414 
FOREST * AND STREAM 
[Nov. 12, 1904. 
" Forest and Stream" Designing 
Competition No. IV. 
Sixty-foot Waterline Cruising Power Eoat. 
$225 ia P/izes. 
The three designing competitions previously given by 
Forest and Stream have been for sailing yachts. In 
this competition, the fourth, we are to change our sub- 
ject and give the power boat men an opportunity. The 
competition is open to amateurs and. professionals, except- 
that the designers who received prizes in any of the three 
previous contests may not compete in this one. 
The following prizes will be given : 
First prize, $100. 
Second prize, $60. 
Third prize, $40. 
Fourth prize, $25, offered by Mr. Charles W. Lee for 
the best cabin arrangement. 
Mr. Henry J. Gielow, N.A., has very kindly agreed to 
act as judge. In addition to making the awards, Mr. 
Gielow will criticise each of the designs submitted; and 
the criticisms will be published in these columns. 
The designs will be for a cruising launch propelled by 
either gasolene or kerosene motors, conforming to the 
following conditions : 
I. Not over 60ft. waterline. 
II. Not over 4ft. draft. 
III. A signalling mast only to be shown. 
IV. Cabin houses, if used at all, to be kept as low 
and narrow as possible. 
V. Construction to be of wood, and to be strong, 
simple, and inexpensive. The cost of the boat complete 
in every detail must not exceed $9,000. 
VI. The location of tanks and engine or engines to 
be carefully shown. Either single or twin-screws may be 
adopted. The power and type of the motor must be 
specified. 
VII. The boat must have a fuel capacity sufficient to 
give a cruising , radius of 700 miles at a rate of 8 miles 
an hour. The maximum speed shall not be more than 14 
miles nor less than 10 miles. The estimated maximum 
speed must be specified. 
VIII. All weights must be carefully figured, and the 
results of the calculations recorded. A thousand-word 
description of the boat and a skeleton specification must 
accompany each design. 
The design must be modern in every particular, with- 
out containing any extreme or abnormal features. We 
wish to produce an able, safe, and comfortable cruising 
boat, one that will have ample accommodations, so that 
the owner and his wife and two guests, or three or- four 
men, can live aboard, and one that can easily be managed 
at all times by two or three paid hands in addition to the 
steward. The draft is restricted to 4ft. in order that the 
boat may have access to nearly all harbors, canals and rivers 
North and South, and may thereby widely increase the 
cruising field. We have in mind a boat that can be used 
North in the summer and South in the winter, and a 
craft well able to withstand outside passage along the 
coast in all seasons of the year. 
Special attention must be given to the cabin, arrange- 
ment. The interiors should be original, but devoid of any 
impractical features. Arrangements should be made for 
a direct passage forward and aft without going on deck. 
Drawings Required. 
I. Sheer plan. Scale, ^in.=rft, 
II. Half breadth plan. Scale, ^in.=ift. 
III. Body plan. Scale, ^in.=ift. 
IV. Cabin plan and inboard profile and at least one 
cross-section. Scale, ^4in.=ift. 
V. Outboard profile. Scale, J4in.=ift. 
The drawings should be carefully made and lettered ; 
all drawings should be preferably on tracing cloth or 
white paper, in black ink. No colored inks or pigments 
should be used. 
The drawings must bear a nom de plume only, and no 
indication must be given of the identity of the designer. 
In a sealed envelope, however, the designer must inclose 
his name and address, together with his nom de plume. 
All designs must be received at the office of the Forest 
and Stream Publishing Company, 346 Broadway, New 
York, not later than February 3, 1905- All drawings will 
be returned. Return postage should accompany each. 
The Forest and Stream reserves the right to publish 
any or all the designs. 
Meeting of the Y. R. A. of L. I. S.— Mr. T. H. Mc- 
Donald, of the Bridgeport Y. C, presided at a meeting of 
the Y. R.A., of Long Island Sound, held at the Hotel 
Astor, Longacre Square, New York, on Monday evening, 
October 27. Sixteen clubs were represented by the 
twentv-two delegates present. After the reading oi 
various reports, a committee was appointed to confer with 
other clubs concerning a universal measurement rule. The 
following nominating committee was appointed to nomi- 
nate officers for 1905 : Ward Dickson, chairman ; H. H. 
Gordon, F. C. Sullivan, C. F. Kirby and Fred. A. Hill. 
All communications intended for Forest and Stream should 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 
New YorV. «M>d not to any individual oonn.ect$4 *« 
Gas Engines and Launches. 
[Continued from fage 872.) 
BY F. K. GRAIN. 
Propellers. 
The propeller wheels used on gas engines are, as a 
rule, smaller in diameter than employed in steam prac- 
tice, the reason for this being that the gas engine is 
usually run at a higher speed, and where no reversing 
gear is used, the engine is, of course, obliged to start 
against the full load of the wheel. Of late the manu- 
facturers have been using wheels of larger diameter 
and less pitch, the effect of this being to increase the 
efficiency of the wheel, making the engine easier to 
start, decreasing the number of revolutions somewhat, 
but adding to the speed of the boat and materially 
reducing the consumption of gasolene. In order to 
avoid the use of reversing gears inside the boat, the re- 
versing propeller wheel is used to a large extent. These 
wheels, although of many different patterns, are me- 
chanically- all on the same principle, the blades being 
turned by the movement of a sleeve surrounding the 
propeller shaft, which revolves with the shaft, as of 
course there are no gears to intermesh or any neces- 
sity for slowing down as with the inside reversing 
mechanism. These wheels will reverse at full speed, 
and as the wheel always travels in the same direction, 
it takes hold instantly of the water and will not race as 
in the case of a solid wheel reversed, as the action of 
the water is all in the same direction. 
The reversing propeller wheel is necessarily some- 
what weak structurally, it being impossible for 
mechanical reasons to design them as a perfectly true 
screw; they therefore lack the efficiency of the solid 
propeller wheel. 
Although this deficiency would hardly be noticeable 
excepting to . the expert, the word "pitch," relating to 
propeller wheels, is not universally understood, as the 
same word is employed in designing the angle of the 
propeller shaft or incline of an engine. As applied to 
the propeller wheel, it refers to it in the same sense 
as to the pitch of a screw, the propeller wheel being 
in action a perfect screw. Therefore, the pitch of the 
propeller wheel designates the number of feet that the 
wheel would travel in one revolution, supposing it to 
be a screw; therefore if we have a propeller wheel 
20 inches in diameter and 30 inches pitch, it denotes 
that it will travel 30 inches each revolution. It is by 
this means that calculations are made on the speed of 
the vessel. From this, however, in calculating speed 
we have to deduct for skin resistance and the slip of 
the propeller, etc. In small power boats any estimates 
based on these calculations will as a rule prove anything 
but reliable, as proportion of beam to length is in all 
cases excessive in comparison with larger vessels. Of 
course, as we decrease the pitch of the propeller wheel, 
we have a slower screw, consequently more powerful, and 
for this reason it is becoming the practice of high speed 
boats to use a wheel at the least possible pitch, and in 
order to gain on the travel of the screw to increase the 
revolutions. 
While this proves very efficient and gives the extra 
power to drive the boat at increased speed, it also ma- 
terially increases the consumption of gasolene and the 
wear on the engine and batteries, and this practice is 
therefore hardly to be recommended for every-day use. 
The form and general design of the propeller wheel 
has so often been extensively experimented with, that 
the subject is worn threadbare, and is sufficient to 
say that the true screw propeller wheel will, in all 
probabilities, remain as at first the standard of ex- 
cellence. We have not the exact figures before us, but 
we believe that the true screw wheel is capable of de- 
veloping 96 per cent, of efficiency, therefore it will be 
readily seen that all that can be possibly hoped for by 
improved and freak propellers will be 6-100 per cent., 
which will readily be admitted to be hardly worth 
bothering with. 
Launches. 
Every owner of a launch is admittedly a self-con- 
fessed crank on the subject of his particular boat and 
his ideas on the subject. The whys and wherefores of 
the design of small launches admit, however, of very 
limited variation, and modern, practice confines us to 
but few forms. Up to the past few years it was the 
custom to make the lines of the hull considerably hol- 
. lowing in the bow, also cutting away under the stern, 
and in most cases the greatest beam of the under-water 
body was placed as in small sail boats, aft of midship; 
in other words, until the sail boat had been almost en- 
tirely superseded by the power boat, the inclination 
among the builders, especially those who built from 
rules of thumb, was to make the power boat of about 
the same form as the sail boat, but of less beam. 
With the power boat the greatest beam of the under 
body should be forward of amidship, and all lines should 
be full, showing no -gallows; in other words, the sail 
boat is designed witn a view of doing its best work 
while beating to the windward, lying on its side, 
whereas the power boat is to travel on an even keel. 
Until quite recently the launch with the overhanging 
or fantail stern was the popular boat, unquestionably 
a very handsome form of a boat. This fantail, however, 
added weight to the boat, made the lines of the stern 
abrupt in their curves, and where properly designed, 
the fantail of course not touching the water, it was 
simply so much useless wood carried around and a 
handicap to the speed of the boat. In the modern 
boat we find the form of the deck plan to be almost 
. a wedge, the stern being the widest part, thence taper- 
ing gradually to the bow. 
We will then have a boat without any hollow lines, 
with its greater draft near the bow, the keel tapering 
up to the stern, which is^ cut off square and wide. In 
this case the boat will draw no water under the stern, 
the effect being that the boat will, owing to its wedge 
shape in the forebody, displace the required amount of 
water with the least possible effort, the water then 
passing the stern, flows under the boat with the result 
that the buoyancy of the afterbody is increased. It is 
admited that the nearer we can keep a boat to the top 
of the water the faster it will go, owing, of course, to 
the reduced resistance, and in the above form of boat 
we obtain these results. This model of boat, while 
very seaworthy, if built to extremes in length of re- 
duction of beam, will, however, prove to be a very wet 
craft, which necessarily is the case with any form of 
high speed boat. In the construction of a launch it 
is hard to combine speed, seaworthiness and carrying 
capacity and meet with success, therefore determine for 
what use you wish your boat and the locality in which 
it is going to be used, keeping those points in mind in 
buying, otherwise you are liable to meet with disap- 
pointment. 
It is said that there is very little new under the sun, 
and this can more truthfully be said in reference to the 
construction of launches in general, as there has been 
very little variation in the method of building wooden 
vessels since Mr. Noah built the Ark. 
In order to get, or rather to make the effort to ob- 
tain a boat at reduced prices, a number of buyers are 
influenced to allow some house carpenter, who has built 
a boat probably when he was a boy, build their boat. 
This invariably leads to disappointment, either in model 
or workmanship, or date of delivery, and the first thing 
to do when you have made up your mind to own a 
launch is to go to a reputable builder, who builds boats 
and nothing else, or to a firm who will turn out the 
complete launch which you may test before final settle- 
ment. • 
[to be continued.] 
Queries on Marine Motors. 
R. R. H., Wareham, Mass. — If R. R. H. will send his name in 
full, we will take pleasure in answering his question in full. We 
do not answer any anonymous questions. 
H. L. W., Philadelphia, Pa.— I have read with interest Mr. F. 
K. Grain's articles on "Gas Engines and Launches" that have ap- 
peared in your columns from time to time, and I have found them 
helpful and instructive. During September I bought a new 
launch fitted with a 6 H.P. two-cycle engine, and then my troubles 
began. The engine runs satisfactorily for three or four days, or 
a week, and then, without warning, and apparently without rhyme 
or reason, absolutely refuses to start. After working over the 
engine for a long time it starts just as suddenly as it stopped. Will 
you kindly suggest some remedy, and also tell me how to prevent 
recurrence? 
Ans. — From observation and from the numerous in- 
quiries received at this office, we assume this to be a very 
common trouble. For that reason this question is 
answered very fully. 
In getting ready to start your engine, first see 
that the rocker arm is free, not gummed or "stuck" in the 
sleeve, and see that the lever is not loose on the shaft. 
A drop or two of kerosene will usually suffice tO' loosen 
a "stuck" shaft, or it may be necessary to remove it and 
brighten it with a piece of emery cloth. If the lever is 
loose on the shaft, drive the taper pin lightly or tighten 
the set screw. Close the switch, and with a wooden- 
handled screwdriver touch the insulated and uninsulated 
part of the plug at the same time. If no spark shows 
at either point on breaking, turn the engine one quarter 
of a revolution and see whether or not you get one. If 
you do, it shows that the current "breaks" and arcs 
properly, providing the points are dry and clean. If you 
can get no spark, open and close the switch several times. 
If a slight spark appears at the switch as you break the 
contact, it shows that the current is "grounded" some- 
where, and this must be sought for. Disconnect the wire 
from the insulated electrode, close the switch, and snap 
the wire sharply across the binding post of the electrode 
and then on some part of the engine. If the two elec- 
trodes are in contact, you will get a spark at both places. 
If not in contact, you ought to get no spark at the elec- 
trode. If you do, here is your ground, and either a new 
plug should be used or the mica insulation should be 
replaced with new. 
It is frequently the case that you get no spark at all, 
or a very light one. In this case, search diligently for 
loose wire connections at the battery, switch, spark coil, 
ground wire at the engine, also* at the insulated electrode ; 
if still weak or no spark, open the switch and connect one 
end of a wire to the spark coil binding-post farthest from 
the battery, and with the other end touch the opposite 
pole of the battery, giving a short circuit through the 
battery and spark coil. If you get no spark, try each cell . 
separately and find if you have a "dead" cell, which 
should be thrown out. A small battery volt-meter is 
handy, but a cheap electric buzzer or bell will be found 
very convenient for this purpose. Attach two short wires 
and hold one to the positive and one to the negative of 
each cell. Any difference in the strength or voltage will 
show itself in the noise of the bell or buzzer. You should 
always carry a set of about five cells of good dry battery, 
wired together by means of flexible terminals, easily pro- 
curable at almost any supply house, and almost indis- 
pensable, binding the cells together with a good stout 
cord. Leave one zinc and one carbon unconnected, of 
course. These should always be kept in a dry place, for 
when your spark fails you as above, is when you will 
need a new set in all probability. 
Now, in case your engine is of the jump spark type, 
instead of proceeding as above, you would turn the en- 
gine over until the contact is made at the "timer," 
"commutator," or whatever the device may be called. Then 
close the switch. If the vibrator does not begin to sing, 
press lightly on it with the finger. If it does not vibrate 
when closing the switch, but you can notice a tremble at 
your finger end, it will be necessary to adjust it; but be- 
fore doing so, be sure that all battery and wire connec- 
tions in the primary wiring are tight. The large cable 
that runs from the coil to the spark plug and from the 
opposite binding post to the other on the coil is known 
as the secondary wiring. Having satisfied yourself that 
the vibrator works as it ought, you can be reasonably^ 
sure that the spark is all right, although to be "cock- 
sure," open the switch, remove the plug carefully— more 
so if porcelain insulated than mica — lay it on the en- 
gine so that the metal body of the plug only shall be in 
contact, then, the contact being on at the "timer," open 
and close the switch several times. If a good fat spark 
appears, well and good; but if a crooked, lean, slow 
spark, the points are too far apart. In this case always 
open the switch and with a screwdriver or something 
close the aperture slightly ; one thirty-second part of an 
inch will usually be sufficient; the point of a penknife is 
