The Raft Book. Lore of the Sea and Sky
New York, George Grady Press, October 1943 (second edition)/ July 1943.
Octavo, [viii] (including the front cover), 152 pages with numerous line illustrations and 26 pages of plates (some printed in colour)[viii] (including the front cover), 152 pages with numerous line illustrations and 26 pages of plates (some printed in colour).
Flush-cut sky-blue card covers lettered and decorated in silver on the front cover; a fine copy, housed in the very good original slipcase with a colour-pictorial title mounted on one side, explanatory text on the other, and a title-label on the spine (lightly worn at the extremities, with the spine and label tanned).
The slipcase also contains the two large folding charts (a star chart with world map on the verso, and a chart for latitudes), and the tabulated folding paper tape, and is complete as issued. 'The Polynesians, greatest navigators of all time, made voyages back and forth in the Pacific between small islands thousands of miles apart.... After years of research, Harold Gatty ... has completely solved the question ... With this book and enclosed charts, no instruments other than a stick and a piece of string, and no previous knowledge of navigation, persons who find themselves in small boats or rafts anywhere in any ocean or sea in the world can find their way to land' (slipcase blurb). Tasmanian-born Harold Charles Gatty (1903-1957), air navigator, naturalist, adventurer and writer, was a world-famous authority on navigation; he accompanied Wiley Post as navigator on the first successful flight round the world in 1931. In May 1943 'he began work on polar navigation with the United States Navy. That year he published, privately, a safety manual, "The raft book", which explained the zenith star navigation methods of the ancient Polynesians. The book, an immediate best-seller, was standard equipment in U.S. Army Air Force life rafts' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography').
Item #146377
Price (AUD):
$400.00