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[Pelican]

Internationales Maritimes Museum Hamburg

The sloop Oliver Cromwell was commissioned in Pennsylvania on February the 7th 1777 during the American Revolutionary War. The ship, with 24 guns, was to be active as a privateer in the West Indies. Her career as such was short but successful, capturing 7 ships. This made her noticed by the British Royal Navy that started hunting for her.
The Oliver Cromwell was sighted by the sloop of war HMS Beaver on May the 19th off of Saint Lucia, one of the Islands of Barlovento. The battle between both ships lasted under an hour and the British clearly dominated the fight despite the fact that the Beaver was less heavily armed. The Oliver Cromwell surrendered after losing 31 men. The British captured the ship and brought her to Grenada where the crew was put in prison.
The sloop was originally to be made a 6th rate 24 gun ship for the Royal Navy and renamed HMS Convert. This plan was changed by the end of that summer and she was downgraded to a 12 gun (later up to 16 guns) unrated sloop of war and renamed HMS Beaver’s Prize. She was refitted in England, at the Sheerness Dockyard. Her service as such was short and ended tragically. In October 1780 she was stationed off of Saint Lucia, which had been a French colony but was occupied by the British at that time. A mighty hurricane hit the island, destroying most of the British fleet and causing thousands of deaths among the population and crews. The Beaver’s Prize was one of the ships lost that day.
This spectacular model was built by Major P.J. Puttock in a scale of 1:48. It was was on display at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich between 1979 and 1980 - when it was purchased by our founder Prof. Peter Tamm for his private collection. It is part of our display on the ships of the Age of Sail on deck 2 of the museum.

[ivorthediver]

Clearly I missed this one ......a beautiful model ....always a great fan of detail though not always able to achieve it as my joints are not what they used to be ..