Yachting and Motor Boating

Progress, Volume VII, Issue 8, 1 June 1912, Page 1149

Yachting and Motor Boating

While in Auckland the other day I had the privilege of seeing the 20ft. hydroplane which is being built for an Auckland resident. This craft is to have a guaranteed speed of 20 miles per hour, with an engine of less than 20 h.p., and looks as though she will do it. She is being kept a pretty close secret until after her trials, when her builder has promised to let Progress publish full particulars. As she is of light construction she is kept ashore under cover and will only be launched for running and then hauled out again. Until I receive the builder’s and owner’s permission I cannot say more than that she is what a great many speed enthusiasts have been looking for in vain so far, and that is a really cheap speed boat. With a smaller engine capable of driving her at least 15 m.p.h., her builder tells me he would be prepared to execute orders at about £IOO complete, crated ready for shipment. With the larger power, of course, the price would be slightly more, and he would guarantee the speed, or keep the boat. I cannot divulge further particulars this month, but any bona fide intending purchaser can obtain the address from this office. * * * Yachting in Wellington, which until the building of the Boat Harbour had reached a very low ebb, may now be said to be strongly established again. We have few of the big boats of the nineties, only two, “Waitangi” and “Ngaira” are left, and no iww ones have been built, but we have a real live fleet of modern, medium-size cruisers, infinitely better as a class than their predecessors, some of the best of which, however, survive. The modern cruiser, is far and away a better boat than the older type for seagoing, comfort and handiness, and especially ds this so when she is fitted with auxiliary power, as so many of our best boats now are. An interesting fact to be noticed in connection with the growth of our fleet is that owners seem to care less and less for racing and more for sturdiness and seagoing ability in their craft, and comfort below decks for cruising. The yawl rig seems to be coming into universal favour, and rightly so, for there is none like it for knocking about the Straits and Sounds in a small craft. Reefing the mainsail in a yawl is a job unattended with the dangers of reefing a big cutter mainsail in a seaway; it is easier on V the crew, and undoubtedly easier on the boat. The torsional stress of a big main boom continually yanking at a counter in a seaway must in time result in the screwing of the horn timbers. That, I think, is why so many cutters that have hard, continuous sea work, always leak round the rudder trunk. That the cutter is a better nig for general racing purposes is without doubt, but the difference is very slight as a rule; in fact, some of our boats have performed quite as well since they have been yawl rigged. I refer to “Muritai” and “White Heather,” and “Siren’s” skipper tells me

that he thinks she sails equally veil with her yawl suit as with Iter present cutter racing rig. The addition of Dr. Ohesson’s “Reverie” to the second class is welcome, and if Millman builds the new boat he has been ■ hreat ening us with it will be quite a strong class.. Ralf Millman has been quite a benefactor to the sport in Wellington in giving us such able little cruisers as “Rawene’’ and “Windward,” and he richly deserved the Moir Cup, which he won a few weeks ago. His handling of “Windward” on that dirty day was faultless, as was his handling of “Ailsa” in the Cruiser Club’s Change Skipper Race on the following Saturday. At a meeting of the Port Nicholson Yacht Club, held the other day, the question of forming a One-Design Class was discussed at some length, and eventually a committee of three (Ralf Millman (“Windward”), A. Lancaster (“Ngaira”), and myself) was appointed to approximate a type most suitable for our waters for cruising and racing. That a one-design class affords ideal racing is without dispute, but the great difficulty is to devise a little vessel that will be cheap enough for many to build and yet provide adequate cruising and seagoing abilities. Too many O.D. classes are just racing craft and nothing more, and in some of those which started at quite a moderate cost the introduction of hollow spars, silk sails and similar refinements, has brought the cost up to an almost prohibitive figure, so that the P.N.Y.C. must be, very careful in framing the regulations for the class so that it may avoid these pitfalls, or the class is foredoomed to failure. What is really wanted, in my opinion, is a little vessel of between 25 and 30 feet over all length, with somewhere about 9 feet beam and 4 feet draught. She should be yawl rigged and have plenty of freeboard and buoyancy and moderate outside ballast. Her ends should be short and easy, with nothing to pound or slam the seas. It doesn’t matter if she is not very fast, because after all speed is only relative, and she will be racing with her equals. The main thing is to get a comfortable, seaworthy, handy type, and this we are going to try to do.

In my opinion, which is shared by others, the best means of attaining our object, once we have settled the type, is to call for competitive designs from the whole of the designers, professional and amateur, throughout the Dominion. To see that our professionals can design good craft, one only needs to look round the present fleet in the different ports, and it is equally certain that there are men amongst the amateurs who can design splendid boats. Only the other day I had the pleasure of looking over the design of a 30-footer drawn for a friend by Guy Hoggard (the (owner of the “White Heather”). She will be a

fine weatherly little ship, and just the thing for knocking round the Straits in almost any weather. There are lots of other good men who know what is wanted and would, I am sure, be glad to enter for a competition of this kind. # * # Messrs. Harvey & Laing have just launched the last of the three 28-foot mullet boats which they have been building to the order of Sandford & Co. They are comfortable, weatherly looking craft, sail well and develop good speed with their 6 h.p. heavy duty Buffalo engines. They are neat in appearance and look more like sturdy cruising yachts than fishing boats. The volume of work that this firm have on hand has forced them to take more commodious premises, so they have acquired a site in Freeman’s Bay, where they have built a fine lofty shed for their works close to the waterfront, with a slipway running out from the floor of the shed into over 10 feet of water, so that fairly large repair jobs can be hauled up into the shed, and launching of vessels built is quite a simple matter. Inside the shed the floor space is 75ft. by 25ft., so that several pretty big jobs can proceed simultaneously. There is a neat office, with desks for draughting, &c. Altogether it is an up-to-date shipbuilding plant. Mr. T. Thornycroft, of the firm of warship builders of that name, was in Wellington recently, and while here had a trip round the harbour in the Defence launch, which is powered with one of their engines. He is on a business tour of the world, and so far has visited many of the Mediterranean, Indian and Eastern ports, and as we were returning from Shelly Bay in the sunset of one of those perfect days, of which we get a few in late autumn, he remarked that Wellington Harbour was quite the best place he had seen on his travels so far. He was quite enthusiastic over it as a yachting and motor-boat centre. I told him to wait until he saw the Waitemata. His father, Sir John Thornycroft, has designed a new hydroplane for the British International Trophy Races at New York this year. She will be propelled by six Vauxhall motors, having a total power of 330 h.p.

Another Thornycroft hydroplane for the 8.1. T. is being built for the Marquis of Anglesea, and will be fitted with AVolseley aeroplane motors. Mr. Mackay Edgar, one of last year’s challengers, will have another try with a new boat engined with the Astell motors out of “Maple Leaf III.” Still another boat has been built with the object of challenging. This craft is, I believe, the lightest thing ever built, her engines are sets of the famous Green Aeroplane engines, and total 120 h.p. It is rumoured that the Duke of Westminster will make another atempt to win the trophy for England, so altogether 1912 should be a memorable year in the motor boat world.