Classic Boat — March 2018

One of 11 folding engraved charts from John

Norman’s The American Pilot

of 1810; Chart of Nantucket shoals

Saleroom

SWANN

Charting independence

The American Pilot is much more than a book of charts. It’s a work of symbolic

resonance. Its first publication in 1791 marked the moment that the young nation

began to break its reliance on English charts and establish its own mapping service.

Its full title, The American Pilot: Containing the Navigation of the Sea-Coast of

North-America, made a political and commercial statement: printer John Norman

intended it to challenge and usurp The English Pilot, charting the same waters and

produced near the outset of the War of Independence in 1775. Although published in

a number of editions between 1791 and 1816, The American Pilot is one of the rarest

of all American cartographic works, with less than a dozen complete issues thought

to exist. When a complete 1810 issue with 11 charts came up in New York at Swann

Auction Galleries it was hotly contested, selling for $68,750 (£51,150).

BONHAMS

Instant cred

Bonhams’ delightfully eclectic annual

Gentleman’s Library sale has everything you

need to give the impression you come from

a long line of seafaring over-achievers who

discovered the odd continent and found

lost civilisations in between feats of

dare-devil record breaking. Here are some

of the nautical-themed offerings coming up

at the February 14 London sale.

BONHAMS

BONHAMS

SWANN AUCTION

BY DAVE SELBY

This prodigious record-breaking marine missile powered by a

monstrous 800hp 36-litre V12 engine should keep even the

most ardent speed-freaks happy.

Built in Paris in 1934 for French industrialist Emile

Picquerez, who was also a keen racing yachtsman,

Rafale V is quite simply the most powerful single-engined,

front-engined French hydroplane of them all.

Designed for both endurance and speed, the 28ft

double-stepped hydroplane competed in the ‘unlimited’

class in an age when thrilling races such as the Lyons-

Marseilles-Cannes often combined inland waters and open

sea. With a highly tuned Hispano-Suiza aero engine

mounted on a beautifully crafted double-diagonal

mahogany hull, Rafale V claimed several records, notching

up 212kph (131mph) on Lake Evian in 1938, before being

hidden in a barge on the Seine for the duration of the

Second World War.

Fully restored by her British vendor, yet retaining most

of her original fabric, she returned to Paris to sell at

Bonhams’ February 8 classic car auction where she was

expected to fetch £530,000-£710,000.

Parisian power

BONHAMS

Miss

Britain III

aluminium scale

model estimated at

£800-1,200; rare mid-18th

century pocket globe,

estimate £2,500-3,500; two

fine Austral Island hardwood

paddles, estimate £5,000-8,000