Saleroom
By Dave Selby
SOTHEBY’S/CHRISTIE’S
Victory model tops £600K Nelson scored another victory, this time in the saleroom, when a full-hull model of HMS Victory sold for £630,000, the second highest price ever SOTHEBY’S
paid for a ship model at auction. The 56in-long (142cm) model (top right) constructed during Victory’s “large repair” between 1800 and 1803, during which Britain was briefly at peace with France, is the only known model of Admiral Nelson’s flagship from this period and bears witness to the very short period when Victory was in her prime Trafalgar state. The Victory of today is substantially different. Key 1800-1803 updates shown on the 1:48 scale model include the new smaller carved figurehead of two cherubs supporting a royal standard. The open stern galleries were also closed in and glazed, with restrained painted decoration in place of the earlier, highly ornate, gilded carving. Victory was also painted in yellow and black “bumblebee livery,” though the gun ports were later painted black at Nelson’s request, to create his bespoke chequerboard effect, which emphasised the ship’s firepower. However, as relations with France rapidly deteriorated, Nelson’s flagship was rushed back into commission without the poop railing and solid bulwarks
CHRISTIE’S
shown in the model. When a patched-up Victory finally limped into Chatham two and a half years after the 1805 battle she was shot through, her bow and galleries shattered, with only remnants of masts and yards. The subsequent major refit resulted in the round bow and flat stern we know today. The all-time auction record still belongs to an exquisite Admiralty Board model of a fith-rater, sold by Christie’s in 2003 for £663,750.
Top: Model of HMS Victory in her pre-battle prime Above: Early-1700s Admiralty Board model of a fifth-rater
RM SOTHEBY’S
The Shape of fins to come By the mid-1950s the Chevrolet Corvette had broken the mould as the world’s first fibreglass volume production car and American “land MECUM AUCTIONS
RM SOTHEBY’S
yachts” were sprouting jet-age tail fins. Cue the 1955 Chris-Craft Cobra, as the world’s largest mahogany boatbuilder made its first foray into fibreglass. Produced for one year only in 1955, the flamboyant Cobra with an outrageous fibreglass gold fin and engine cowl was a big mission statement, with its matching gold upholstery in its three-abreast cockpit. The hull, however, was still planked in mahogany in the traditional way. Just 56 of the 21ft (6.4m) Cobras were produced, and 52 of the 18ft (5.5m) models, such as this six-cylinder example being offered at no reserve at Marshall, East Texas on 22-24 September in an auction that also includes vintage outboard motors. As an indication of value, the first production 18ft Cobra sold for $79,200 in 2020. The Cobra was indeed the shape of things to come as by 1971 Chris-Craft had migrated entirely to fibreglass production.
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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022
Sectioned 1956 Starling Jet Troller is among 30 outboards all being offered at no reserve in a massive private museum sale in Fountain City, Wisconsin USA on September 14-17 (mecum.com)
MECUM AUCTIONS
Jet outboard didn’t fly Propulsion Research Inc’s 1956 advertising claim to have produced “America’s first production line jet-propelled outboard” turned out to be somewhat spurious, but nevertheless their Starling P-500 Jet Troller was among the first of its kind. Marketed to fishermen wanting to navigate in weedy shallows and safety-minded swimmers, the 5hp single-cylinder trolling outboard dispensed with a propeller and replaced it with an enclosed turbine to provide “super hydro thrust.” It failed to create much of a stir and the company gave up its sales thrust a few years later.
