I have a greater fascination of the actual working ships of the Great War rather than the ones that get all the limelight (Dreadnaughts, Battlecruisers, Aircraft Carriers ect) and unfortunately it's these that get the all the attention of kit manufacturers, not the patrol boats, sub hunters, cargo haulers ect. I have wanted for a while to build a sail ship, mainly because these actually outnumbered the non rigged ships at the outbreak of the war. Chances are that if you served at sea in 1914-15 you would more likely be onboard one of the thousands of requisitioned vessels (cargo sail ships, yachts, fishing smacks, sail barges ect) or an older Victorian age vessel kept in service. These ships did most of the donkey work not to mention the fighting. Most Q ships were sailing vessels until 1917. The ships of the line, Britain's pride, behaved like the male lions of the pride looking after their turf while the lionesses did all the hunting. I had resigned myself to thinking I would eventually have to scratch build a rigged warship and had a Medina class gunboat in mind as it was unlikely a kit of a serving sailing vessel in 1/144 scale would come up. Then I saw the 1970's Airfix RRS Discovery kit come up on eBay and got it. Not exactly what I was looking out for but it does the job of providing a proper sail ship that actually served in WW1.
Built in 1901 the icebreaker RRS Discovery was built in Dundee for the first Shackleton and Scott Antarctic expedition. There, RRS Discovery spent 2 years stuck in the ice, the ship was their home, shelter, everything. Her hull, two foot thick in some places, kept her from being crushed by the ice. She returned to Britain after being freed from the ice in 1904. She was sold to the Hudson Bay Company in 1905 and carried supplies from Britain to Canada and furs on the return journey. During the Great War RRS Discovery carried goods across the Atlantic to France for the war effort also making trips from France to Arkhangelsk Russia. In 1916 she was borrowed by the government to rescue Shackleton and his team marooned on Elefant Island. By the time she made it to Montevideo the crew received news that Shackleton had managed to rescue himself and his team in one of the most epic stories of survival and endurance of all time. RRS Discovery continued to be a cargo vessel until the end of the Great War and after she sent supplies to the Whites in the Russian Civil War. In 1923, after an extensive refit, she belonged to the British Government again and undertook scientific work until 1931. The next significant owner was the Boy Scouts Association. She served the scouts as a static training ship until she was too expensive to maintain and in 1954 was transferred to the Royal Navy. Finally in 1979 the Maritime Trust took her in, saving her from the breakers yard. RRS Discovery now rests in Dundee, her birthplace, as a museum ship.
The kit is exactly what you would expect from a 1970's Airfix release with raised detail rather than recessed, clunky rather than intricate casting and hideous black plastic. On the positive side the parts all fit well, there is almost no flash or push marks and minimal seams. As the hull is black I may get away with the raised planking detail. I will try and hide the raised detail on the deck by filling the recesses with thinned paint. I think much of the deck will not be seen anyway because it will be sail rigged as per the box art. I will try and use the vacuform kit sails but at the least I will use them as templates for scratch ones. Also I will try to avoid the temptation of super detailing it because if I get AMS this build will go on for years. I will therefore try to do it close to OOB and that includes using the dreaded raised detail rather than scribing lines all over it.
