johnsmachines

The 74 gun ship was the most prolific design of a “ship of the line” made by Britain and France in the sailing era 1750-1820. Each of those navies made about 200 and other European naval powers made their own versions.

I am currently making from scratch a model of HMS Bellerophon, which was one of the British designs of 74’s, the Arrogant class to be specific. I am using the excellent plans supplied by Vanguard/Amati for their kit build of HMS Vanguard/Bellerophon/Elephant. The end user chooses which actual ship to build. The original ships were almost identical, except for the names, stern decorations, figureheads and armaments. (Elephant included a number of carronades.)

I chose to make my HMS Bellerophon model after seeing a superb example of HMS Vanguard which was made by a friend.

You will notice the marvellous detail in the stern decorations of his Vanguard. To see further photos of his Vanguard go to “Ships of Scale” website and do a search for Vanguard Models Chestcutter.

Well, this friend offered me the left over decorations from his Vanguard kit of Bellerophon and Elephant, which he of course had not used. An offer which I gratefully accepted.

My friend had even painted the figurehead of Bellerophon, as practice before painting his Vanguard figurehead. The Bellerophon stern decoration is cast metal, and the Elephant stern is 3D resin printed. The detail in both is very fine, perhaps a little better defined for Elephant. The originals would have been carved in wood.

Now I have a dilemma. I had decided to make Bellerophon because of its illustrious history, including the surrender of Napoleon Bonaparte. But the ancient Greek warrior hero Bellerophon, holding up the severed head of the monster Chimera, is of dubious taste to this vegetarian. And the elephant figurehead is rather wonderful. And to complicate matters, SWMBO has voted in favour of Bellerophon. I will probably stick with Bellerophon, but still pondering.