HYDROPLANE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 41, 12 November 1907, Page 5

HYDROPLANE.

. —— GLIDING AT 38 MILES AN HOUR. BT TELEGRAPH—MESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT, \ ; Paris,' November 10. M. Lelas, French inventor of the hydroplane, covorod one nnd a quarter miles on the Seine at a speed of 38 miles an hour. The Seine has been the scene of a good | many trials of hydroplanes and hydro-motors. M. Santos Dumont, the aeronaut, is tho owner of a hydroplane which was recently credited with a fast "glide." Tho hydro-motors tire described as flat-bottomed, light little craft, which do fast timo on smooth water, but which get into trouble in rough seas. It was reported in September that a hydro-motor voyaged from tho Seine to tho Bosphorus, where it was wrecked. "Perhaps the best performance put up by this class of boat." says an exchange,, was that accomplished by Ricochet Nautilus, iii August, which covered a space of 30 kilometres in tho Seino, in tho fast time of 36min. -ICsec., or a speed of over ■30 miles an hour. Hor greatest speed was as high as 3S miles an hour." One of the new German dostroyers, on her trial run, attained a speed of 33.9 knots. The British destroyer Viper, which was lost, used to do 35 knots (about 41 miles), and it is stated that Japan is building a fiOO ton destroyer to jrun at that speed. Tho Cunarder Mauretania, in her trials, has covered 300 miles at 27.36 knots, equal to 31} miles an hour. . A Central News message, from New York, dated July It, declared"Mr. Peter Cooper Hewitt has completed some remarkable trials'j of a gliding water-craft, which ho has invented. He had no difficulty in attaining a speed of thirty-eight miles, and he declared that with a similar vessel of larger proportions ho -will be able to reach a speed of a ! hundred miles an hour. The main features of the vessel are an exceedingly shallow hull and planes, which enable it to glide over tho water liko a bird."