Corel's double-plank-on-frame kit uses laser cut wooden components. Ready-to-use hardwood fittings consist of blocks, deadeyes, ladders and gratings. Eyebolts, rods, wire and hundreds of miniature nails are genuine brass. Other metal detail parts include belaying pins, anchors, cleats, capstan and rudder hinges. The guns on board real frigate are reproduced in fine burnished metal. Scale rigging line, silk-screened flags and cotton sail material are also included. Nine sheets of expertly drawn plans and illustrated instruction manual make for reliable building assistants.
On July 23, 1812 two hundred American shipwrights, under the direction of Adam and Noah Brown, laid the keel for a 20-gun brig Eagle. The new brig was launched on August 11, just 19 days later.
The vessel measured 117 feet, 3 inches in length and 34 feet in the beam. Armament consisted of twelve 32-pounder carronades and eight 18-pounder long guns. The crew numbered about 150.
The new brig joined the U.S. squadron just as British military and naval forces in Canada began a major offensive into the Champlain Valley.
On August 31 the U.S. Navy squadron withdrew from the Canadian border to Plattsburgh and prepared a series of spring lines that enabled them to turn their broadsides to face attack from any direction. There, the American warships awaited the appearance of the British.
On the morning of September 11, 1814, the Royal Navy squadron on Lake Champlain (consisting of the 36-gun frigate Confiance, the 16-gun brig Linnet, two armed sloops and thirteen gunboats) entered the bay and attacked the anchored American ships. After a bloody battle lasting 2-1/2 hours, the British surrendered. This disastrous defeat at Plattsburgh influenced the British Government to sign a peace treaty with the United States on Christmas Eve of that year.
The battered American ships and their equally battered prizes were taken to the southernmost port on Lake Champlain, Whitehall, New York, and laid up. When the war ended they were stripped of guns, rigging, and equipment, their decks were housed over to protect them from the elements, and the ships were anchored in a line below town. Rot quickly spread through the green-timbered ships, and in 1820 they were towed into the nearby Poultney River and allowed to sink.
