think that this will be an enjoyable build and would be glad to post in progress shots when I can.  Thanks again everybody.

 

Jeff

Yup, this is a Tartan (French= 'Tartane'), which was a very common Mediterranean ship type from about 1700 until 1820-ish.  Rarely used as a 'corsair,' (which as Prof Tilley states, is an Algerian or Morroccan pirate) because of their inability to carry heavy armament, they were most often used as coastal merchant ships, and thus, prime targets for privateers.  That said, it would be a lovely stablemate for a Chebec (which WAS used extensively by the corsairs and others).  As an aside, for those who watched the 'Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest' movie, you will see a vessel very like the Tartan snatched under the sea by the Kraken.....