Saleroom
By Dave Selby
BONHAMS
NATIONAL HISTORIC SHIPS
A 104cm-long (41in) model shows Esperance in her prime, and (left) as she is today at Windermere Jetty Museum
BONHAMS
Arthur Ransome’s Windermere ice-breaker The rather extreme and strangely shaped
taxi for industrialist HW Schneider. Built of
immortality as the house boat of Captain Flint
Esperance is not only a Guinness world record
the highest grade iron with countersunk
in Arthur Ransome’s 1930 Swallows and
holder as the first ever twin-screw steam
riveting to provide a smooth finish to the hull,
Amazons children’s novel.
yacht; the 19.8m loa (65ft) vessel with a beam
Esperance also featured a peculiarly shaped
of a mere 3.1m (10ft) is also the oldest
bow designed to break ice on the lake.
surviving boat on Lloyd’s Yacht Register. Built in 1869, Esperance resides today at
After operating for more than 50 years as
Salvaged after sinking in 1941, Esperance is now on the National Historic Ships register. A 1:20 scale model crafted in 2007 by renowned
a pleasure boat and ferry, Esperance’s engines
model maker Keith Townsend was expected
the Windermere Jetty Museum on the lake
were removed when she became a houseboat
to fetch £3,000-5,000 at Bonhams’ 25
where she began her life as a luxury water
in the 1920s and gained another kind of
October marine sale.
ELDRED’S
Whale oil WD40 In the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, whale oil was not just used for lighting but was the WD40 of its day, to be found in virtually every home, office and factory in RM SOTHEBY’S
the industrialised world. As spelled out on this box of whale oil refined in New Bedford, Massachusetts the wonder product was used for “lubricating, cleaning, polishing and preventing rust” on
Flight of fin-tasy If George L Herter were alive today he would
registers, to horses’ hooves, flutes,
with period Johnson 35hp outboard probably
furniture, golf clubs, scissors, sewing
accounted for less than a fifth of that
machines, surgical instruments, telephones
Bear in mind Herter also produced a “sonic
claim beyond a doubt that the person who
bullet,” which he claimed increased in
paid $61,600 for a 1960 Plymouth Fury with a
velocity after it left the rifle. A true American
colour-matched Herter’s speed boat hitched
odd-ball, unfettered by fact, and a grandiose
to it paid all that money for the boat and got
self-publicist who refused to be
a worthless car thrown in for free.
photographed, he was also a prolific self-
Herter, who ran a US outdoor goods mail-
30
everything from bicycles and cash
Plymouth Fury made $61,600 combined. The boat
unopened bottles in original box are unlikely ever to be sampled, not least because they sold for $8,125, a costly and cautionary memento of bygone times.
publisher of survival and how-to books,
order company, made claims as outlandish as
including a cookery tome in which he claimed
his boats. In his catalogue he described his
“The Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ, was very
bizarre, finned glassfibre boat as “actually a
fond of spinach” and had cooked a spinach
composite of the two fastest boats in the
recipe on that first Christmas eve. Most were
world… The forward part uses the proven design
co-written with his wife, but for some reason
principles of Slo-Mo-Shun, North America’s
his 1969 relationship guide, How to Live With
fastest boat and safest high-speed boat. The
a Bitch, was a solo effort: today it’s a
rear of the hull uses the design principles of
collector’s item among enthusiasts of the
the English Bluebird boat, the fastest and
misogyny genre. The claims he made for his
safest European fast boat.” Yeah, right.
boats were no less fin-tastic.
CLASSIC BOAT DECEMBER 2022
and much more. Like rare whisky, these 12
ELDRED’S
RM SOTHEBY’S
Above: The 1957 Herter’s Eldorado Rocket and 1960
