San Felipe

Description

1690 San Felipe

This beautiful is beautiful San Felipe Spanish battleship with 100% handbuilt at museum level. First, our master craftsmen handcraft this nicely detailed model from scratch using historical photographs, drawings, and original plan. We selected finest woods and material to build this model. Also, we use plank-on-frame construction method which is similar to the building of the actual ship. Finally, the model requires hundreds of hours to finish and must go through a demanding quality control process before leaving the workshop.

The magnificent San Felipe precisely mounted on a unique wood inlay base with many gold-plated fittings on the ship. She has three decks and three rows of ferocious cannons on each side.  Her there large masts are connected securely using advanced rigging and lines painstakingly knotted and fastened by hand. Also metal anchors and a wooden rudder are visible on the fore to aft of the ship. On the ship, there are many hand-carved sculpture details and ornaments from gold-plated metal. Furthermore you can see super intricate stern, quarter galleries, and bowsprit; complex rigging with hundreds of blocks and deadeyes, authentic scale lifeboats, metal cannons, cannon balls on quarterdeck and poop-deck. Finally, we hand-painted multi-layered paint to match the color of the real ship as well.

History

Built in 1690, San Felipe soon proved to be Spain’s most powerful fighting ship ever. Her slim profile and wide spread of sail bestowed great maneuverability and agility. She established herself very quickly as her impressive record in the first 4 years of service made her the flagship of the famous Spanish Armanda. Under the command of Commodore Enrique MacDonnell, San Felipe became armed vessel to take on the mightiest ships in the French and British navies.

San Felipe held a very active major role in the war against Britain and France. In 1705, after 15 years of unparallel services, she led 11 other Spanish vessels to attack a British fleet of 35 ships. The British recognized San Felipe and concentrated firepower on her. After 24 hours of furious battle, British captured her with many badly damaged. Later on, she went to the bottom with several tons of gold. The battle was considered a victory for Spain as 9 British and only 4 Spanish ships were lost. San Felipe, herself sunk 2 ships-of-the-line and 1 frigate. This record still stands as of today.