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hms surprise model ship
32" long x 12" Wide x 28" High

































32in long model @ £369-00








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TS0061W

27.5 in long model @ £329-00




























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Hms surprise

32" long x 12" Wide x 28" High
Requires over 350 hours to build from scratch (not from a model kit)
by a master artisan

Plank on bulkhead construction (a painstaking process where
each individual plank is added to the hull one at a time).

Built with rare, high quality woods such as light ebony,
rosewood and blackwood.

The model rests perfectly on a large, polished  base
between four arched  dolphins.

Masterfully stitched canvas sails.
No plastic parts (metal anchors and machine turned brass cannons.
Significant detail.

To build this ship, extensive research was done using various sources
such as museums, drawings, copies of original plans

HISTORY

made famous by the film
master & commmander

five ships of this class were built.
Two were captured by the British, L'Unité and La Tourterelle. The records from this
period of French history are sparse and provide no information on her actions
before she was taken. the Surprise ex L'Unité, famous in her own life for the
Hermione exploit, but famous today because of the writing of Patrick O'Brian.

In his books on the adventures of Captain Aubrey and the surgeon Maturin, it is the
fictional Surprise, based on this real ship, that comes to life as the Captain's favorite
ship.
Here is the history of the original:

constructed in Le Havre as L'Unité in 1794
a 24 gun corvette, armed with 8lb long guns.
She was captured in the Mediterranean
April 1796 by the British frigate Inconstant
and taken in as Surprise .
Her lines were taken off and she was re-armed and classed
as a 28 gun ship. The Surprise actually carried 24 32lb carronades on her main
deck, 8 32lb carronades on her quarter deck and 4 6lb long guns on her foredeck.
It was difficult to rate her and she was regarded as a fifth rate till 1798 and then
re-classed as a sixth rate.  

She sailed to Jamaica in July 1796 under the command of Captain Edward
Hamilton. The big moment in her lifetime was the  cutting out of the frigate Hermione
on
the 24th of October 1799.
The Hermione crew had mutinied, killing their commander, Captain Pigot, and their
officers. The ship was then surrendered to the Spanish who were allied with the
French. She was in the harbor at Puerto Cabello (in what is now Venezuela),
defended by shore batteries mounting about 200 guns. The boats of the Surprise,
led in person by Captain Hamilton, were detected and fired upon by the patrolling
gunboats, but they proceeded, boarded the Hermione, whose crew were at
quarters, cleared the deck and sailed her out. Their losses were 12 wounded; the
Spanish suffered a loss of 119 killed and 97 wounded. Captain Hamilton was
knighted for his conduct and the Hermione was restored to the navy.

The Surprise sailed back to England where she was sold at Deptford in February of
1802.
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A slightly smaller
but well detailed model
of this famous vessel