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Author: Sanderson, J.
Title: An Ocean Cruise and Deep Water Regatta of the Pacific Yacht Club July, 1884
Place Published: San Francisco
Publisher:H.S. Crocker & Co
Date Published: 1884
Description: [iii], 55 pp. 8 inserted color lithographic plates by Gideon Jacques Denny. (Folio) 29.7x23.5 cm (11¾x9½"), original blind-stamped green cloth, front cover lettered in gilt, patterned endpapers. First Edition.A very detailed celebratory account of the first successful yacht race from San Francisco Bay to Santa Cruz and a subsequent regatta across Monterey Bay from Santa Cruz to Monterey and back. The glory of the work lies in the eight magnificent colored lithographic plates by Gideon Denny (1830-1866), a renowned marine artist based in San Francisco. Denny was a life member of the Pacific Yacht Club, which organized the excursion, and he captained one of the vessels. (The author of the text, the otherwise unknown J. Sanderson, was a crew member on another yacht.) Denny's fine plates include five views of sailboats at sea during the races, one of the fleet anchored off Santa Cruz, one of the clubhouse and grounds of the Pacific Yacht Club at Sausalito, and one group portrait of the officers of the club. In the keepsake on California Printing issued by the Book Club of California in 1980-1982 to celebrate the achievements of California presses, John H. Kemble sums up this work thus: "This is perhaps the first book devoted to pleasure yachting to be published on the Pacific Coast, and the illustrations are certainly among the earliest examples of printed marine art to appear from a San Francisco press." Cowan p. 566; California Printing, I, 27; Rocq 11252.

Light rubbing to binding, leather spine label perished, hinges shaken, toning; owner ticket and crease to ffep; still very good.