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Specifications:
Scale: 1:48
Length: 27” x Height: 27” x Width: 5”
Plank-on-Bulkhead Contruction
Launching Way Included. Display Base not Included.
The Kit
The Model Shipways plans for Phantom were originally prepared in 1960 by George F. Campbell, a noted British marine artist, au-thor, naval architect, and historian. George Campbell was a member of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects. One of his most note-worthy publications is China Tea Clippers. He also developed the drawings for the Cutty Sark restoration in England, developed the Model Shipways kit of Rattlesnake, and authored Model Shipways’ model handbook, Neophyte Shipmodeler's Jackstay.
The Phantom kit’s plans are based on hull lines provided by Howard I. Chapelle, taken from a builder’s half-model in the Smithson-ian Institution’s National Museum of American History. Deck details and rigging are based on photo information from the Peabody Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.
The kit was originally offered as a 1:96 scale solid-hull model and was redesigned as a 1:48 scale plank-on-bulkhead model in 2024 by noted modeler Jarod Matwiy of Winnipeg, Canada. The larger, redesigned kit offers more detail and more advanced construction techniques yet remains true to the research upon which original design was based.
History
The Phantom and her sister vessel Pet were built in 1868-69 at the Lawlor yard in East Boston, Massachusetts and purchased by the Portsmouth, NH port pilots association. Dennison J. Lawlor designed them, as is evident from his “trademarks”: plumb stem, sharp entry, abrupt bilges amidship, very easy run, and drag of keel. These characteristics persist over his long period of successful design-ing. They had a reputation of being very fast.
Phantom was later sold to the Sandy Hook pilots and operated out of the port of New York for several years. On March 14, 1886, Phantom was the first to aid the sinking British liner S. S. Oregon off the coast of Long Island. Her crew oversaw the orderly rescue of 852 people, 400 of whom were aboard when she returned to port. At the time, she was listed as New York Pilot Boat No. 11, dis-playing those numerals on her main sail. She was lost in the Great Blizzard of March 1888. The boat keeper, cook, and four seamen went down with the ship
