Dom Fernando II e Gloria

[Shar2]

Dom Fernando ii e Gloria

1/200

History

This frigate was built in 1843 in Damão, India, and made of precious woods. Carrying 60 guns its garrison was composed by 145 to 379 men, although it had carried over 600 people when colons were transported across continents. During 33 years it connected Portugal and the Portuguese territories in India, and executed missions in the Mozambique coast, playing also an important role in the Ambriz Battles in Angola where it was the Admiral-Ship. It traveled a total of over 100.000 nautical miles which is the equivalent to 5 world circum-navigations! In 1889, the “D. Fernando II e Glória” suffered major changes to serve the Naval Artillery School, and in 1945 it began a new era in its life by hosting poor boys that received their school Instruction along with navy training. In 1963 a fire almost destroyed it while participating in an exhibition.

After 30 years run aground in the Tagus River after a violent fire that almost destroyed it completely, in 1992 the “D. Fernando II e Glória” was recovered to be presented in the Lisbon World Exhibition of 1998. Nowadays it can be visited in Cacilhas, a small village in front of Lisbon across the Tagus River.

The Model

Although released by Revell, this is in fact a re-pop of Occidentals kit of the same name. It has also been released by Zvezda under the French Archeron moniker.

The model comes in a large open top box, (unusual for Revell), and on opening, the kit only takes up about half the space inside. Filling the bottom of the box though, is the large sheet of vacform sails.

The kit itself is moulded in two colours. The hull halves are in white, whilst the rest of the kit is in a buff coloured styrene. Apart from the separate hull pieces there are four sprues of parts. These are nicely moulded with no flash, only a fair few slightly annoying moulding pips.

The hull parts are really quite detailed, with the individual copper sheets represented with their mounting nail heads. The gun ports are integrally moulded in the open position, apart from a couple at the bow, which is ok, but it would have been nice to have the option of closing a few more of them.

The first sprue mounts the gun deck, (which, on the review sample has come away from the sprue), ships boats, anchors, bowsprit, capstain and various components for the masts and deckhouses. There are also the 50 cannon, which make up the ships armament. The wood detail on the ships boats is nicely imitated, as is their clinker construction. The stern piece of the ships hull has the windows moulded in, but there is no glass represented. Nothing a thin piece of clear plasticard can’t fix. Dry fitting this part onto the stern of the hull shows an excellent fit with little or no filling being required.

The next sprue contains most of the mast components and the main deck. The deck has the stair wells moulded in situ, so will be quite tricky to paint effectively. The planking is well executed, in that the butt joints are not equally spaced across the deck. The vertical masts are built up in sections with landings between each section. There are a few sink holes that will need filling on the centre points of each spar, but these are the only real flaws I can see.

All the ships ratlines are contained on the third sprue. Being injection moulded they appear well done on one side, but a little flat on the other. I would have preferred these in the vinyl material that other manufacturers use in their siling ship kits, but with a bit of careful painting these can be made to look a lot better. The ratlines are integrally moulded to their chain plates and some include the balustrade onto which they are attached.

The final sprue has more chain plates, another ships boat and various decks hardware, such as the boat davits, (again a little flat) and boat supports. The kit is completed with a simple stand and a nameplate board.

As mentioned above, the sails are on a large vacform sheet. My only disappointment is that there isn’t an option to have the sails furled unless some scratch building is carried out. So it’s full sail or nothing.

Finally Revell have been good enough to provide all the cordage required to rig the completed vessel. There are two colours; black and beige depending on what type of ropes are being represented. Then there is a single piece of white rope for use with the anchors.

Conclusion

This is a nice kit in a decent scale. Although an unusual subject, it should be able to add extra detail using pictures of the real thing which are available on the internet, since it is still extant in Lisbon. The fit is pretty good and would make a nice introduction to modelling sailing ships. Apart from the lack of options for either closing the gunports or having reduced sail I can recommend this kit to all modellers, no matter what their experience levels are

Review sample courtesy of