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Privateer Prince de Neufchatel

We are doing an in-house online silent auction. Details about ship below. We will start accepting bids Tuesday June 4th 10AM with the opening bid of $250 with the minimum incriminates being $50. Feel free to bid more! The highest bid of the day will be posted on our website at 2PM. That bid will open our next day of bidding. We will continue to accept bids daily from 10AM-2PM Tuesday-Saturday. The closing date of the auction will be Tuesday, June 18th at 2PM. PLEASE NOTE SUNDAYS AND MONDAYS ARE NOT BIDDING DAYS AS WE ARE CLOSED. Bids will be posted in the order in which they are received. We will post the closing bid on a daily basis on our website. The ship will be local PICK UP ONLY. If you would like to bid, you can email us at elihopshop@gmail.com. Thank you for your support and interest! Click on the link below for the email address. Please make email subject as "ship auction". Include your name, contact number and bid amount in the email. Thank you!​​​​​​​​

SOLD

Rigged Model, Privateer Prince de Neufchatel

The privateer schooner Prince de Neufchatel was built by Adam and Noah Brown at New York in 1813. It measured 117 feet long and 320 tons. With a recorded speed of 13½ knots and a crew of 129 men, and armed with 18 cannon, it was one of the swiftest and most successful privateers of the War of 1812.

The Prince was initially owned by Mme. Flory Charreton, a French widow who moved to New York and became an American citizen sometime before 1812. It was sailed to France under Capt. J. Ordronaux and fitted out as an armed privateer at Cherbourg. In March 1814, it captured nine British prize vessels in the English Channel.

In June 1814, the Prince took six more prizes in just six days. That summer, the Prince evaded no fewer than 17 British warships that chased and tried to capture the swift American privateer. In October 1814, it survived a battle off New England with a much larger British frigate. Two months later, a squadron of three British frigates finally captured the Prince and promptly sailed it back to London to have shipwrights copy the lines of the speedy vessel at Deptford Dockyard. The Royal Navy planned to purchase the American vessel, but it was badly damaged coming out of the dry dock and sold as a wreck.

The original October 1814 articles of agreement that accompany this model list it as a brig, which is a two-masted vessel with both masts rigged with square sails. However, ship captains had the authority to rig their vessels as they pleased, and this model portrays the Prince as a hermaphrodite brig. This was a rare and short-lived rig from the early 19th century, and modern scholars disagree on its exact layout. The foremast is rigged with square sails, and the main sail on the mainmast is fore-and-aft rigged, but the upper sails on the mainmast can be rigged differently.

The lines of the Prince de Neufchatel were redrawn by the Smithsonian’s Howard I. Chapelle from the original line drawings by the British Admiralty. They are available from the ship plans collection at the National Museum of American History

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A SAILING MODEL

The bowsprit and masts plug in. The masts have a rake, or lean. Small hooks hold most things together. The jibs are hooked to the mast with an adjustment line hooked to the base of the foremast as well. The mainsail has a similar adjustment. most sails are also hooked to the deck. The ratlines are hooked to the masts. They are a bit tight. The sails, stained in tea, may be ironed.

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