Ship Modelers Database
Image: CC BY-SA 4.0 · commons.wikimedia.org
Golden Hind
Replica · St Mary Overie Dock in London
The Golden Hind (originally named Pelican) was the galleon captained by Sir Francis Drake during his 1577-1580 circumnavigation of the globe, the first such voyage completed by an English commander. She was renamed Golden Hind mid-voyage, reportedly to honor a patron whose family crest featured a golden deer.
Kits of this ship
+ Add a kit| Golden Hind (12003) | OcCre | 1:85 | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available | |
| Golden Hind (MV30) | Mamoli | 1:53 | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available | |
No image | Golden Hind (No. 480) | Billing Boats | — | — | Discontinued |
No image | Golden Hind | Dusek | 1:72 | Plank-on-Frame | — |
| Golden Hind (80829 / 56829) | Heller | 1:96 (1/8 in=1 ft) | Injection-Molded Plastic | Available | |
| Golden Hind | Woody Joe | 1:50 | — | Available | |
| Golden Hind Galleon | Metal Earth | — | Metal | Available | |
No image | Golden Hind (MM64) | Mamoli | — | Solid Hull | Available |
| Golden Hind (A09258V / A50046) | Airfix | 1:72 | Injection-Molded Plastic | Available | |
No image | Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hind (H-324 / H-345) | Revell | 1:96 (1/8 in=1 ft) | Injection-Molded Plastic | Discontinued |
Plans
No plan sets listed for this ship yet. Know of museum, archive or publisher drawings? Add them so the next builder can find them.
Links go to the publisher's or museum's own page. Ship Modelers Database lists plan sets; it doesn't host or display the drawings.
Build logs
+ Link a build logNo build logs linked yet.
Resources
+ Submit a resourceHistory & specifications
- Wikipedia: Golden HindWebsite
Overview of the original 1577 galleon, its circumnavigation voyage, renaming, and eventual fate at Deptford.
- Wikipedia: Golden Hinde (1973 replica)Website
Details on the Appledore-built replica's construction, dimensions, armament layout, and sailing history including its own circumnavigation.
Photos
- Wikimedia Commons: Golden Hind (ship, 1973) categoryPhoto
Collection of free-to-use photographs of the London replica at St Mary Overie Dock, useful for visual reference.
- Wikimedia Commons: Golden Hind replica.jpgPhoto
CC BY-SA 4.0 licensed photograph of the Golden Hinde replica moored on the Thames, used as the reference image.
History
Service history
Drake used the Golden Hind primarily as a privateering vessel, raiding Spanish shipping and settlements along the Pacific coast of the Americas before continuing west across the Pacific and Indian Oceans to complete the circumnavigation. On her return, Queen Elizabeth I knighted Drake aboard the ship and ordered it preserved as a public attraction at Deptford, where it eventually rotted away and was broken up by the late 17th century.
Notable facts
No original plans survive, so modern replicas (including the 1973 Appledore-built vessel now moored at St Mary Overie Dock in London, and a separate static replica at Brixham, Devon) were reconstructed using period shipbuilding treatises such as Matthew Baker's "Proportiones for shippinge." The Golden Hinde was recorded on the UK Replica List as an operational hypothesis in 2012 and added to the National Register of Historic Vessels in 2024. The London replica sailed extensively, including its own circumnavigation and multiple Atlantic crossings, before being permanently berthed in 1996 as a Living History Museum ship.