APPENDIX 325 



somewhat, but the small draught of a foot only is of great 

 advantage in shoving ofi and running ashore. At over 

 half speed, the bow rises, the stern squats {i.e. sucks 

 down), the draught increases to over two feet astern, 

 and then the propeller has plenty of water to work in. 

 Why the boat is so speedy we don't exactly know, neither, 

 apparently, does her builder. He would promise us only 

 five miles an hour; we hoped for six miles an hour. As 

 a matter of fact, we get on a calm sea seven miles an 

 hour, with the engine running at six to seven hundred 

 revolutions a minute, and can do upwards of nine. The 

 day we brought her home, with no experience of motors 

 beyond a couple of trips in Dartmouth river, she did 

 thirty-five miles in five working hours. She will tow a 

 twenty-two-foot drifter, laden with nets and ballast, at 

 six miles an hour (she undertakes to tow fishing-boats, 

 fisherman-owned, at cost price of running), and has also 

 towed three racing dinghies the twelve miles to Exmouth 

 pier in two hours. All of which is more than satisfactory. 

 I have gone rather fully into constructional details 

 because, though there are many small improvements we 

 could now make, the Puffin does seem in general design 

 — thanks very largely to her builder and the stout little 

 engine — to have solved the problem of handling motor- 

 boats on beaches. Sooner or later the questions of 

 marketing fish and of middleman's profits will have to be 

 tackled thoroughly. Meanwhile, motor fishing-boats of 

 this type offer some chance, at all events, of arresting the 

 otherwise almost hopeless, and wholly deplorable decline 

 in small fishing. 



