This is my most recently completed sailing ship model (I built it a couple of months ago), the Revell (ex-Zvezda) Hansa Cog, in about 1/55 scale.
I haven’t posted on here in a long while but thought you might like to see it - I haven’t seen any built-up photos of the Cog kit on the web, and as one of the few “new” sailing ship kits it deserves a bit of publicity! This is the recent Revell Germany reissue of the “Hansa Cog” kit, and is identical to the original Zvezda kit other than the much more reasonable price - RRP is £29.99 and I got mine online for about £25 including postage.
For those who don’t know about this kit, it is a representation of a 13th/14th century mediaeval merchant ship from the Baltic region. It is apparently based on the ship depicted on the civic seal of the German city of Elbing. The scale is described as 1/72 on the box, but is actually in the region of 1/55 scale - both in measurements and the size of the fittings, ladders, planks etc. This makes for quite a sizeable and impressive model with plenty of detail. The hull is a bit under a foot and a half long, and doesn’t look very big in the box, but the completed model is quite sizeable.
I built my kit almost completely “out of the box” - including the moulded plastic sail; whilst this is a bit chunky in appearance, the model looks very bare without a sail, and I couldn’t face making my own from fabric or paper! It doesn’t look too bad IMHO with some drybrushing to give the appearance of wear + texture. I’ve placed a few barrels (cast resin model railway accessories) on the deck as cargo, and will add some bags + sacks to these later.
One thing the kit could really do with is a few crew figures, to add life and a sense of scale to the model. It’s a great shame Zvezda didn’t include any. The scale of 1/55 is close to the wargaming scale of 28mm, so it’s possible I might be able to find some suitable crew figures from a wargames supplier?
I had very few problems with building the kit, my main issue is with the hull, which is split at the waterline to allow the model to be used either in a sea base/diorama or for wargaming. The fit of the lower hull to the upper is rather poor and required a lot of filler; even after this the join is rather rough, and concealed only by the tarred, weathered paint of the hull bottom! Some of the smaller parts are also rather fragile; especially the deadeyes and the “spokes” of the capstan. I also highly recommend replacing the plastic eyebolts with metal ones, as I did.
The model is painted mostly with Revell acrylic paints - Leather Brown for the hull, Dark Earth for the mast and some other components, Earth Brown drybrushed with Stone Grey for the deck, and Tar Black for the lower hull and metal fittings (anchors, cleats, etc.). The “castles” are painted with Carmine Red, Sea Green and Light Grey. I used a lot of drybrushing (with craft acrylic paint), highlighting and oil washes, both to represent weathering and to highlight the moulded wood grain + planking and give a general appearance of texture and realism.
Rigging is also according to the instructions - I don’t know how accurate it is! - though I used my own thread rather than the rather fray-prone cotton included in the kit. This is only my second attempt at fully rigging a ship model, with all the blocks + deadeyes. Painting and drybrushing the blocks beforehand, then re-drilling the holes so that the thread would fit, took almost as long as rigging! The one mistake I made was to not connect the winch to the sails; I only discovered this after I’d fitted the winch in place and added the aft castle/poop deck, making the winch very hard to reach.
I’d highly recommend the Hansa Cog kit as a “first sailing ship kit” if the subject matter appeals. It’s a relatively small and simple vessel, with minimal rigging, in a large and manageable scale, and the kit, though not perfect, is a recent production with good fit, minimal cleanup required and plenty of detail - and the kit is readily available in shops (at least in Europe) at a reasonable price!