The elegance of an age well past, the luxury steam yachts of the late 19th & early 20th centuries hold as much grace as any vehicle ever created. VENETIA was the third yacht to carry this nomenclature, built by Ramage & Ferguson Ltd. of Leith, Scotland in 1905 directly for F.W. Sykes. Sykes voyaged several foreign lands, and was a well published photographer with "The Geographical Journal" of England. After eight years, he sold the Screw Schooner yacht in 1913 to H. Swithinbank who sold her to the British Admiralty for World War I. Sykes bought her back after two other owners, including the Baron Henri de Rothschild, who named her EROS in 1922.
VENETIA measured 166.5 feet in waterline length with a 26.5 foot beam, with an overall length of 189 feet. She weighed 577 Gross Tons, 239 Net. Powered by a Ramage & Ferguson triple expansion steam engine, she was capable of more than 11 knots. Designed by the renown firm of Cox & King, she would have operated with a crew of about 20, and comfortably carried many more passengers. In a 1930 redesign, her midship deckhouse was carried from rail to rail with no walkway while she was converted to an oil boiler for E.G. Stanley, who renamed the yacht TRENORA. She would serve under a total of 11 owners in all until 1957.
This especially attractive model shows the exacting detail demanded of dockyard modelers in their perfectly representational works. The cast hardware is gold & silver plated throughout, with accuracy down to the precision grating and multiple binnacles. The original mahogany & glass table-top case compliments the piece. . Dockyard steam yachts are amongst the rarest of ship models, and this fine artifact is a special one at that.
