Just this morning, someone mentioned something about a large ship model kit that was being produced in California. But, it wasn’t just large, it was huge – An 8′ long R/C model of HMS Surprise (Patrick O’Brien fans take note). So, I did some poking around on the Internet and found the company.
The company is called Steel, Chapman & Hutchinson Ltd, and it appears that they produce what they refer to as complete kits that include everything needed to build and sail them including servos and fittings and a launching cart. You just need a 4 channel transmitter and receiver. These are very large 1:24-scale (1/2″ = 1) models of sailing ships. They have three different models, the HMS Surprise, a Cruiser-class Brig, and the American privateer Prince de Neufchâtel. When rigged, the smallest of these is about 7′ long and 6′ high, and prices start at $2,875 plus shipping.
Now the bad news…
Now that I’ve discovered these kits, I read further through the company’s website, and it turns out that they’re stopping production. I don’t know the details. As of their last website update, which was in the Summer 2014, they had 7 HMS Surprise kits and 4 each of the HMS Cruiser and Prince de Neufchâtels. I’ll be contacting them shortly to find out what’s left. Not that I can buy one before they sell out, but just to know.
Of course, this may just provide some of us with enough inspiration to build a monster sailing model from scratch…
Ship Modeler 