The first HMS Ark Royal,
circa 1587,
Lindberg's box scale
HMS Ark Royal

by Lynn Dunn

In the late 1580s, one of the first-rate seafaring powers was the Spanish Empire. Due to European politics and trade wars in this era, Spain and England were bitter foes, so much that in 1587/8, Spain launched the ill-fated Spanish Armada in an attempt to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I and subjugate England with a puppet monarch answerable to Spain. However, England's great captains of the time banded together under Lord Howard of Effingham, who led the first great English fleet to a resounding victory from his flag, the first HMS Ark Royal. In one battle, Spain's power was irrevocably broken, with England and her Navy achieving first-rate power and dominance for the next 370 years. The name Ark Royal would go down in history, with no less than five vessels holding this illustrious name. Battle honours include Cadiz in 1596, Dardanelles in 1915 and the Mediterranean in 1940/41.

The box has an artist's impression of Admiral Howard in dress uniform, together with the Ark Royal herself, all sails bellowing. The painting is nicely detailed, from the figurehead at the bowsprit, the colourful designs on her flanks, to her square transom stern. Even the rigging seems to be accurate, with a recommendation in the instructions to use this painting as a rigging guide.

On opening the box, you get two bags of parts, one moulded white (the masts and billowing sails) and the other moulded brown (the hull and other parts), as well as a small bobbin of thread for rigging (although it is supposed to be black, the thread is actually dark red). The hull bag contains two sprues; the first has the detailed two-part full hull (non-uniform planks are clearly visible, as is the grain of the wood and the nails), the name plaque, and six halves of the mast crows-nests (the ship being a 4-master with only the aft mast not having any crows-nest, the other having two each). The main hull parts have many moulded details, including lanterns, lower gun-port covers, and a well-defined rudder. The second fret in this bag has the main decking (one piece bar the foredeck), 14 cannons (two forward, six port and six starboard on deck), miscellaneous small parts, the transom, various deck verticals and the rear halves of the archery towers. Again, all of these parts are highly detailed, e.g. the ship's boat is moulded inside and out. The other bag again has two sprues; the first holds the four masts together with flags having moulded detailing, six side-shrouds, and two flying jibs. The second holds four smaller shrouds, the square foresail, two topsails and two main sails. All have rigging detail moulded in. All sails have tiny holes at their corners for attaching the thread rigging.

The instructions are in five languages (English, Spanish, German, French and Japanese), and are broken into five major steps, each with sub-steps. The diagrams for the assemblies leave a lot to be desired; only a numbering system is in use, and can be quite confusing as to which number means what, and the printing of the ship and parts are in a heavy black outline. Also, directional arrows are very confusing, crossing in a number of places. Some sections of the instructions are extremely difficult to work out where the relevant part fits; hopefully this will be clearer in assembly. In fact, the sections on the mast, shroud and sail assembly would be extremely confusing to someone who has not done sailing ships before. A comparison to another sailing ship's instructions just emphasizes how confusing these are; those for the Heller model of the Gorch-Foch are extremely clear and simple to follow.

Painting instructions are poor as well. Only a general colour description is given for the seven paints required, with no paint manufacturers numbers being given, e.g. Military Brown. As mentioned above, the painting numbers are mixed up with sub-assembly numbers and part numbers, and without good box-art the painting would be almost impossible to do. There are no decals at all; flags have their details pre-moulded into them. To detail fully, a large amount of dry-brushing will be required.

Summary

First impressions are that this is an exiting model of an interesting subject. However, the artist who did the box-art must have used historic references as opposed to a finished model, as there are several discrepancies. As this art needs to be used for some location identification, and almost all the painting guide, this is a major disadvantage. This kit will be good in a collection of sailing ships, but unlike those kits such as the Cutty Sark or HMS Victory cannot be taken as being accurate. Overall, this kit is unfortunately not worth paying full-price for, but if you can find it at discount and are willing to spend more time than usual deciphering the instructions, add it to your collection.

I purchased my sample at Beatties, Kingston upon Thames where the price was £4.99, down from £9.99