with Gun ^ Rod in Canada 



The internal combustion engine was then only an 

 impractical, half-perfected invention, sneered at by the 

 steamboat men and unnoticed by yachtsmen. A few- 

 years later, while on a summer vacation at Bath, Maine, 

 I became, by virtue of certain " magic " which I employed, 

 the only successful engineer of a " Globe " gasolene 

 engine, installed in a converted steam-launch. Just 

 what I did to make that engine run, I do not know, nor 

 do I believe that even at that time I was quite sure of the 

 whys and wherefores of its mechanics. 



For several years following I spent each summer tinker- 

 ing with other engines in all sorts of makeshift converted 

 sail and steam hulls. In 1903, having reached man's 

 estate, I had a small launch built in Chester, Nova Scotia, 

 in which I installed a kerosene engine, built in Stamford, 

 Conn. This venture was a very expensive joke. I 

 used to have to heat up a hot tube to get the engine 

 started, and, in order to keep it going, had to hold a 

 gas torch, full blast, against the tube most of the time. 

 My brothers afterwards converted this kerosene engine 

 into a gasolene engine, and used it for sawing wood. 



I jumped out of this venture into becoming part owner 

 of a regular 55-foot steam-yacht. The most regular 

 thing about the latter were the bills of expense in con- 

 nection therewith. After changing her type of boiler 

 three times, we finally junked her machinery and installed 

 a two-cycle, three-cylinder gasolene engine. After one 

 year's operation we junked this outfit and installed an 

 up-to-date Sterling 50 horse-power, heavy-duty affair 

 with all the fixings. 



Coincident with the rather expensive and time- 

 consuming experiences with the big boat, I was having 

 my real power-boat fun with much smaller but sea- 

 worthy one-man power craft. Five years in Toronto gave 

 me an opportunity to get a touch of the speed-boat 



82 



