AQUATICS

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VII, Issue 347, 18 March 1897, Page 12

AQUATICS

So the Queen is to have a spick and span new yacht, and quite time, too, we think, when we come to examine the merits and suitability of those ships that now are at the immediate and private command of Her Majesty. The Royal pleasure vessels consist of the Victoria and Albert, the Osborne and Alberta. The first-named was built in 1855, and is a wooden vessel of some 300 feet in length, fitted with paddle-wheels and schooner rigged. She has clipped bows and is of immense strength, due to an exceedingly ancient method of planking her, of which she has three thicknesses, two being laid on in crossed diagonal directions. She is thus able to bump against piers and men-o’-war without that injury which would be inflicted on other wooden or especially iron ships. Her speed is seventeen knots, which in the old days was very fast, and she is to this day a noble craft to look upon with her graceful sweep and beautiful lines. The Osborne was built in 1870, is considerably smaller, and of inferior speed. The Alberta is smaller still and was built in 1862. These old boats were so well built that there is no wearing them out evidently, with what they have to do, but something else must be found for them to do. It is not proposed to make the new yacht a semi-man-o’-war as the German Emperor’s Hohenzollern. She is to be a perfect pleasure boat, the finest and most seaworthy, with the greatest speed, that can be built, fitted for long or short voyages. A magnificent yacht that will delight the eyes of all beholders, and equipped in a manner worthy of her high purpose, the carrying the Empress of the Seas.

A Melbourne lady on the seamy side of fifty has taken to the wheel and drives it like a saucy minx of seventeen. She tilts her eyebrows and says, “ Cycling is a delightful pastime.” But she is charmingly tangled over the mechanical names. “ How do you mend a puncture of the sprockett?” and “Can you alter the gear of that tyre ? ” These are her simple little questions, put to a dutiful young man who hopes to be her son-in-law. Like a Briton he explains it all, and is in a dreadful frame of mind lest somebody with less tact should prescribe treatment different from his.