Can anyone advise what scale this kit is? Hull length from stern to bowsprit is about 7". Is a felucca smaller than a Xebec?
There is a review at modelingmadness.com which shows the Lindberg version.
I’m no expert on Mediterranean vessels, and I can’t recall ever having seen that particular kit outside the box. I do remember that it was one of a series that Pyro brought out (I think in about the late seventies - but it might have been a little earlier) that represented various nationalistic ship types. The ones I saw were pretty hard to take seriously. They were characterized by small numbers of parts, heavy-handed detailing, and, if I remember right, injection-molded styrene sails. I seem to recall the Charles W. Morgan, the corvette Constellation, a British bomb ketch (which we’ve discussed recently in another thread), an American fishing schooner, an Arab dhow, and an Indonesian vessel of some sort. I think they sold for about $2.00 apiece originally. I don’t remember buying any of them - much less building them.
I looked up “felucca” and “xebec” in the relevant volume of the Conway’s History of the Ship series. Its discussion of Mediterranean types is pretty good, but brief. Those terms seem to have been extremely generalized, and to have referred to somewhat different vessels at different dates. It seems pretty clear, though, that a felucca was a relatively small ship. (The Conway volume cites a plan for one of them in Chapman’s Architectura Navalis Mercatoria, of 1768, as having a lenth of 42 1/2 feet.) The xebec (or chebec, or zebec) was considerably larger; the book gives examples from 1735, 1765, and 1778 with lengths of 103’ 9", 113’ 11", and 96’ 9", respectively.
I have no idea what sources - if any - Pyro used for that kit. (Pyro was never noted for being particularly interested in historical accuracy.) But if it was based on the Chapman drawing, it’s just about on 1/72 scale.
That’s about all I can offer. Maybe another Forum member is more familiar with the kit.
I took a look at the Modeling Madness review. As I suspected, the kit is pretty crude. On the other hand, the basic shape of the hull is believable. (The oars aren’t. They look like table knives. Maybe something of that nature was used in the Mediterranean during some period, but I’ve never seen an oar that looked remotely like that.) The kit pretty clearly was designed for the kids’ market.
In determining the scale, about the best suggestion I can offer is to assume that the bulwarks, from deck to top, were about four feet tall, and work from there. I question, though, whether this thing really merits the label “scale model.”
What we have here is a demonstration of a problem I’ve ranted about more than once in the forum. There aren’t many good, simple plastic sailing ship kits on the market. A felucca or a xebec would be a great subject for newcomers to the hobby. But anybody wanting to build one has the choice between (a) trying to make this little kit into a serious model, and (b) seeking out the huge (and out-of-production) Heller or Imai kit - which sell for outrageously high prices. I really wish some manufacturer would pick a ship type that doesn’t involve many parts or a lot of rigging and make a good, serious kit to represent it, at a price under $20. That’s the sort of thing that’s needed to bring the plastic sailing ship phase of the hobby back to life.