Friday, January 2, 2015

Revenge 1577

For my first post of 2015 I am happy to present my latest commission, the English third rate galleon "Revenge".

The 464 ton race-built galleon "Revenge" was constructed at the Royal Dockyard, Deptford, to a design by Matthew Baker and launched in 1577. She had a length of keel of 110 ft and a breadth of 34 ft. Revenge carried a nominal load of 43 guns follows:

2 demi-culverin
6 saker
2 "cannon of 7"
4 minion
6 demi-canton
11 light guns
12 culverin

The crew consisted of 150 sailors, 24 gunners and 76 soldiers.


Revenge was the flagship of Sir Frances Drake during the raid on Cadiz, 1587 and the Spanish Armada actions of 1588.


In 1591 under Sir Richard Grenville, Revenge was taken by the Spanish after a ferocious action in the Azores. in the words of Lord Tennyson: "Out-gunned, out-fought, and out-numbered fifty-three to one".


The model is by Zvezda, part of their new range "The Ships: Armada Invincible". It was built, painted and rigged by the Master Modeler, Julián Fenández de Sevilla of ModelJShip in a first-of-the-kind commission. We decided to follow the original Elizabethan plans of Matthew Baker as far as possible. The following image is believed to be the original design for Revenge, although this is disputed by some experts. However it is the best extant source we could find.



As usual Julián was great to work with and we discussed every detail of the commission. The scale is 1:350. 

Revenge is paired against its historic adversary the Portuguese-built galleon São Martinho (1580) in a boxed set.




Here are Julián's images of his latest creation, the Revenge.