Our local customer Jacob Cohn shared these photos with us of his latest laser-cut card model of the American-built, Baltimore clipper Berbice. The exact date of her construction is unknown, but she was built as a merchant ship, and purchased into the British Royal Navy in 1780 in the West Indies. She was officially commissioned into naval service in July of 1781 as HMS Berbice.

Jacob acquired the kit in June of this year, and has gotten this far in only a couple months, and the results of his work are beautiful! He’s posted his build in a build log on ModelShipWorld.com, under his screen name of SaltyDog here. The model itself is one of the 1/72-scale laser-cut card models produced by the Polish company Shipyard, known for their paper models of sailing ships, as well as their lighthouses and harbor structures.

As with several other subjects, Shipyard makes the Berbice in the 1/72-scale laser-cut card version that Jacob is building now, as well as a 1/96-scale paper model version that includes a simple quay port diorama.

Jacob is now just getting to the stage of adding cannons, masting, and rigging. We look forward to seeing more progress on the model. Will it have sails? That’s for the builder to decide when the time comes.

If you’re interested in building one of the Berbice kits or other Shipyard kit, you can find them at Ages of Sail here.