BOATING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18954, 30 August 1923, Page 4

BOATING.

By Rudder. Good progress has been made on several boats during the week, and more than one will be launching shortly, ilaobel was put on the’slip at the week-end. The General Committee of the Otago Yacht and Motor Boat Club will meet tills evening to make final arrangements for the annual meeting of the club. Mr F. B. Frances’s new 14-footer Juno will be launched shortly. The prospective date is Saturday week. Mr J. MTherson has made a start on Dr Cottrell’s new launch, which will be a full sister to Dr Moody’s Aotea.

Messrs Miller and Tunnage have laid the keel for a 30ft surf boat for Mr N. R. A. Cox, of Chatham Islands. A 5 h.p. Orion will be installed, and the vessel will be built on the diagonal principle. She will be used for carrying sheep and wool from the beach to the steamer. The hull will be constructed of extra heavy scantlings to stand the hard wear and tear of beaching. She' is to be ready for delivery early in October.

It has been said that we already have quite enough clubs in Auckland, and any further progress in that direction can only be made at the expense of present clubs. “Speedwell” does not agree with this view, and inclines to the idea that some of the younger clubs will make the older ones look to their laurels. 'An instance of this was clearly demonstrated by a visit to the Takapuna Boating Club. This club is the very youngest of our local clubs, and their fine new club house, now nearing completion at Bayswater, showed what can be done by a small but energetic band of yachtsmen all working for the good of their club. Messrs Miller and Tunnage have completed a motor trawler to the order of Mr Kudolf Millar, of Timaru. The craft has been christened Olga, and she is 38ft 'overall, 9ft 6in beam, sft draught. She is of the straight stem and tuck stern design, having very easy lines. She is fitted with engine room and cabin, wheelhouse oh after end of engine room. The trawling winch is placed on the fore deck, and is driven from 1 the main engine, which is a double cylinder 14 h.p. Viking of local manufacture. A M'Gregor propeller is fitted, which gives the vessel a speed .of eight miles. Electric light is installed, generated by a dynamo driven from the main engine. Olga is ketch rigged, the foremast being stepped in a brass tabernacle on deck, so that it may be lowered with ease when desired. The little vessel left for her home port last week and met the heavy weather then prevailing. She put into Oamaru for shelter, and remained there for a couple of days, then proceeding to Timaru. The actual. steaming time from Otago heads to Timaru was 1Z hours. Mr J. W. Thomson, of Stewart Island, has written a progress report on the launch Pegasus, which has apparently been the subject of some attention from the- unreliable Dame called Rumour, in the following terms: —“I have recently heard a rumour to the effect that the launch Pegasus. which . was built to my order at the beginning of the year at Port Chalmers, was not a success, and I wish to strongly refute any such statement. The Pegasus has proved herself both reliable and seaworthy, and I consider her a credit to her designer and builder, Andrew Miller, of R, C. Miller and Co., Port Chalmers. The Twigg engine’ and suction gas plant installed by J. J. Niven and Co. has proved quite satisfactory. The suction gas is quite reliable land very economical. I recently made the trip from Port Pegasus to Bluff in eight hours on two and a-half- bags of coal, a distance of 60 miles, on suction gas, non-stop run, without aid of sails. I also made the trip ’ recently with a strong southerly blowing, with heavy snow squalls and adverse tides. The Pegasus on that occasion satisfied me about her sea-going qualities. I can thoroughly recommend the trip, Pegasus to Bluff, under the same conditions, to owners of launches who wish to try the sea-going qualities of their boats.” OUR CHANGING BOATMEN. Petrol has' come to the beach and is changing it as it has changed the road, remarks a writer in the London Daily Mail. The boatman of 1923 looks more like a naval officer than the , skipper of the schooner Hesperus. Instead of pulling out a knife from his pocket, the new boatman produces a spanner; instead of talking about the wind, he discourses technically on horse-power and what “she”—meaning the engine and not the boat!—does to the gallon; and ho does not knock a pipe_ out on the gunwale, but, keeps his lighted cigarette away from the petrol. These dapper young men are anxious to make headway. The motor-boat represents a good deal of capital, many of the fairsized craft running into hundreds of pounds. Some are almost ships, as they cany more than a hundred trippers. No wonder, 1 then, that the motor-boat man is eager for your custom. ' At most resorts they have done away with the old haphazard methods that suited their fathers. No longer do jerseyed men bellow, “Any more for the Skylark?” in raucous competition while trippers already inveigled aboard half a dozen different sailing boats gaze helplessly from the craft in which they have been sitting for 20 minutes or longer. The arrangement under which each motorboat sails in rotation is decidedly a change for the better; passengers prefer it, and the boatmpn agree that the independence that half-filled their, vessels with trippers, caused a trying wait in the hope of more, and impelled them all to sail together in the hope that the first boat back would do better business, was not business-like. Often the young men in charge of the petrol craft are the sons of _ the older generation who still pin their faith to sails. When the father’s boat lies becalmed some distance from the beach, up_ chugs a filial motor-boat to • tow father in. The older men know that a tug in time moans another trip while the tide is in. But do not think that petrol is destroying skill in handling small craft; the motorboat men are not mere beach chauffeurs. They are usually skilled sailors as well as competent mechanics, and know the local tides and currents as well as the insides of their engines.