Small Boat Wrinkles 



NEARLY every young man who lives near the 

 vc^ater is fascinated hy power-driven craft, and 

 sooner or later becomes either part owner or one 

 of the crew of a power boat. If a young man, or group 

 of them for that matter, wishes to be a boat-owner, he 

 will usually arrange it some way. Almost any old kind 

 of a hull will do for beginners, and nearly any kind of an 

 engine that can be coaxed into more or less regular 

 explosions will suffice to drive her. 



When one observes the combinations that amateurs 

 risk their lives in, it makes one marvel at the comparatively 

 few breakdowns and accidents which are reported. It 

 is not my intention to discourage the neophyte in the 

 power-boat game, but quite the contrary. He is moving 

 in the right direction the minute he becomes interested 

 in any kind of a mechanically propelled boat. But a 

 few hints as to how to install an engine, and what he 

 should try to achieve in fitting up a hull, may help him 

 to better and safer practice, without having to learn it 

 all from experience. 



Away, away back in the last century I built my first 

 power boat, and am not so darned old at that. It was 

 twenty inches long and contained as a power plant an 

 expurgated alarm-clock works, turning a shaft made out 

 of an old buttonhook, upon the outboard end of which 

 was riveted a little tin propeller. This little power boat 

 could speed over the surface of our local frog-pond in a 

 most satisfactory manner, much to the delight of the 

 other regular American boys of the neighbourhood. 



8i F 



