I noticed both have the same hulls. Both are stamped “A.A.M.M.”
I understand the Sirene is a fictional vessel drawn from period art. Is the Phenix and actual ship? Heller’s ship info blurb appears to indicate it did exist. I suppose I could leave off the cupolas at the bows and trim down the transom abit on the Sirene and have a typical ship of the era?
I’m afraid both of these models are pretty thoroughly fictitious. I don’t know whether a French warship named Phenix (or, for that matter, one named Sirene existed during the period in question, but the Heller renditions don’t bear much resemblance to anything that ever floated. (As a matter of fact, I’m not convinced that a full-sized ship with the proportions of that “Sirene” model could have floated.)
In Heller’s defense, both these kits date from the company’s first years - and almost every model manufacturer gets better as it matures. (If I remember, the Sirene kit first appeared in the U.S. under the “Minicraft” label; for a while some of the Heller sailing ships were being sold in, of all things, Aurora boxes. This was back in the late sixties or early seventies. I feel old.) Heller sailing ship kits always had problems in terms of accuracy; the designers apparently were enormously talented artisans who didn’t really know much about ships. But their more recent efforts are much, much better.
I’ve built both models and during the builds, and could never find any factual reditions of these two ships. The beams are too wide and the gunports are too low for them to be seaworthy. It seemed that the Heller designers couldn’t make up their minds if they were making molds for a Galleon or a 1st rater.
By the time ships of the Sirene design, the high Trumblehome and Capolas were a thing of the past, so I too left them off. Both ships do build to look identical except for some ornimentation. I made my Sirene to be an Eastindiaman and sealed off the lower gunports. IMO, it still looks too fat.
However, they do build into very beautiful decorator models. I find that they do “look” like 17th century ships of the line from a distance and still represent ships from the historical standpoint far better than those wooden model kits from Europe.
The ship in my sig is the Pheonix.
Scott
I guess I agree with scottrc: even the worst of the Heller kits look slightly more like real ships than most of those hideous objects sold by the European “plank-on-bulkhead” wood kit manufacturers. I’ve used up quite a few gigabytes, in this Forum and elsewhere, ranting about the garbage those companies produce - and the outrageous prices they ask for it.
I do feel obliged, though, to offer a couple of caveats. First - though I wouldn’t be caught dead buying one of those Continental kits, I have seen some mighty nice models that have been built from them. The quality of the kits does vary quite a bit, and, of course, the skill and knowledge of the modeler have a great deal to do with the finished product. Second - there’s one European company that does produce serious scale ship model kits in wood. It’s called Calder Craft; its kits also carry the label Jotika. (I’m not quite sure what the relationship between those two names is. Maybe one is the manufacturer and the other the distributor.) I’ve never bought a Calder/Jotika kit, or even seen one in the flesh. (The big reason: money. The Calder H.M.S. Victory, on 1/72 scale, costs over $1,000.) But on the basis of photos and reviews in the magazines and on the web, it’s obvious that these are high-quality products - and real scale models.
If people ask me for recommendations regarding wood ship kits, I have a stock answer. If you’re interested in genuine scale models, stick with three companies: Model Shipways, Bluejacket, and Calder.
Celestino wrote :
"Both are stamped “A.A.M.M.” "
A.A.M.M. is the well known “Association des Amis du Musée de la Marine”, this is an old French naval modeling association, they edit plans, the base for the two models must be the plans of “Vaisseau percé pour 80 canons”. Plans are available here :
http://www.amis-musee-marine.net/pages/Monographies2.htm
Michel
I wonder just what the connection between Heller and the AAMM actually was. The picture of Le Phenix on the site to which Michel directed us bears scarcely any resemblance to the Heller kit.
Several other Heller kits represent vessels on that list - or claim to. The only ones I’ve actually bought that appear both on the AAMM list and in the Heller catalog are Le Superbe and La Reale. Le Superbe isn’t a bad kit; it generally looks like an eighteenth-century French ship-of-the-line. It does have some problems (lack of deck camber and spurious “wood grain” surface detail on the hull, for instance), but it could be made into a serious scale model. La Reale is one of the finest ship model kits I’ve ever encountered - plastic, wood, or otherwise. The “carved” detail on it is breathtaking. I’ve got one in my attic; it’s on my disgustingly long “to be built” list.
Quite a few years ago I did build the Heller Soleil Royal. The AAMM apparently doesn’t offer plans of that ship, but the kit obviously is based on a huge model in the Musee de la Marine. In many ways it’s a beautiful kit; the “carvings” are up to the standard of the finest eighteenth-century “Board Room” models. (That’s the highest compliment I know how to pay such things.) But in terms of scale accuracy the kit suffers from some really disastrous errors. The designers completely misinterpreted the construction of the stern, and they apparently failed to realize that the grand old model on which they were basing the kit is unfinished. (The kit’s head knee has an enormous hole in the middle of it where a piece of carved ornamentation, which is absent from the old model, ought to be. If the real ship were built in such a manner the bow would collapse.) Worst of all, even a quick glance at a photo of the old model makes it obvious that the underwater portion of the kit’s hull is far too shallow. If the real ship had been built to such lines I question whether it would have floated.
In the scale model world the Heller sailing ship kits are odd things. They feature some of the most precise and beautifully-executed molds I’ve ever seen, but almost every one of them suffers from at least one weird error of accuracy, suggesting that the artisans who designed it just didn’t understand some significant aspect of the subject. (That huge H.M.S. Victory - surely one of the best ship model kits ever - provides no method for fastening the yards to the masts. And the Pamir features yards with reasonable representations of eyebolts for the jackstays - on the fronts of the yards instead of the tops. And somebody on the Heller design staff insisted repeatedly that belaying pins had sharp points.) Of the ones I’ve seen (not the entire line, by any means) the only one that doesn’t seem to suffer from any such howlers is La Reale. It does show some limitations of the medium (the handles on the oars are represented rather crudely), but that kit is worthy of any modeler’s best efforts.
For those who’d like to see what Tilley is talking 'bout, this is a link to Heller’s 1/100 Soleil Royal. The model looks really great, especially the ornomentation, but you don’t have to be an expert to notice that the hull is so shallow that the ship would probably capsize at the first wind gust… I wonder why on Earth the guys of Heller didn’t notice that when they created this kit, the disproportion is really clear…
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/misc/sail/solielroyale-100-mg/mg-index.html
To be honest, the Heller S/R hull might be a little shallow, but the effect is aggrevated by the fact that the waterline is marked too low. 17th century 3-deckers generally carry their lower tier gun ports about 3-4 feet out of water. Heller is putting the gun ports almost 7 feet out of water. If you move the waterline on Heller SR up to level of the top of the lower wale, then the hull look somewhat more reasonable.
I believe I have these plansets. I purchased a tattered set off Ebay some years ago. I will confirm against Heller’s hull.
Gentlemen, I am a novice at this so please accept this as FYI only, but there is an illustration in Conway’s History of the Ship, Development of the Battlefleet 1650-1850 volme, which has an illustration of a 1650s French man-of-war. One of Colbert’s superwarships. It really does appear as ornate as the Sirene. Gunports are low. There are no cupolas near the bows but the remainder of the vessel,(above waterline view is provided), does bear a bit of resemblance to the Sirene.
Comments are appreciated.
I’m a little nervous talking at any length about this kind of thing. I firmly believe in the individual modeler’s right to decide what aspects of the hobby are important to him or her. Some modelers (including me) are interested in historical accuracy - probably too much so for our own good. I’m inclined to evaluate a kit more on the basis of how it conforms to the plans of the real thing, and to contemporary written and graphic evidence, than how attractive it is or how the pieces fit together. I’m not willing to spend my time on a kit that “looks a little like” a real ship. Other modelers have different priorities.
I’ve had enough bad experiences with those old Heller kits that I just can’t take them seriously as scale models. The newer Heller kits - e.g., H.M.S. Victory, the galley La Reale, and the Gorch Foch - inhabit a completely different planet. They suffer from their share of goofs, but they’re basically sound scale representations. It’s pretty clear that the people responsible for designing those earlier kits had only the foggiest notion of what a scale ship model is.
At this particular time it’s rather difficult to recommend plastic sailing ship kits, because so few of them are widely available. If you’re looking for a reasonably-priced, mid-sized, well-executed scale model of an elaborately-decorated sailing warship, though, I think the one I’d recommend above all others is the Airfix Wasa. That kit was designed in collaboration with the Wasa Museum. It accurately represents the shape of the real ship, and the “carved” detail on it is exquisite.
Airfix, in fact, used to make several seventeenth-century ships that were far, far superior to their Heller counterparts. The Airfix H.M.S. Prince is a beauty, and I think (though I’ve never bought it) the St. Louis is in the same league. The Airfix Sovereign of the Seas (aka Royal Sovereign) isn’t a bad kit, but it’s showing its age; the “carvings” are pretty soft, and there’s not much detail on the decks or the spars. Given enough extra work, however, it would be a sound basis for a serious scale model.
Unfortunately the Wasa is, unless I’m mistaken, the only one on that list that’s in the current Airfix catalog. But if you get the opportunity to snap up any of the others, you’ll find they’re all far superior to the old Heller offerings.
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by Celestino
I believe I have these plansets. I purchased a tattered set off Ebay some years ago. I will confirm against Heller’s hull.
I do have these plans. They indicate Phenix and the stern decorations are as with Hellers’ kit. There are some B&W photographs included of the museum’s model. I will scan and post tomorrow. Well at least the Phenix may be legitimate. There is text in French regarding the history of the vessel.
Last night I was looking at the nautical kits (plastic) inventory at Gasoline Alley Antiques and saw H.M.S. Prince listed. However, it isn’t in the Airfix section, it was under MPC and the scale is shown as 1:126 or thereabouts, sixties vintage, about 18" long, and about 350 pieces.
Could this be from Airfix molds? I didn’t know MPC did any sailing ship kits, but then I’m not really familiar with the company. Anyway, it says “mint parts” with minor box stains and a tear for $45. I was considering taking a drive up to Seattle, to Gasoline Alley and look at this kit and other sailing ship kits, but then I remembered local gas is about $2.80 a gallon and I drive an old Pontiac Bonneville/oil company’s best friend. Does anybody know anything about this kit?
Ron
In order, 1) yes and 2) don’t.
MPC boxed Airfix kits in the USA, so it would be the same kit that jtilley tells us is good stuff. (I never looked in it because it was pre-Napoleonic, but that doesn’t make it bad)
Gasoline Alley doesn’t necessarily have their internet stock available for display at their store in Wedgewood. They have a warehouse somewhere else. So if you really want to look at something, I think they recommend you call a few days prior so they can get the kit to the storefront.
Good luck,
Rick
Be careful. If it’s indeed MPC it’s probably the Airfix kit. If it is in fact UPC - beware. That kit is one of the more amusing hoaxes ever perpetrated on the modeling public.
By remarkable coincidence I remember the UPC H.M.S. Prince. It has nothing to do with the Airfix kit; the UPC one came years earlier.
I found it in the late, much lamented Core’s Hobby Shop in Washington, D.C., on a family vacation trip when I was in high school. (That must have been about 1966.) I’d only been interested in ship models for a few years, and when I saw this kit I got rather excited. When I got it back to the hotel and unwrapped the box, though, I was astonished. Except for the hull halves, the parts - including the decks and spars - were virtually identical to those of the Revell H.M.S. Victory.
My initial conclusion was that the kit was defective, so I took it back to the hobby shop. The clerk got another one off the shelf, inspected it, and concluded that the contents were what they were supposed to be. UPC was selling its own Victory at the time; apparently that kit had been pirated from the Revell one, and most of the parts had been recycled to create something that looked sort of like the Prince.
The hull halves looked sort of like a seventeenth-century ship-of-the-line, but that’s about the best that could be said for the kit. Those hull halves did have a feature that may have been unique in the plastic kit industry. The model was based (verrrrry generally) on the famous contemporary model of the Prince that’s now in the Science Museum, in London. That model, like most “Navy Board” style models of the period, is unplanked below the wales; the framing, in the usual, stylized Navy Board manner, is exposed. The UPC kit represented that exposed framing (sort of) in the form of vertical, indented stripes on the lower part of the hull. Apparently the modeler was supposed to paint the indentations black, so the finished product would look vaguely like a Navy Board model.
After getting the second kit back to the hotel room I took a more careful look at the box top, and got one of the better laughs I’ve ever had in ship modeling. The box art apparently was painted by a Japanese artist who (a) was working from a photo of that Science Museum model, and (b) knew nothing about English ships. He was a highly-skilled artist; he spent a great deal of time and effort on the rigging and other details. The painting depicted the Prince in all her seventeenth-century glory, sitting at anchor in a harbor surrounded by other warships, with her flags and pennants flying gloriously - and those unplanked frames sticking prominently out of the water, with the blue sky visible between them.
Shortly after I got home at the end of the vacation trip I quietly threw the kit in the trash. I wonder if anybody ever actually built this…thing. I can’t recall ever seeing a picture of a finished version.
The Airfix kit is an entirely different kettle of fish. It’s a good, accurate representation of the real ship. My only complaint about it concerns the guns, which are rendered in the standard Airfix manner: the gunports are represented as recessed squares, and the “guns” are “dummy” stubs that plug into holes. If I were building the kit I’d either (a) cut out the ports and put guns from the spares box behind them, or (b) glue the portlids closed. Otherwise it’s a fine kit.
Sorry for the ramble down Memory Lane. Us Olde Phogey modelers tend to do things like that.
I have scanned number of files of the AAMM Phenix and am working on posting them. I will need a bit of time to properly do this. Appears the images are oversized. Well at least I am currently using the correct format, previous in PDF.
Have:
Two sheets of photos of the Musee’s model
Sheer line
Bow drawing
Stern drawing
Quarter deck cutaway drawing
Well, unable to post. I can email anyone the above mentioned jpegs if interested. A Sirene did exist with lines approximating the Heller kit. Unless the AAMM information is spurious.
[;)] Celestino, could you please show me or send me a picture of the hulls with the AAMM stamp?
Thank you.
Michel
Michael,
I just emailed you three photos of the Phenix and Sirene with the AAMM stamping. Phenix is white hull and Sirene is black hull. The white hull is indistinct. I tried to highlight it in red, but the image is still blurry.
I sent another email with ten images. Has the Sirene, Phenix and Royal Louis hulls held from different angles.
Thank you Celestino, I’ve got them.
I ask J.C.Carbonel the same questions. J.C.Carbonel is a specialist about Heller models, he wrote a book about Heller.
Michel
Hello Michael,
How is your debate at MMA proceeding? Can you make out the AAMM stamping on the black hull? I will have an improved digital camera in a week or so and will send some more detailed photos of both hulls. I also have the scanned images from the AAMM plans indicated above. I can send those as well.
Regards,
CC
Greetings !
This kit is an interesting one that I’d like to comment on a little.
The “authentic” kit is what the association of the friends of french naval museum and Heller both named “le Phénix”. La Sirene is a pure and hideously kitsch, ugly fantasy created on the hull of Phénix by Heller.
The genesis of Phénix is found on an extremely important piece of nautical literature: the Album of Colbert. Monsieur Colbert, that undefeatigable servant of sun king Louis XIV, commissioned a treatise on shipwrightry between 1667-69. Illustrated with breathtakingly precise and detailed engravings, the album of colbert is also one of the first products of scientific revolution; for its purpose was believed to be the education of state sponsored shipwrights. It is recently reprinted by ancre publications (http://www.ancre.fr/)
In the album of colbert there is a series of engravings describing how a big warship was constructed. These engravings gave birth to that le Phénix model. This name though, is fictitious, on the album there is no name but “vaisseau percé pour 86 canons”.
Late Björn Landström in his classical work “The Ship”, calculated that this 86 gunner should be on the same dimensions with HMS Prince of same timespan. The big difference is the draught (19,5 feet compared to 22,5 feet of HMS Prince) and Landström comments that this difference comes from a tactical view: Sun king wished that his ships would be also suitable to mediterranean operations (Landström, Björn; “The Ship”, pp.166-167)
here are those engravings online (though the resolution is bad):
http://www.tourville.asso.fr/galerie/album/album.htm
Now, for the heller’s kit; as Professor said, it is one of the early experiments by that company. However, I will comment rather positively. First, the pros. It is proportionate and its scale apparently matches with that given by Landström. The decorations at the stern are very fine renditions. The individual plank detail is given on the outer sides of the ship and the wood grain detail, altough slightly overscale, is good for giving effect with drybrushing. Now the cons. The lower tier of guns are those unfortunate stub barrels, the decks are flat (though this is not a problem to me at that scale) and the rigging is unacceptably simplified (that horrendous ratline looming machine is present). Maybe a more personal view but, the beakhead rails and the figurehead look too kitsch to me, although they are true to the album of Colbert engravings. The fact that this particular vessel probably does not represent any actual warship also seems like a negative point. But overall, le Phénix by heller is a reasonably detailed yet a not too difficult to build representation of a first rate (1500 ton) SoL from late 17th century and to my personal opinion, a very good entry to the world of complex square rigged ships.