Boat Building (5 results)

extracts from an unknown journal, comprising printed sheets detailing vessels launched from the smaller British shipyards and boatyards in 1955, 56, 58. 69. 60, 61, 62. [Please see our storefront page for shipping information] useful reference work for small vessels, yachts, fishing boats, etc. built in the 1950's and early 60's.

Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 236 pages. 8.27x5.83x0.79 inches. In Stock.

Oblong 4to. xi, [1], 207, [3] pp. With 100s of photo illustrations, some colour, diagrams, blueprints, many sepia-tinted. Blue boards, colour photo mounted on front cover, gilt lettering on front cover & spine (very slight rubbing), NF copy, w/ 2 colour photos of PT Boat placards built by Huckins laid-in, numbered on 2nd flyleaf. First edition, No. 1496 of 3000, of this lavishly illustrated history of the noted yacht builder which emerged from the P.S. Huckins lumber company founded in Bangor, ME. The company was founded by Frank Huckins in 1928, when he together with Harold I. Perrin and Henry Skinner Baldwin established the yacht company to build the "Fairform Flyer." The company survived the Great Depression, built a total of 18 PT boats during World War II, including PT-102 commanded by John F. Kennedy while serving as an instructor at the PT Squadrons Training Center in Melville, RI. The company continues to build custom yachts after nearly 80 years, emphasizes modern materials to increase strength and maximize fuel efficiency, as well as beautiful hulls.

Folio (21.5 cm wide x 31.5 cm high). 242 pages of an alphabetized Ledger of which 48 pages are full of manuscript-entries and numerous other pages have been used to tip-in letters which Roberts received from clients. With numerous further letters, postcards loosely inserted. Original Hardcover. Binding in rough but still firm condition with stronger signs of external wear. Fantastic example of a Day-to-Day Order-Book of an irish Traditional Boat Builder, active in the war-years of 1939 and 1940. Captain R.E. Roberts Boat-building Business, being a direct relative of R.R.Roberts ("The Sirius"), is a great example of traditional succession in irish craftsmanship. The Day-book gives us insight into the wishes of clients, pricing, quotes and reason of orders and how on the one hand irish Traditional Boat-Building was revered abroad and also greatly supported and sought after by the local irish population. Roberts' Boat-Building-company also had contracts from overseas and the correspondence reflects the hard times and imminent outbreak of war, which plays a role in the worries of Robert's clients and must have had an enormous impact on his company. Client W.R.ffrench Mullen speaks in a letter from April 15th, 1939 of the fear of not being able to come and meet his boatbuilder: "I am (unless Europe boils up before in the next forty-eight hours) coming over on about a fortnights leave, leaving London Saturday next." In another letter from May 2nd, 1939, ffrench Mullen hopes "the boat is progressing well" and that the company of D.O'Brien Corkery & Co. can deliver it in their lorry to Kenmare. Roberts notes about this client in his day-book an important message to one of his builders: "My client says he knows nothing about sailing - would you suggest that the area of Sails be in the Small Side for Safety - the boat is for use on the Kenmare River". Roberts notes about another client, Mrs. Howell of Fountaintown, who ordered a 11ft boat for children on Sunday 4-9-38 for Easter 1939 - Quoted 22 per ft = £12 / Roberts notes about "Miss Hill from Monkstown (daughter of Lt.Hill Architect) ordered 7-1-39 Centre Board Boat, Spirit Sail (brown), oars, rudder, Name on transome "YOLDASH", varnished top sides painted underneath - agreed price £16 - To be ready for Easter Holidays - Took Boat away 7-4-39 - pleased". / More details on other orders below. Further interesting orders of Boats, correspondence and details in manuscript-drafts about his clients by Roberts include: 1. Correspondence from P.O'Keefe, Ardnagreine, Bantry, County Cork to Captain R.E. Roberts, "Simla", Passage West, County Cork - [P.O'Keefe was Managing Director of G.W.Biggs & Co. Ltd. - Corn Millers, Merchants and Manufacturers in Bantry, County Cork] The O'Keefe correspondence includes three letters (two MLS (Manuscript Letter signed) and one typed letter) between the 25th of January, 1939 and the 31st of March, 1939. Roberts notes his draft-answer on one of the letters regarding an inquiry by O'Keefe for Roberts' 8-foot Dinghy. The drafts in the Day-book are of particular interest because Roberts gets into detail in his answering letter from January 30th, 1939: "I note you are thinking of getting a punt specially built - to fit upside down on Cabin with moveable thurant to allow for Skylight - I appreciate your difficulty regarding obtaining height of boom until Mast is stepped - would it not be possible to get this from the mark of deck on Mast from the wedges or Canvas Collar to gooseneck. Since seeing you I have got three orders for centre board Sailing Boats - two for this harbour & one for Sneem ." 2. Postcard - Order from J.Kelleher, Ringabella, Carrigaline: "Have measured the boat mentioned to you about a week ago & find it is 10 ft. long. The same will do now I expect to get a good serviceable boat. Please let me know when ready. I would like to get it soon but if you can't procure the best of timber at once, I will wait until then - J.Kelleher" (c.1939). 3. Lette.

An extremely rare survival, a dealer's deluxe showroom catalogue for Chris-Craft motor boats covering the complete range - from their highly popular mahogany Runabouts to cabin and stateroom cruisers. The accompanying promotional sales letters explain that these volumes were costly to produce, and, as stock changed, additional images would be sent to replace those to be struck from the catalogue. With the additional supplied images, this is as complete an exemplar as could be wished for. The album opens with a sequence of photographs of the famed Miss Detroit hydroplane series - Miss Chicago, Miss Detroit II, Miss Minneapolis, Miss Toronto II, Baby Reliance II & III, Packard Chris-Craft II - and others designed and built by Chris Smith, designer/racer Garfield Arthur "Gar" Wood - the first man to travel at over 100 mph on water - and Jack Beebe, chief mechanic who drove Miss Detroit to the 1915 American Power Boat Association Gold Cup. These hydroplanes went on to gather speed records and trophies around the world when, following World War I, Christ Smith invested in service surplus aircraft engines as power plant for his svelte mahogany speedboats. Other images offer a tour of the Chris-Craft factory for which Smith adopted some of Henry Ford's assembly line production methods, introducing standardised parts, special shapers, and conveyor lines moving the craft from one end of the factory to the other as the double-planked mahogany hulls were assembled, sanded, and varnished. Fuelled by the extravagances of the Jazz Age, demand from the Prohibition rumrunners, and a growing interest in sport boating, the company expanded quickly through the 1920s. By the time this dealer catalogue was produced, Chris-Craft was offering 16 models ranging from the 22-foot Cadet runabout to a 38-foot motor yacht, and featuring the first appearance of a cabin cruiser in the company line. The 38-foot Commuter was the first yacht to introduce a flying bridge, roll-down windows, and even a rack for wine glasses. Other images include a group of 26-foot Chris-Craft built as tenders for the yachts of some of the leading figures of the day - Commodore Robert Law's Robador, Henry Ford's Sialia, Pierpont Morgan's Corsair, E.C. Benedict's Oneida, and Vincent Astor's Winchester - and Chris-Craft Cadets on the Detroit and St Clair Rivers and the coastal waters of Florida and Connecticut, one showing a runabout racing past the Battleship Iowa. An excellent sequence of eight shows the Chris-Craft display at the 1928 New York Boat Show, a crammed central trophy cabinet bearing the heading "Awarded Supremacy 1927"; an easel to one side is covered with photographs similar to those gathered here. A similar easel features in an interior shot of the company's New York showroom. The album retains 76 of the original 88 images listed on the supplied index, together with an additional 19 replacement photographs of similar content and quality, including two prints, one of them with hand-colour, of the impressive Jeanette II, ordered by the Minnesota Marine Corporation, sitting on the flatbed truck; a Chris-Craft Model No. 3, 24-footer next to a Dee-Wite Runabout in the Gifford showroom; a publicity shot of a Bantam Austin automobile on the Detroit Yacht Club dock next to a 17-foot Chris-Craft in the water, with caption text verso headed, "A Car for Sister; a Boat for Brother". Photographers for the additional photos include Charles W. Howson of Howson Studios in Minneapolis, active during the 1930s; Sarah Hibbard, Walter Norton and Clifford Peel of Hibbard Studios, perhaps the leading commercial studio in Minneapolis; and the world-renowned marine photographer Morris Rosenfeld (1885-1968) who chronicled decades of shipping, power boating, yachting, and yacht racing. The album also includes four images of details of the Dee-Wite Runabout mahogany boats built by Dwight Lumber in the Detroit area during the 1920s. Unlike Chris-Craft, Dee-Wite were not lithe enough to survive the Great Depression. Their boats are now rare, with less than a dozen believed to survive in any condition. A superbly produced piece, evoking the high days of classic Chris-Craft production. We have been unable to trace another similar catalogue institutionally or at sale. See: Chris Caswell, The Legend of Chris-Craft: The Story Behind a Legendary Company, Boats Group (2019); Wilson Wright, Chris-Craft Antique Boats: Mahogany Memories; Fred Farley, The Saga of Jack Beebe, Hydroplane & Raceboat Museum (2019). Landscape quarto (208 x 295 mm). 2 leaves with carbon-copy typescript index on company letterhead; 99 silver gelatin photographs (197 x 254 mm) - featuring the full range of the boat-builder's renowned mahogany motor boats and hydroplanes, together with factory interiors showing the company's craftsmen at work, publicity shots, including the Chris-Craft display at the 1928 New York Boat Show - 76 of them linen-backed and bound in on white linen hinges, these mostly with inked numbers to the top-right-hand corner; and 23, originally loosely inserted, now bound in within archival sleeves, some of these with pencil annotations verso, a few with mounted typed press-release captions, many with the photographers' wet or embossed stamps verso, one of these loose photographs hand-coloured. Original simulated leather padded post-binder - "BurkArt processed" by the Burkhardt Co. Inc. of Detroit - painted and embossed logo and cover art of Chris-Craft runabout at speed, black moiré cloth doublures, containing 99 original photographs; together with 28 single-page mimeographed sales letters on headed stationery, originally sent to boat distributors and marine dealers, the intended recipients of these deluxe catalogues, wet stamp of the Gifford Marine Corporation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin to recto of the first image, portrait of Chris Smith, and verso of three other images. Housed in a black cloth flat-back box by the Chelsea Bindery. A little rubbed, particularly along the e.