MOTOR BOAT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 204, 12 August 1927, Page 7

MOTOR BOAT

TO CROSS THE ATLANTIC. AT 80 MILES AN HOUR. What promises to be the world’s fastest motorboat—if, indeed, a craft with eight powerful aeroplane engines can be called a motorboat—is nearing completion in the experimental department of M. Ettiore Bugatti, famous racing motor designer, who is soon going to make an attempt to cross from Brest to New York in this boat at an average speed of some eighty miles an hour. He expects to do the journey in forty hours.

M. Bugatti, thus explains the plans and details of the new ship. “I would be fairly certain of success if it only depended on the mechanical question,” he said. "But, however certain one can be of one’s engines, navigation presents great difficulties, especially when new principles are involved. "My craft is very long and narrow. It is nearly 120 feet in length and only about seven feet wide. There will be eight great aeroplane engines giving a total of 2400 h.p. "Eight people will be on board when the attempt is made, and as the construction is rather like that of a submarine the navigator will only be on the bridge in very fine weather. In heavy seas the crew will be in their submersible quarters. "Two of the engines may be used for reversing the ship, and the fuel used will be paraffin. I hope to be able to run for 60 hours at full speed without a stop, but if all goes well the journey from Brest to New York should not take over forty hours. "The highest speed which I expect to attain is 87 miles per houi;. The craft can be navigated for 50 per cent, of the time completely under water on the condition that the times of immersion are short.

"One of the greatest problems is the circulation of fresh air in the closed body of the ship, where the eight engines will be. The turbines will have an auxiliary engine of 70 h.p. and this auxiliary engine will also furnish the electric current when the boat is at a standstill.

"The eight engines will have electric starters, and there will be a dynamo that will take its current directly from the battereis, but as a safeguard, it will also be possible to take current for the circulation of air from one or more of the engines.” It is not yet known when the ship will be finished, but it is thought likely that preliminary test will be carried out on a lake in Switzerland.