Ship Modelers Database
Image: Public domain (PD-old, faithful reproduction of an 18th-century Admiralty draught; via National Maritime Museum, Greenwich / Wikimedia Commons) · commons.wikimedia.org
HMS Bounty
Destroyed — burned by the mutineers at Pitcairn Island on 23 January 1790; wreck remains lie in Bounty Bay, with some recovered relics (anchor, rudder, ballast iron) displayed in museums including the Fiji Museum and the Pitcairn Islands Museum.
HMS Bounty (originally the collier Bethia) was a small Royal Navy vessel purchased in 1787 to transport breadfruit saplings from Tahiti to the British West Indies as a cheap food source for enslaved plantation workers. She is remembered chiefly for the 1789 mutiny led by Fletcher Christian against Lieutenant William Bligh, one of the most famous incidents in naval history.
Kits of this ship
+ Add a kit| Bounty | OcCre | 1:45 | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available | |
| Bounty Boat | OcCre | 1:24 (1/2 in=1 ft) | Plank-on-Frame | Available | |
| Bounty | Billing Boats | 1:50 | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available | |
No image | HMS Bounty | Constructo | 1:50 | Plank-on-Bulkhead | — |
No image | HMS Bounty | Caldercraft | 1:64 (3/16 in=1 ft, S) | Plank-on-Bulkhead | — |
No image | H.M.S. Bounty | Amati | 1:60 | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available |
| HMS Bounty (Merchant Vessel) | Artesania Latina | 1:48 (1/4 in=1 ft, O) | Plank-on-Frame | Available | |
No image | HMS Bounty | Constructo | 1:85 | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available |
| H.M.S. Bounty | Revell | 1:110 | Injection-Molded Plastic | Discontinued | |
| H.M.S. Bounty (1:100) | Mamoli | 1:100 | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available | |
No image | HMS Bounty – 18th Century British Frigate | Mamoli | — | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available |
| HMS Bounty's Jolly Boat (New / 2023 renewed edition) | Artesania Latina | 1:25 | Plank-on-Frame | Available | |
No image | HMS Bounty – Armed Transport 1787 (1:100) | Mamoli | — | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available |
No image | HMS Bounty – 1st Step Model Boat Kit | Amati | 1:135 | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available |
No image | HMS Bounty – Armed Transport 1787 | Mantua | — | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Available |
| HMAV Bounty | Caldercraft / Jotika | 1:64 (3/16 in=1 ft, S) | Plank-on-Bulkhead | Discontinued | |
| HMS Bounty Launch | Model Shipways | 1:16 | Plank-on-Frame | Available |
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.
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Build logs
+ Link a build logNo build logs linked yet.
Resources
+ Submit a resourceHistory & specifications
- USNI Proceedings: HMS Bounty (Aug. 1964)Article
Detailed period dimensions and armament figures, plus comparison to the 1960 film replica, useful for accurate scaling.
- Wikipedia: HMS BountyWebsite
Main overview article with infobox dimensions, armament, and service history summary.
- Wikipedia: Mutiny on the BountyWebsite
Detailed account of the vessel's technical rating as a cutter and the events of the 1789 mutiny.
Photos
- Wikimedia Commons: Category HMAV Bounty (1784)Photo
Collection of period Admiralty sheer draught plans (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich) and contemporary artwork useful as build references.
History
Service history
HMS Bounty was a small merchant vessel that the Royal Navy purchased in 1787 for a botanical mission, sent to the South Pacific under William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the British West Indies, a mission never completed owing to the 1789 mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian. The mutineers later burned Bounty while she was moored at Pitcairn Island in the Southern Pacific Ocean in 1790. An American adventurer helped land several remains of Bounty in 1957.
Notable facts
For scale modelers, the ship's small size and heavy conversion for the breadfruit mission (her great cabin was gutted and fitted with pots for hundreds of saplings) make her an unusual subject compared to typical warships of the era. Several later "HMS Bounty" replicas were built for film, most notably a 1960 vessel constructed in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia for the 1962 MGM film, which was roughly 25% larger than the original and was ultimately lost off North Carolina during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 — modelers should take care not to confuse plans or photos of that replica with the original 18th-century ship.