Building The Armed Virginia Sloop Paper Model – Part 1

The Armed Virginia Sloop is a rather popular subject that seems to have begun with a book written by Dr. Clayton Feldman for the scratch building of an Armed Virginia Sloop of 1768 that was published by Phoenix Books back in 1991. Up until then, I knew the type of ship as a Bermuda Sloop. But, sometime after Dr. Feldman’s work was published, Model Shipways released a kit of an Armed Virginia Sloop, then Bob Hunt’s Lauck Street Shipyard company had their model too. So now, there’s a kit available in paper from the relatively new Polish paper model company, Seahorse.

This it a 1/100 scale paper model kit, and at this scale, it makes for a pretty small model – only about 15.4″ long, including the very long bowsprit. The kit is very inexpensive. But, to make construction easier, the company also makes accessories for it, including a sail set, laser-cut parts set, and cannon carriage set (laser-cut).

Shipyard’s Santa Leocadia paper model Re-Release

\Recently, Shipyard, the line of ship model kits from Poland, announced the re-release of their 1/96-scale paper model kit of the Spanish frigate Santa Leocadia, 1777. The ship is a fifth-rate 34-gun warship that was built at the Ferrol shipyards.

Image from Shipyard’s website.

The completed model is 27.5″ long and 21.2″ high, and the re-release almost coincides with the release of their new detail sets that includes one for the Santa Leocadia kit (See my earlier post).

Image from Shipyard’s website.

The kit is not yet available through their US distributor Ages of Sail, but it can still be purchased directly from their online shop, along with the detail set, and various other accessory sets, which include a sails set, masting set, and blocks set (blocks, hearts, and deadeyes).