Model kit description:

 

- Scale 1:200

- Complete model length 10 ¾ inches (27cm) 

- “Prisoner of War” or Sailor’s-made style, but in correct scale and proportions

- Solid full hull or waterline type (layers construction)

- Quality domestic and exotic hardwoods for hull and parts

- Strong flexible bamboo masts and carbon fiber yards

- Conveniently designed templates on card stock and sticking paper

- Smart ideas for fast and pleasant hull building and parts simulation

- Old 1816 plan and historical notes included

- Pewter cast cannons and anchors (high quality, correctly scaled)

- General assembly instructions and drawings

- Small production run

 

 

      This kit is very different from others on the market. No cheap and soft balsa or basswood, no easy to break birch dowels for masts and spars, no disappointment when you compare expensive kit you purchased with true historical materials and plans. This kit will save you tremendous time and resources on historical research, finding the best possible building materials and graphical preparations. At the same time it will stimulate your very own individual approach and skills in model creation.

       "Build from Scratch" approach means you will do your own parts and construction using included materials, templates and instructions.

       Materials included are highest grade money can buy - carefully selected hardwoods for hull construction and hard to find beautiful exotic woods for small parts: cherry for lower hull ( when naturally finished, resembling coppered bottom), maple for upper hull, boxwood for deck and hull parts, pink ivory for cannon carriages. The masts are strong and flexible bamboo and yards are even stronger and more flexible black carbon fiber, so your model can be directly handled and even played with!

       Original historical plan is included as a reference and encouragement to check with historical sources and even modify the kit to your liking, vision and understanding.

Instructions are short and clear, assuming model maker have published books, know the subject and how to use tools and glue. No rigging thread included leaving model maker to his own preferences.

       This kit is planned as the first in series. Sailing warships of the US Navy of 18-19 century will be first to come: sloops of war Wasp and Hornet (in design stage), frigates Essex, Constitution and others. British frigates and ships of the line of the Napoleonic Wars including will follow…

This kit is designed from the best plans and other resources available. Separation of hulls along waterline, scale and size of our models (not too big, not too small) will allow using them not only as attractive displays and collectables, but also for table top naval war games.

 

 

 

Historical notes:

 

Topsail schooner Lynx was built by noted shipbuilder Thomas Kemp at Fells Point, Baltimore, at the beginning of the War 1812, for owner-investors James Williams, Amos Williams and Levi Hollingsworth. She was commissioned on 14 July under the captain Elisha Taylor.

Lynx was a bit larger than the typical swift pilot boats after which Kemp modeled her.

Length on deck 94’ 7”, beam 24’, depth 10’3”, tons 223.

She carried a crew of 40 men and was armed with six long 12-pounders. Lynx was a privateer with the warrant (Letter of Marque) to take enemy merchantmen as prizes. Lynx served as a merchantman for less than a year, made one voyage to Bordeaux, France, and returned with a cargo of luxury goods. She was waiting with three other schooners to run the British blockade for a second voyage when the British captured her at the mouth of the Rappahannock River on April 13, 1813.

Lynx entered Royal navy as Mosquidobit, under Lieutenant John Murray, and joined the British fleet blockading the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay at Lynnhaven Bay (just inside the Virginia Capes). She was subsequently stationed in Nova Scotia. On March 30, 1814 she arrived in Portsmouth. From September 1815 she was under the command of James (or Joseph) Giffiths until 1817. Eventually Mosquidobit sailed to Deptford, England where her lines were taken off (surveyed and recorded) on May 10, 1816. Probably at the same time capstan was fitted on here deck and gun ports were enlarged for caronades.

 

She then sailed out of Cork on the Irish station where she served on anti-smuggling duties. On December 9, 1818 she sent into Dublin the Dutch cutter Thetis, of Flushing. Mosquidobit had encountered her off the Irish Coast and captured her after a long pursuit. On 8 December 1819, Mosquidobit received a reward from the Custom-House, Dublin, for the second largest number of smugglers taken on the coast of Ireland, in the year ending 1 Oct 1819. She was paid-off in July 1819 but then reportedly served in the Mediterranean, sailing between Toulon and Marseilles.

 

By 1820, she had been decommissioned and on January 13, 1820, a Mr. Rundle purchased her for ₤410 and placed her in private service. Nothing more is known of her.