742 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. io, 1906. 
Sweet singer of Belgrade: 
We plow the land on a sulky plow. 
While you chaps plow the ocean; 
We’d like your fun, but we don't see how 
You stand the gosh-blamed motion. 
—By Maine's Farmer Poet, Holman F. Day. 
..BOSTON Y. C. ANNIVERSARY. 
It was indeed a pleasure to answer affirmatively 
the courteous summons of the Boston Y. C. to 
join them in celebrating their 40th anniversary 
and their entertainment of Sir Thomas Lipton 
as the guest of the club. The dinner proved to 
he a most successful and agreeable function. 
Following the dinner, and before the speech 
making began. Sir Thomas was apprised by 
Commodore Boynton of the fact that he had 
been unanimously elected an honorary member 
of the organization. 
From the America's Clip point of view, the 
situation remains as we explained last week. Sir 
Thomas has made great strides in his popularity 
here, as is shown by his reception not only at 
Boston, but in all the places he has visited and 
in which he has been feted. 
The reason of this popularity is perfectly clear. 
Since Sir Thomas Lipton’s advent in cup racing, 
the press of Europe and America has been unable 
to forego the scooping opportunities offered; in¬ 
deed, such neglect in connection with a man of 
such resources as were at the command of this 
prince of industry would have been folly—mad 
folly. The yachting world was then new to 
the owner of the three Shamrocks, and it 
is not strange that the wiles of our enterprising 
and wide awake press should have proved too 
much for him to cope with. It is only after seven 
years, in which he has challenged three times, 
and permitted three years to elapse since his last 
visit and last defeat, that Sir Thomas' has come 
again to us. He has been well treated. Any 
one having heard him speak would know and 
understand his simple and straightforward ex¬ 
position of his ambition, and would realize that 
the stories circulated did not meet with his ap¬ 
proval or sanction. 
Fortunate it is, that Sir Thomas has had such 
determination. It has won for him an admira¬ 
tion long denied. We. believe that the gossip 
anent the America’s Cup races has about spent 
itself, and the way points clearly to relations in 
accord with such an occasion as the next Cup 
races. 
Much praise is due to the yachtsmen who, from 
all over the country, entertained our yachting 
guest. This wide interest is the best indication 
of the growth of this pastime in channels worthy 
of the great sport of yachting. 
Endymion, schooner, Commodore Geo. Lauder, 
Jr., Indian Harbor Y. C., is off Bay Ridge and 
will go into winter quarters at Gravesend Bay. 
* .« « 
Niagara IV., Mr. Howard Gould, New York 
Y. C., is reported to be down the Chesapeake 
with her owner aboard and party of friends on a 
fishing and shooting trip which will last two 
weeks. 
Boston Letter. 
The yachtsmen’s dinner to Sir Thomas Lipton 
was all that ils title implies, all that its origin¬ 
ators desired. The yacht clubs of Massachusetts, 
almost without exception, sent their representa¬ 
tives to honor the distinguished guest and to 
celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the forma¬ 
tion of the Boston Y. C., which acted as joint 
host with the Y. R. A. of Massachusetts. Of 
the entire body of men who were in attendance 
not one was without his claim to blood relation¬ 
ship with the sport. There were racing and 
cruising men, both of the sail and power-driven 
fleets; modest week-end boating men who 
neither lace nor cruise; habitual guests who, 
while not. boat owners or club members, are 
nevertheless enthusiastic and capable yachts¬ 
men; men who foot the bills on big yachts, and 
men who handle their own smaller craft; there 
were designers, builders, sailmakers and brokers, 
and there were the chroniclers of the sport; one 
and all could justify their presence by more 
worthy credentials than mere dinner cards. 
At the head table sat Sir Thomas and Com. 
E. P. Boynton of the Boston Y. C., who were 
flanked by notable guests, ranging from one 
Day at the right to another Day at the left (the 
“Farmer Poet of Maine” and the poetic “old 
man” of the Rudder); representative of the Eng¬ 
lish, as was their Consul, Capt. Wyndham, of 
the Germans, as was Herr Bruno Wustrau, 
helsman on the sonder boat Gliickauf IV., and 
of our own best traditions as were Charles 
Francis Adams 2d, and Gen. Charles H. Taylor. 
These men, and others as able and witty, spoke 
in response to the various toasts proposed by 
W. C. Lewis, Esq., the toastmaster, but the 
5p2-hour time limit expired before Louis M. 
Clark, the Roosevelt cup umpire; Col D. D. F. 
Neil, of Sir Thomas’ party, and Martin C. 
Erismann, of Forest and Stream, could be 
brought to the line. 
I do not propose to bore you with the repe¬ 
tition of the speeches, nor weary you with an 
account of the decorations and special features. 
Imagine yourself dining with over three hun¬ 
dred hearty companions (all animated by a 
strong esprit du corps) to the accompaniment 
of rollicking music, and enlivened by good 
speaking, now serious, now witty; now the 
generous appreciation of one race by the repre¬ 
sentative of another, and now a spirited plea for 
deep-water yachting, and finally a diplomatic 
speech by the magnetic and tactful Sir Thomas, 
who proved his title as an Irishman and sailor— 
if proof were needed-—by telling a long string 
of amusing and original stories that kept the 
company in gales of laughter. He made no 
new announcement of his plans in regard to a 
new challenge. 
One of the guests who attracted general at¬ 
tention, or rather, one who received general at¬ 
tention, was that veteran yachting writer, A. 
G. McVey, affectionately known to Massa¬ 
chusetts yachtsmen and yachting writers as 
“Dolly” McVey. Always an interesting figure, 
the recent unhappy termination of his long 
career as yachting editor of the Boston Herald 
caused a wave of sympathy for “Dolly,” and 
every one was anxious to add his mite of 
tribute to the veteran’s long and honorable 
career. McVey’s writings are well known to 
our yachtsmen of this country, and, in fact, have 
made him an international figure. Reflect for 
a moment upon the friendships that such a man 
must have formed during thirty-nine years spent 
in journalistic work, consider the wealth of in¬ 
formation an intelligent mind must have 
acquired during a career which began with a re¬ 
port of the Henrietta-Vesta-Fleetwing race and 
has now, unfortunately, closed with the report 
of the Roosevelt cup races. Closed? Let us 
hope that this career as a careful, technically 
accurate, keenly detective portrayer of our boats 
and boat handling, of our successes, mistakes 
and aspirations, will not reach its end for many 
years. What other man has ever equalled Mc¬ 
Vey in discovering and revealing to an 
anxiously expectant yachting world the particu¬ 
lars of successive cup challengers and defend¬ 
ers? Who else has baffled designers, builders, 
owners, detectives, suspicious foremen, frowning 
walls and boarded windows and given to the 
world the most carefully guarded dimensions 
and lines of these challengers and defenders at 
a moment when those designers, builders, and 
the press, were assuring the public that such 
information would not be given out, could not 
be secured? 
Such a man cannot well be spared from the 
ranks of yachting newspaper men whatever the 
economic theories of business managers may be, 
and Boston's yachting men. great and small, 
rich and poor, young and old, one and all re¬ 
gret McVey's retirement from the Herald and 
hope to see his work continued on some other 
periodical. 
William Lambert Barnard. 
Stranger, Shore Fisherman. 
There is always much interest to the cruising 
yachtsman while on his passages in seeing the 
fishermen on the coast going or coming from 
the fishing grounds, which shift at different 
seasons of the year from Cape Hatteras to the 
Grand Banks off Newfoundland. The interest 
is certainly speculative. The fisherman’s rough 
appearance, rusty sides and look of power compel 
our admiration, for they face winter gales and 
summer breezes alike; they are always away, 
except to discharge their catch and take on a 
fresh load of ice. The seamen who man these 
able vessels are a rugged lot of brave fellows; 
their schooling is long and tedious, and their 
calling one that furnishes ample opportunities 
for the display of nerve, judgment and skill. 
It has often been the part of the yacht archi¬ 
tect to design fishermen, though as a general 
rule they are products derived more or less 
by rule of thumb from successful boats in 
service. A fisherman often designs his boat, and, 
with two or three others, supplies the necessary 
capital. I heard of one, who for a time had been 
a blacksmith; in the after cabin of his boat 
there was a model of the vessel, a schooner 
70ft. long. A more graceful little ship is seldom 
found, and the resemblance to the model of 
Thistle—a cup challenger, and a beautiful vessel 
of the late Geo. Lenox Watson’s designs— 
was very striking. Few boats, indeed, are 
better looking than some of our eastern fishing 
boats. 
By courtesy of Mr. B. B. Crowinshield. who 
has designed some very successful fishing boats, 
including the famous schooner Tartar, we pub¬ 
lish the drawings of the shore fisherman 
Stranger. This vessel fishes off the coast of 
Massachusetts, and remains away a time vary¬ 
ing from five to eight days, according to the 
catch. The vessel ready for sea carries a com¬ 
plement of sixteen men. 
Stranger was built at the famous yards of 
Oxner & Story in 1904—at their plant on the 
Essex river, Mass., where many fishermen have 
been built. Along with the general dimensions 
we give some interesting data in regard to the 
construction. It is curious that with these boats 
it is very seldom that any other drawings 
are made than those shown, the reason being 
to save all the expense possible. Such a vessel 
ready for sea costs about eight or nine thousand 
dollars complete, including dories, but not 
trawls and fishing gear. There is no doubt that 
the reason for this low cost is that there is no 
