Model of HMS Beagle - Scratch built model

This is a scratch built detailed scale model using the plank-on-frame (teak wood) technique. The sails are made of cotton with very detailed rigging, the latter being to exceptionally high quality.

The model is supplied fully assembled and box packing is included in the price.

HMS Beagle was originally launched as one of 115 Cherokee-class 10-gun brigs built by the Royal Navy between 1807 and 1830 and used in a variety of roles including surveying and antislavery patrols.

By the time of her first voyage Beagle had been converted to a bark rig. Her first major voyage was from May 1826 to October 1830 with HMS Adventure, to chart the straits and passages of the southern tip of South America; it was during this voyage that the Beagle Channel, skirting the southern edge of Tierra del Fuego, was explored and named. Under the stress of arduous conditions in the waters around Tierra del Fuego, Captain Pringle Stokes killed himself in August 1828. Short of provisions and with many of the crew ill, Beagle returned to Buenos Aires where Lieutenant Robert FitzRoy took command for the homeward voyage.

Six months after her return, Beagle was off to Australia under the command of Captain John Lord Stokes, a veteran of the FitzRoy-Darwin voyage. After surveying the western coast between the Swan River (Perth) and Fitzroy River (named for his former commander), she sailed around to the southeast corner of the continent. There, Beagle conducted surveys along both shores of the Bass Strait, and then in May of 1839 sailed northabout to the shores of the Arafura Sea opposite Timor.

Her crew named a number of geographical features, including Port Darwin (for their former shipmate) and the Flinders River, after the indomitable surveyor of HMS Investigator. In honoring his predecessor, Stokes reflected that "monuments may crumble, but a name endures as long as the world."

Her work in Australia was done, and Beagle returned to England in 1843, after 18 years' of hard service to her nation and the world. Transferred out of the Royal Navy in 1845, Beagle ended her days as the Preventive Service's stationary Beagle Watch Vessel (renamed W.V.7 in 1863) moored at Pagelsham Pool on the coast of Essex. She was sold and probably broken up in 1870.

Handcrafted, scratch built and ready-made. Absolutely nothing to do, except to remove from its box!

Small size: Length 80 cm, height 54 cm, width 24 cm.

Large size: Length 107cms, height 73cms, width 33cms.