The answers to these questions really depend on how deeply interested you are, and how accurate a model you want to build.
Considering how famous she is, and how many people see her every year, it's surprising that the
Eagle isn't a more popular model subject. I'm aware of three kits that claim to represent her.
The oldest - and maybe the best - is a plastic kit that was issued by Revell in 1958. It's on the odd scale of 1/254, which gives it a length of about 18 inches. It's been off the market since about 1979, but examples turn up on e-bay and at swap meets. Revell of Germany is currently selling a model of the
Gorch Fock. I think that kit is a slight revision of the old Revell
Eagle, but not having seen it in the flesh I'm not sure.
The only other plastic kit, to my knowledge, is one originally released by the Japanese manufacturer Imai in about 1976. (That was a big year for models of sail training ships - the year of the "Parade of the Tall Ships" to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial.) Imai made a series of nicely molded schoolships on 1/350 scale. (That would make the
Eagle about a foot long.) They were waterline kits - that is, the hulls were cut off at the waterline, and the models were intended to be displayed on a flat base. Imai went out of business quite a few years ago, but that
Eagle kit has reappeared recently under the label of a company called Academy. I've seen it in several boxes; apparently some of them have additional pieces to represent the underwater hull. In terms of detail and fit it's a nice kit. I don't know of an online source for it, but I've seen it in several hobby shops lately.
The only other
Eagle kit of which I'm aware is a wood one from the Spanish manufacturer Constructo. I haven't seen it in the flesh; my comments on it are based on the picture of it that appears on the website of the distributer Model Expo ( www.modelexpo-online.com ). It's stated to be on 1/185 scale (the biggest of the three), and is priced at $119.99. Model Expo describes it as a "beginner's kit," and on the basis of the photo I can believe that. It's quite basic, and lots of the details (the portholes, for instance) are overscale. But it does look generally like the
Eagle. I suspect that with some effort this kit could be made into a handsome, accurate model.
If what you're interested in is a model that's not too challenging and generally resembles the
Eagle, stop reading
NOW.
Some years back the Coast Guard Historian's Office commissioned me to do a line drawing of the
Eagle, and I did some research regarding her history - and the available information about her. It's a complicated story, and not an altogether pleasant one.
The
Eagle, under her original name
Horst Wessel, was one of a class of sail training ships that were built by the German government during the 1930s. One of the other ships in the class was the
Gorch Fock. (I've read the complicated histories of all of them several times, but I can't keep them all straight without looking them up.) All the ships in the class resembled each other from a distance, but all were built to slightly different plans - and had significantly different lengths.
After World War II all of them were turned over to the Allies as war reparations. The
Horst Wessel came to the U.S. and became the
Eagle; the
Gorch Fock went to the Soviet Union and was renamed
Tovaritsch. (Much later the West German Navy built another schoolship with the name
Gorch Fock, to almost the same dimensions as the original. That second ship is the one that bears the name today. There will be a short quiz at the end of the period.)
In the 1950s a fine British draftsman and modeler named Harold Underhill, using the original yard drawings as a basis, drew a set of plans of the
Gorch Fock and published them in his book
Sail Training and Cadet Ships. Underhill knew what he was doing; as plans of the
Gorch Fock in her as-built configuration these drawings are fine. In the text of the book Underhill explained the differences between the various ships of the class - including the fact that the
Eagle (ex-
Horst Wessel) was
about 24 feet longer than the Gorch Fock.
Unfortunately the Underhill plans - without the book - got sold by many distributors as representing all the ships in the class (which Underhill had never claimed they did). To my knowledge, every kit with the name U.S.C.G.C.
Eagle is based on those plans. So
they're all 24 scale feet too short.
How important is the difference? It's really up to you. On the Revell kit, the discrepancy amounts to about 1 1/8 inches. I spent so much time studying the
Eagle that it's pretty obvious to my eye, but to the casual observer it probably isn't.
The other problem confronting
Eagle modelers is that she's been modified so many times. The Revell kit, disregarding the length problem, is reasonably accurate in depicting the way she looked in the 1950s. But she doesn't look like that now. There are dozens of differences - ranging from the removal of the saluting guns to the replacement of the ship's boats to the installation of antennas on the mizzen mast to the addition of a double spanker rig. The two most conspicuous changes, perhaps, are the addition of a huge, glass-fronted pilothouse at the break of the quarterdeck (not on any of the kits) and the big, vermillion-white-and-blue "Coast Guard slash" painted on the bow.
If you're interested in building a real scale model of the
Eagle I'm afraid the only way to do it is to work from scratch. The Coast Guard Historian's Office ( www.uscg.mil )can supply accurate plans, including the one I did. (I worked from several official sources - some drawings with measurements taken directly from the ship, and one German sheet clearly labeled
Horst Wessel. I also took about a hundred pictures on board the ship one day in Baltimore, in 1994. My drawing shows her configuration at that time, as accurately as I could figure it out.) Taubman Plans Service (www.taubmansonline.com) also offers a set of plans. I believe they're copies of the official CG ones - so they're reliable representations of the ship at some specific point in her career.
The kits include simplified rigging plans; several of the drawings the Coast Guard can provide show the rigging in much more detail. There's also an extremely useful paperback book,
Eagle Seamanship. It's the textbook issued to cadets on board the ship, but it's available to the public through the Naval Institute Press. It contains a detailed description of the rigging and how it works.
By this time pnawrocki undoubtedly is wishing he'd never asked his original questions. Sorry about that. As is probably obvious, I have sort of a love-hate relationship with this ship; when I get started talking about her it's hard to stop. Good luck. She makes a beautiful subject for a model.