INTERNATIONAL MOTOR BOAT RACING.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 248, 16 October 1920, Page 17

INTERNATIONAL MOTOR BOAT RACING.

AMERICA WINS THE PRIZE. Still one more international sporting prize has gone t° America as a result of the victory of the United States in the races for the International Motor-boat Trophy, held in Osborne Bay on August 10 and 11. The contestants in the great race —tile most important- in the motorboat world—are really nothing • more than light shells crammed with powerful engines. The winner of the event, Miss America, is a little boat 26ft.long, with a hydroplane-shaped hull. Taking- up the major portion of the restricted space i within her frail shell are "twin-six" Smith-built SOO h.p. marine motors of the Liberty type, first designed for aircraft work during the war. She hurled herself round the course in the deciding race at a mean speed of 53.42 knots, covering the distance of 33.054 sea miles in j 37n.> os. Following her in both races j came her compatriot Miss Detroit. The third boat to finish wae the British representative Maple Leaf VI., followed by j her younger sister, Maple Leaf. V., who | waa a bad fourth; bringing up the rear: came the Sunbeam-Despujols hidden mi the foam of her bow wave and boiling! ■wake. Notwithstanding the fact that I the second boat had trouble with herj plugs, there was no mechanical break-1 down, and these boxes of machinery, | driving through the seas at the speed of i an express train, gave an impressive de-. monstration of the great improvement in reliability of the modern high-speed motor-boat engine. An the boats that entered h'nished the race at full-speed— a thing quite unknown before the war. Britain and America now boast an equal number of victories in this event,! whilst France has succeeded on only one j occasion. This is our first defeat in j home waters since 1911 (writes aeorres-] pondent in the "Sphere"), and goes to; prove that in hull design particularly the i Americans have little to learn from us. I In the second and final contest the very j speedy Miss America actually "played"! with her opponents, steering wide at the j half round and casing down until Miss j Detroit, with ;i great cloud of ■smoke, spurting from her numerous exhausts,' closed within a couple of hundred yards, j Then Mr. Garfield Wood, the owner and driver of the winning boat, opened out his engines and went clean away in a wild scurry of boiling foam. ■ j