Saleroom
By Dave Selby
Royal yacht Portsmouth II was scrapped after 129 years of service, yet this rare Georgian dockyard model
CHARLES MILLER LTD
(estimated at £8,000-12,000) survives thanks to an Admiralty order requiring models to be made of every vessel built.
CHARLES MILLER LTD
Sailor king’s favourite mistress Though Charles II, the sailor king, is generally credited with inventing
53-footer with 17ft beam was provided with half a dozen two
yachting, it wasn’t the only sport he was interested in. In rather less
pounders – guns, not burgers – and carried a crew of 14.
woke times there was barely a murmur when in 1674 he named his
In the century that followed, the royal pleasure fleet proliferated, but
new royal yacht Portsmouth after his favourite mistress of the time,
eventually in 1832 the aging Portsmouth, by then renamed Old
the Duchess of Portsmouth.
Portsmouth, fell foul of government cost-cutting, just as Britannia did
Years earlier his passion – for yachts, that is – had first been sparked
when she was decommissioned in 1997. However, Old Portsmouth suffered a worse fate, for when radical politician Joseph Hume
of many royal yachts, the Mary, and in the following year he took part
questioned “the extravagant waste of public money in keeping afloat no
in the first organised regatta, when he won a 40-mile race on the
fewer than five royal yachts” much of the small squadron of royal yachts
Thames against the Duke of York, who apparently did not protest the
was scrapped. This was all the more the pity as Old Portsmouth’s
outcome – another yachting first. With the sport of kings established,
timbers were still sound.
Portsmouth II, pictured, joined the royal fleet in 1703. The 66-ton,
Next Charles Miller Ltd sale: 2 November, 2021
ELDRED’S
MECUM
in 1660 when the City of Amsterdam gave him what would be the first
MECUM
Wet Vette There’s a pleasing symmetry to the fact that the sports automobile named after a fast and nimble fighting vessel should one day be realised as a boat – or at least there should be. In 1953 as glassfibre was just beginning to make inroads
ELDRED’S, USA
28
into boatbuilding, the Chevrolet Corvette became the
Big bucks boy toys
world’s first mainstream glassfibre sportscar. The
American Horace Edward Boucher produced mechanical toys that were just
Californian company Malibu Boats paid tribute with a
as coveted by youngsters in the USA as those of Bassett Lowke and Hornby
Corvette-inspired ski boat, that must surely be the
in the UK. And today, HE Boucher MFG Co toys produced from 1905 to 1943
only speedboat with brake lights! Produced in
are just as highly prized by collectors. This live steam hydroplane (top),
collaboration with General Motors, this 1997 C4
which made $1,187, is a masterpiece of scale engineering with its propeller
Malibu Corvette ski-boat is powered by a monster
driven through a miniature outboard engine. The motorised cabin cruiser
400hp 6.3-liter V8, with an arm-wrenching top speed
below proved even more desirable at $2,750.
of 57mph. One of just 150 produced, it sold for a
Next Eldred’s Marine Sale: August 19-20, 2021
bargain $25,300.
CLASSIC BOAT JULY 2021
plastic fantastic endures to this day, and in the 1990s
