What's wrong with Artesania Latina Constellation?

[Antti]

Hello all,

A few years ago I bought a Constellation kit from AL, started building the hull and found out there's something wrong with the historical accuracy of the kit and lost interest in the build. Now I dug up the contraption and wonder if should continue with it anyway. So my question is, what actually is wrong with the kit; what changes would it require for the model to be realistic, are the changes even possible or should I just build the kit as it is and be happy with it?

[Jaager]

There were two sailing ships in the US Navy with name Constellation.  The first was a 36 gun frigate 1797.  The second was a 24 gun corvette 1855.   One was part of the first generation  of seriously sized warships built by the US Navy.  The second was the last pure sail warship built by the Navy.  The corvette still exists.  It is in Baltimore MD.  The city obtained it and use it as an attraction.  For budgetary reasons, the Navy pretended that the frigate was "repaired" into the corvette.  It was not.  The corvette was an entirely new vessel.  Baltimore thought that pretending that it had a vessel from 1797 would make it into a better attraction and tried to turn corvette into the frigate.  The corvette was 10 feet longer.  It  had one deck with guns.  It had an elliptical stern. When the corvette was turned over to Baltimore, it had undergone several repairs and "improvements" to match whatever the prevailing fashion was in each instance.  I would not be surprised if there was a spar deck for a while.  The definition of "frigate" means that there is more than one deck with guns, even if it was just two additional  guns on the quarter deck.  The frigate had a flat stern.  Now the frigate lived a long life, especially for something government built, built of wood, floating in salt water, and having been shot at.  In the run up to the War of 1812, the Navy - a new generation from 1797, modernized the fleet.  Check the thread here on the (mainly stern windows it seems) and which ship had how many and when it had them. 

 

Baltimore produced a hideous chimera when they tried to turn a much altered 1855 corvette into a 1797 frigate.  I think they have tried to undo that recently, but I have no first hand information.  The kit has and elliptical stern and a quarterdeck and a foredeck.  It is just plain awful.  Mark Taylor tried to make it into the 1855 corvette.  H did a good job of it - see his gallery posting - but I suspect that he would not do it again.  You can build it as presented and have a grotesque mismash.  You can follow Mark's example and essentially scratch build the corvette using the basic hull.  You can mostly scratch build the frigate by shortening the hull ad building a flat stern.   The sane course would be to store the kit on a obscure shelf and forget that you ever bought it and begin a top quality kit of a ship that really was.

[Jack12477]

Or you can do as I am doing and ignore the historical inaccuracies and everyone's opinion on it and build it as shown on the box art and have a nice looking model, because 99.99999 % of the people who come to your house and see the model can't tell you what a frigate, corvette or dingy is and will just comment "Oh that's a beautiful model ! How long did it take you to build it ?"

 

My kit was a birthday gift from a friend about a decade ago. It's a hobby, so enjoy the kit ! You're not building it for a museum or hysterical (sic) society; you're building it for yourself.  It is still a nice looking (fictional maybe) model of an old warship under sail.

[Bob Cleek]

Jaager's explanation is as accurate and succinct a treatment of the issue as I've ever read. I agree wholeheartedly! What he's described is an excellent example some of the problems which are often encountered with model kits designed in that era. (Modernly designed high quality kits are better by orders of magnitude.)

 

Jack's perspective has its adherents. It simply depends upon how you feel about how you spend your modeling time. He is enjoying building his model and is happy investing his time and efforts in producing that which promises to be a very nice model that will please the eyes of its beholders and display his efforts and skill in its building, regardless of its lack historical accuracy. If "a nice looking (fictional maybe) model of an old warship under sail" works for you, Jack's your man.

 

My own instinct was to suggest relying on the somewhat extensive available research to accurately bash the AL kit to model the 1855 corvette. That would result in a model which tells an historically accurate and very interesting story which will remain relevant into the future, which demonstrates your own modeling skill, and will be a thing of intrinsic beauty in itself. However, Jaager's relating Mark Taylor's experience doing just that leads me to reach somewhat the same conclusion as Jaager: I'd sell the kit on eBay for whatever you can get for it and apply the proceeds to buying a high quality historically accurate modern kit. With an equally enjoyable investment of effort and time you'll end up with something which will be capable of communicating much more than a stock build of the AL Constellation kit can. 

 

I don't know how old your are or how much modeling you've done, but most of us who do it long enough and get old enough come to realize at some point that we've only got time left to build a limited number of models. That leads us to focus on spending what time we have left building the best models we can, not only in terms of technical building skill, but also in terms of historical accuracy. It really boils down to whether one wishes to leave behind a large collection of built kits that are destined for the landfill in a generation or two at most or what we hope will be a very few very well done works of historical research and modeling artistry that might... just might... survive to serve some useful purpose for longer than that.

[mtaylor]

Antti, 

What the others have posted is correct.   I'll tell a bit of a story.. I visited the ship back in the mid-70's and only knew what they at the ship told me.  It was much later when I started building the model that things and research started falling into place.  So, I bashed the kit.  It's looks more complicated than it is... just changing things and me being me... went overboard and did the full gundeck.   Didn't have to.. but I did it anyway.   There is one other model that I'm aware of this ship.  Look for Jerry Todd's build in the scratch area.  It's RC and he's done his homework and was a great source of info.

 

There is a PDF that I"m attaching which pretty much explains the problem.  https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Portals/103/Documents/NSWC_Carderock/fouled_anchors-1.pdf

Basically, the plans for the original that remained were "modified" to the what the ship is now.  A lot of skulduggery occurred by the team in Baltimore and they probably should have punished if for nothing else than destroying official documents.  

 

As for the kit, AL walked into this before Fouled Anchors was published and bought into that it was the original frigate and made their kit.

 

My recommendation.... you can look at my log (see in my links) which much of disappeared after the Great Crash of MSW (only photos were recovered and are the first page or so the log) or just build the kit from the instructions.   You'll still have a nice model.  

 

No matter what you decide, have fun and enjoy the build. 

[Antti]

Thank you guys for the info and encouragement!

 

Jaager,

Thank you for your explanation, I already forgot the thing on a obscure self for a few years and probably should do so again. 

Jack, 
I know you are right, no-one entering my house will probably have the knowledge or even the interest to question the ships authenticity so I'm very tempted to do as you did.

Bob, 
I am very new to modelling but at age 39 I assume and hope I have a few decades left tinkering with these things. I don't (yet) feel the need to prioritize my time too much.

 

Mark,

Thanks for the material you provided.

The matter is not urgent as I'm currently occupied with other projects so I'll make up my mind later.
Maybe I'll try converting it as 1855 corvette. Maybe I just assemble the kit as it is intended. Maybe I'll buy another kit, I don't know yet.

[Roger Pellett]

If the kit manufacturer spent even a slight bit of time doing research before they offered the kit for sale, they would have realized that the “restored” vessel in Baltimore Harbor was an historic fraud.   Noted American maritime historian and naval architect Howard I. Chapelle had been writing about the impossibility of the ship in Baltimore Harbor being the same vessel as the frigate launched in 1797 since 1946.  His books discussing this have been readily available.  Finally, the US Navy published “Fouled Anchors” and convinced the Baltimore City father’s to restore her back to her 1953 appearance.

 

Roger

[toms10]

Antti,

I have an AL Constellation kit build log here on MSW. It was my first build and introduction into a hobby that always intrigued me. I picked it up for a $100 and thought it was a modest investment to try this hobby. Not knowing how bad the design of the kit was I dove in. After 13 months I thought I had a pretty good looking model for my first attempt. After all, my own contentment is all that really matters in the end.
 

Truthfully, now that I am on my 2nd build, a scratch of the Leopard, I am very much less impressed with the Constellation only because I know it is a mishmash of boats. I guess all the research required for scratch building has placed a greater importance on accuracy for me.

 

To Jack’s point above, there is nothing wrong with just enjoying a build. After all isn’t that why we are in this hobby?  I do feel that the more experienced we become the more we appreciate the historical accuracy blended in with the fun of the build. Would I recommend the AL Constellation kit?  No, not unless you build it to learn techniques and then give it away as your appreciation for it will probably fade quickly as you grow in this hobby. 
 

Just my opinion and experiences. 😁

 

Tom

[thibaultron]

The AL kit is actually a very good represenation of how the ship looked in Baltimore before the 80s, when they corrected it to the 1855 original setup. So AL can not be fully blamed, they designed it as it actually existed then.

[JerryTodd]

On 1/3/2021 at 11:09 PM, thibaultron said:

So AL can not be fully blamed, they designed it as it actually existed then.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

On 1/3/2021 at 8:38 PM, Roger Pellett said:

If the kit manufacturer spent even a slight bit of time doing research before they offered the kit for sale, they would have realized that the “restored” vessel in Baltimore Harbor was an historic fraud.   Noted American maritime historian and naval architect Howard I. Chapelle had been writing about the impossibility of the ship in Baltimore Harbor being the same vessel as the frigate launched in 1797 since 1946.  His books discussing this have been readily available.  Finally, the US Navy published “Fouled Anchors” and convinced the Baltimore City father’s to restore her back to her 1953 appearance.

 

Roger

  Per a Colonial period Naval Historian, John F. Millar,  the original Constellation was in sad shape in the early 1850's and from a military standpoint it was not worth refitting ('restoring' ?, not that this term was in use then) ... BUT they wanted to build new ships.  Congress was stingy at that time, so the Navy requested money to refurbish the Constellation.  That funding proposal got through, so what the Navy did was tear apart (scrap, really) the Constellation and salvage some fittings - then build a new ship using some of the fittings from the original warship to technically 'refit' the original.  Yes, indeed, what floats in Baltimore harbor bearing the name Constellation is a Civil War era warship.

[Dziadeczek]

I have a question for our more knowledgeable members. What's the difference between a corvette and a sloop-of-war?
(I have a couple of old magazine articles, where they name the "Constellation" in Baltimore, as a sloop-of-war.)

As far as I know, these are two different names (classes) of ships for the same thing and they are used interchangeably.

I might be wrong on it, though.

 

Edited September 23, 2022 by Dziadeczek

[Jaager]

4 hours ago, Dziadeczek said:

What's the difference between a corvette and a sloop-of-war?

Based on my reading,  The USN at the time had 3 classes for Sloop-of-War.  From a functional aspect, the only important difference was in senior officer pay,  place on the promotion list, and who was junior and who had the final say.  Mostly a distinction with no significant difference.

 

I think corvette may have some minor technical differentiation in the French navy and perhaps the RN, I am not sure.  But mostly, I think it is because corvette is easier to type and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd class nonsense can be avoided.  The "-" business is just silly.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Jaager

[JerryTodd]

The folks that got hold of the ship in Baltimore didn't start the rumor that it was the original frigate, modified; but they certainly ran with it; to the point of tampering with documents in the National Archives, forging some, and probably stealing some (there's several listed that can't be found such as her spar deck plan).
Confronted by Chapelle, they seemed to be in a constant panic to come up with a story of the frigate becoming the sloop. 
In 1977, when I worked on the city's skipjack Minnie V, I was in the Constellation's shadow daily, and got to crawl around in her any time I wanted.  I went to the central library and read The Constellation Question a few times.  One day a tall thin fellow came to the boat asking for the skipper.  When I told him he was away, he started asking me about Minnie's construction and then when he figured I was well enough versed, he asked if I knew about Constellation.  I was aware of the debate.  What did I think of it - I said the frame spacing was different between the two ships, and was consistent through this ship with the plan of the later, 1854, ship.  That even if a section was added to lengthen her, that would not require changing the frame spacing in the entire ship for no apparent reason.  What about the original material found in the ship?  Eve was made from Adam's rib, that didn't make her Adam.

There were a couple more thrusts by this guy wanting to have a technical argument with a kid (I'd just turned 17 at this time), that the kid parried which flustered the guy to the point that he just snorted something rude and stomped off.  The Minnie's skipper came back, having run into the man on the way and gotten an earful about that insolent kid he had for a deckhand.  He asked if I knew who the guy was; apparently it was Leon Polland.

So, since a few bits of wood, in their minds, made the existing ship the original, I submit that since I have pieces of original live oak as the mast steps in my model of Constellation, that my ship too is the original frigate, altered to a sloop, and finally altered to a 5 foot model.

   

Edited September 23, 2022 by JerryTodd

[mtaylor]

Isn't that all it takes to say the ship is "original"?  A couple pieces of wood and you're set.  

 

I do remember one the guys I was with asking what's all that stuff in the hold and being told just "junk we're using for ballast".  As I recall... turned out be not junk but parts they removed to turn her into "original".