NRG Conference 2021

While the Nautical Research Guild conference was supposed to take place this Fall. It was canceled some time ago due to the unknowns of the Corona Virus outbreak. But, if things manage to improve over the next year, and let’s hope they actually do, the next NRG conference will then take place October 21 – 23, 2021.

The venue is unchanged, still set to take place at the Channel Islands Maritime Museum in Oxnard, California. No other details have been announced, but the event is more than a year away. Probably, more information will be available about this time next year.

This should give all you ship modelers some time to finish the awesome project you want to display at the event. Since the museum is one of my old haunts, we’ll before they moved anyway, and it’s just a drive down the coast from here, I expect I’ll try to have one of my models on display. Not sure which I would want to display. But, as I said, there should be plenty of time to work on one before then, so I guess I’d better get to work on something awesome.

For more information about the conference and the venue, visit the NRG website here. Ω

 

 

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Ship Model Kits Come and Go at Ages of Sail – Plus, Vanguard Models News

With so many people staying at home these days, the stocks of ship model kits at Ages of Sail, particularly the newest kits, seem to come and go faster than ever.

OcCre’s newest release is the schooler Polaris, which bears a striking resemblence to Artesania Latina’s pilot boat Swift kit, was introduced and sold out in less than a month, though I’m told that a further shipment has come in, so they may be available again at the time of this writing.

 

About the same time they started selling the Polaris, Ages of Sail started carrying the new Vanguard Models kits, and there too, the HMS Speedy kit turned out to be more popular than expected and is now out of stock at Ages of Sail.

 

HMS Flirt – Vanguard Models

But Chris Watton, who’s the one-man development machine of Vanguard Models, has been working hard at getting a brand new kit ready for release: The brig-sloop HMS Flirt.

 

If you’ve been eying Vanguard’s HMS Speedy kit, this one will look very familiar to you, as the Flirt is of the Speedy class, so it’s essentially the same ship. However, the kit differs in that it does not have a coppered hull and has slightly different rigging, making this kit about a bit shorter than HMS Speedy.

In any case, this model of the 14-gun brig-sloop sure makes for a pretty-looking ship! This kit is expected to be releasee within a couple weeks. Hopefully, Ages of Sail will grab some of these up as well as a replenishment of their stock of HMS Speedy kits. Maybe they’ll get some of the pre-sewn sail sets for those nice-looking Zulu and Fifie kits at the same time.

Personally, I don’t understand why the Scottish Sailing Zulu kits haven’t run out yet – There’s a nice looking, unique ship model kit…

 

But, kits seem to be coming in all the time over at Ages of Sail, and I understand that many of the OcCre kits are back in stock now, including the popular Polaris kit and many others. Plus, as I posted previously, Constructo’s Gjøa kit, after many years out of production, appears to be back again, which is nice to see. Ω

 

 

 

 

Constructo’s Gjøa is Back

This is a kit that I haven’t seen on the market for many years. Certainly, Ages of Sail hasn’t been carrying it for a long time now. Nice to see this classic back.

The pre-sewn sails and the tools bundle is a nice touch. At $140, it seems like a very good deal.

Ages of Sail

I just received word that we are now stocking Constructo’s Gjøa kit. If memory serves me correctly, this is a plank-on-bulkhead wooden ship model kit that has been around for decades, but hasn’t been see here at Ages of Sail for a while.

This classic kit of Roald Amundsen’s Arctic exploration ship has been updated and now includes a set of basic tools plus pre-sewn sails. This 1/64-scale kit is considered one for the Advanced Beginner. The completed model measures a little over 19″ long and 18″ high.

In the years 1903 through 1906, the Gjøa was the first ship to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage. Other ships that attempted and failed include HMS Terror of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the subject of another very popular kit we carry from OcCre Models.

After Amundsen’s arrival in San Francisco following completion of the Northwest Passage, the Gjøa was on display at…

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