RM SOTHEBY’S
36 CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2016
Saleroom
DAVE SELBYThese very different expressions on a theme have more and less in
common than you might think, for just as European car and boat
builders aimed for the US market, so too did the Americans’ attempt
to satisfy ‘continental’ tastes.
It was Carlo Riva’s experience as a Chris-Craft agent that
prompted him to create ever more glamorous speed boats with
American influences: US-style car-like steering wheels; American V8
power; glittering instrument-strewn dashboards; two-tone upholstery
schemes; and ever more chrome garnish. He called one model
Florida, but stopped short of adding fins.
Meanwhile, Americans attempted to evoke European glamour
with cars named Monaco, Biarritz, Royale and Continental. And
that’s what this is...not a Lincoln Continental but a 21ft (6.4m), 1961
Chris-Craft Continental. The difference is that while Rivas of the
1950s onwards became a byword for international jet-set glamour,
the ‘continental’ styling cues of American cars were, well, totally
American.
The ultimate evolution of the classic Riva is the Aquarama
Special, with 278 built (see p75). Lealena, a recently restored 1974
example with twin 350hp V8s, came under the hammer in its
spiritual home of Monaco, making €448,000 (£354,000) at RM
Sotheby’s May classic car auction.
By contrast this Chris-Craft Continental – yes, with Lincoln
Continental 275hp V8s – is far rarer, one of 96 built with only 12
known survivors. Despite that, and its $100,000 restoration, the
fabulous finned fantasy period piece with Riva-themed turquoise and
white upholstery and glassfibre canopy – aptly named Over the Top- failed to meet $100,000-plus expectations, attracting a top bid of
$70,000 (£49,000). Perhaps a Riva Florida would have gone down
better at Auction America’s auction in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Riva Chris-Craft
crossover
BONHAMS NEW YORK
CHARLES MILLER LTDMillionaires’ arms race
The full-size versions of these two yachts, both commissioned
by clients who’d just inherited huge fortunes, give a glimpse into
a millionaire’s ‘arms race’ on water that endured until The Wall
Street crash of 1929.
When financier JP Morgan’s father died in 1890 he
commissioned the 241ft (73.5m) Corsair while commodore of
the New York Yacht Club, only to sell her for $225,000 in 1898 to
the US Navy, who converted her to a patrol gun-boat. She was
sold out of service in 1919 and later destroyed in a hurricane.
Had she survived she would have been dwarfed by the 296ft
(90.2m) GL Watson-designed Nahlin, commissioned in 1928 by
widowed Lady Henrietta Yule who’d just inherited a fortune
estimated at £20 million and wanted a yacht to enable her to
“visit every part of the globe she desired”. On completion in
1930 it was rumoured Nahlin had cost £250,000.
Wanderlust soon sated, she put Nahlin out to charter, where
she gained some notoriety when Edward VIII hired her to cruise
the Med with American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Discrete? Not!
She was bought by the King of Romania in 1937 for £120,000
and today she is owned by vacuum cleaner industrialist James
Dyson. A reputed £25 million refit in 2010 saw her steam
turbines replaced with diesel, and now she is one of just three
surviving large steam yachts from this age of extravagant
excess.RM SOTHEBY’SC/0 BONHAMS NEW YORKC/0 CHARLES MILLER LTDAbove: Model of
JP Morgan’s Corsair
sold for £2,625 at
Bonhams, New York
Left and below:
Nahlin model fetched
£4,800 at Charles
Miller Ltd, London