Whatever happened to Billings' Mary Rose?

[Stevinne]

When I was a kid I built Pyro's Henry Grace A Deiu and Santa Caterina carracks. I loved the odd, old-fashioned shape, even as I was puzzled by the Santa Caterina's battery of what appeared to be swivel guns.

I'm just starting David Childs' "The Warship Mary Rose: The Life & Times of King Henry VIII’s Flagship" and would eventually like to build her. But I want a ship that looks like the carracks I built when I was young, not the Caldercraft version.

I thought that a couple of years ago Billings announced it was putting out a Mary Rose kit based on Geoff Hunt's research (which looks a lot like the carracks I love), but I have never seen anything else on it. Does anyone know if they are moving forward with this project, shelved it, or if I was just dreaming?

I know Maris Stella has a nice carrack kit, but a Mary Rose and a good Kearsage are two ships I'd really like to build.

[Jean-Pierre]

I agree with your choice.  Caldercraft would certainly be well inspired to change their Mary Rose according to the last findings: I suppose this would require added superstructures both fore and aft, and also a revised beak.  What would also be a big (but expensive) modification, would be to correct the gunnery in accordance to what is on display in the Mary Rose museum at Portsmouth.  Now I wonder if the original Mary Rose kit could not fairly easily be modified as required.  Have you considered this, or would this be beyond feasability?

 

 

JP