Jan. i8 , 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
83 
Racing on Long Island Sound. 
BY CLARENCE CONVERSE, IN THE FLASH LIGHT, PUB¬ 
LISHED BY THE ERIE Y. C. 
It gives me pleasure to note that you are 
not allowing the gasolene motor to make the 
grand sport of wind-jamming a lost art where 
the conditions for sailing are so ideal as at 
Erie. By adopting your recent small one-design 
sailing class, you are right in line with a popular 
movement among the yacht clubs here in the 
East on Long Island Sound. Oyster Bay has 
a class of 15-foot boats which is raced every 
week on their club courses—the outside course 
on the sound in nice weather; the inside course, 
off Seawanhaka Club, in threatening weather. 
Stamford Y. C., across the Sound, has a similar 
class; Bridgeport another; Hempstead Harbor, 
the jewel class (beautiful little knockabouts of 
polished mahogany) each handled by a young 
millionaire of the Red Spring colony of Hemp¬ 
stead ; Manhasset Y. C., of Port Washington, 
L. I., has contributed four popular one-design 
classes to the Sound racing fleet in its short 
life of about ten years; Bay Side Y. C. brought 
out a splendid class of Gardiner-design last sum¬ 
mer, called the bird class, each boat bearing tbe 
name of some waterfowl; and in recent years 
here the clubs have found the one-design idea 
so popular that they have been building what 
have become known as “interclub” one-design 
classes, where the boats are owned by members 
of different clubs, but are all of the same class. 
The friendly rivalry between the skippers 
in these classes is very keen, as you have doubt¬ 
less found by your experience in your class. We, 
on the Sound, have some twenty-two association 
regattas each season, not counting the many 
extra races on Sundays, and it is very interest¬ 
ing to see how differently some of the boats of 
a one-design class perform under the changed 
weather conditions of so many races, some of 
the skippers proving to be better heavy weather 
sailors and others getting more out of their 
boats on light fluky winds. The tide here, too, 
is a great factor to be taken into consideration. 
Often, on the short five-mile triangle of the 
Larchmont Y. C.. the current will be setting 
north along the shore with many eddies which 
can be worked to good advtantage, while one 
mile out in the Sound, at the southeast stake 
boat, the current will be strong to the south¬ 
ward. And if the regatta is started at either 
turn of the tide, these conditions will often be 
changed diametrically before the boats have 
covered the triangle. Then again we will some¬ 
times start with a west wind blowing out from 
the New York shore, only to find it dying out 
half a mile or so off shore under the influence 
of a south wind which is coming over from 
Long Island. When there is Very little wind 
here of a summer afternoon, and a change of 
tide due during the regatta, the experienced 
skipper looks for a change of wind to a brisk 
southerly—though it does not always come—and 
it is amusing to see the different skippers weigh 
their chances of sailing to the southward of the 
triangle perhaps against a head tide to get ad- 
vtintage of the first of the new breeze, while 
some of their adversaries calculate it is better 
to trust to the dying northwest zephyr and per¬ 
haps more favorable tide. Then again the two 
leading boats of the class often have a luffing 
match which takes their skippers so far out of 
the course for the next stake boat or finish line 
before they realize it that the slower boats, by 
holding on toward the mark, will get in ahead. 
In this way now and then a boat which has not 
been kept in racing trim, and which has con¬ 
sequently not won a race all the season will 
come in leading her little fleet to the mortifica¬ 
tion of the leaders of the class. As we sail 
for championship counts in every association 
regatta, we sometimes get so absorbed in at¬ 
tempting to beat some particular rival whose 
points tally up to that time closely with ours 
that we both lose the first and second prizes 
we should win in that regatta, and our other ad¬ 
versaries add to their point score correspond¬ 
ingly. 
Yacht Sales. 
The Hollis-Burgess yacht agency has sold 
the following: 
The 3S-foot water line auxiliary yawl Re¬ 
becca, owned by Dr. Coleman Tousey, of Bos¬ 
ton, to W. E. Scull, of Philadelphia. 
The 25-foot water line yawl Spectre, owned 
by Russell S. Paine, of Worcester, Mass., to 
Professor George E. Russell, of Roslindale. 
Mass. 
The 25-foot waterline au.xiliary knockabout 
•Annie L., owned by Commodore William F. 
Oburg. of the Cottage Park Y. C.. of Winthrop, 
Mass, to Frank L. Mott, of Buffalo, N. Y. 
A. C. A. Membership. 
NEW MEMBERS PROPOSED, 
Atlantic Division.—Eric G. Anderson, P. O. 
Box 191, Cranford, N. J., by F. E. Ahrens; Benj. 
F. Cromwell, 32 Fairfield Road, Yonkers, N. Y., 
and Frederick C. Cromwell, 32 Fairfield Road, 
Yonkers, N. Y., both by B. Frank Cromwell. 
Central Division.—George M. Eaton, 726 
East End avenue, Wilkinsburg, Pa.; Paul R. 
Applegate, 5525 Kentucky avenue, Pittsburgh, 
Pa.; Lew E. Duva, 5417 Coral street, Pittsburgh, 
Pa.; Wm. F. Patton, Jr., 403 Gray Apartments, 
Wilkinsburg, Pa., and Bert E. Dart, 210 Hutchin¬ 
son avenue, Swissdale, Pa., all by F. D. Newbury. 
Western Division.—William Hawley, Dun¬ 
dee, Ill., by Thomas C. Angell; Henry Bergholtz, 
438 New York street, Aurora, Ill., by John 
Deneau; George T. Bean, 504 Woolner Bldg., 
Peoria, 111 ., by Hugh P. Itliller; George W. 
Schoeffel, Y. M. C. A., Peoria, Ill., by Jos L. 
Furst; Harry T. Stubbs, 315 Kishwaukee street, 
Rockford, Ill., by H. F. Norris; Rae Dupree, 
Dundee, Ill.; Cecil H. Bingham, Dundee, Ill.; 
Irving M. Western, Dundee, Ill., and Nelson J. 
Gothard, Dundee, Ill., all by Thos. C. Angell. 
RESIGNATIONS. 
Atlantic Division.—1620, Fred B. Collins, 
Bayonne, N. J.; 4955, Charles F. Ash, Brooklyn, 
N. Y.; 574T, James G. D. Burnett, New York, 
N. Y.; 1493, Lucius M. Stanton, New York, N. 
Y.; 1935, Gilman S." Stanton, New York, N. Y.; 
5990, William P. Randall, Mt. Holly, N. J. 
Central Division.—153, Nathan S. Smith, 
Newburgh, N. Y.; 5484, Frank N. Spellar, Pitts¬ 
burgh, Pa. 
Eastern Division.—4100, William C. Corey, 
Wilmington, Delaware; 5725, Crosby J. Wells, 
Providence, R. I.; 5620, Lewis P. Allen, Read¬ 
ing, Pa.; 5763, Albert S. Hayward, Providence, 
R. 1 .; 5270, Howard F. Mulcahey; 5168, James 
S. Gibson, Boston, Mass.; 5150, Robert Sibor, 
New Bedford, Mass. 
Western Division.—6406, Elmer D. Becker, 
Chicago, Ill.; 6468, Fred L. Frauenhoff, Aurora, Ill. 
MEMBERS DECEASED. 
Atlantic Division.—121, Manning Skinner, 
235 West Seventy-fifth street. New York, N. Y., 
one of the old members of tbe association. 
Central Division.—2966, Edward D. Taitt, 
Gouverneur, N. Y. 
Eastern Division.—Edward T. Brigham, E. 
Peperell, Mass. 
Simple Sterilization of Water. 
A French scientist, M. Dienert, has dis¬ 
covered that drinking-water can be completely 
sterilized by being placed in a vessel containing 
a small piece of zinc and stirred from time to 
time, says Harper’s Weekly. He has placed 
distilled water in test tubes, with a small piece 
of zinc in each, and then added cultures of 
various microbes. After a time the microscope 
shows the microbes gathered about the zinc 
and all dead. Zinc and zinc oxide are prac¬ 
tically insoluble in water, but the bacteria cause 
slight quantities of these substances to be dis¬ 
solved, probably because they secrete a small 
amount of some acid. The amount of zinc dis¬ 
solved, however, is so small as to be absolutely 
harmless when taken in with the water. 
The extended use of zinc and “galvanized” 
iron vessels as receptacles for drinking-water 
shows that the zinc wijl last a very long time. 
This use of zinc or zinc-lined containers works 
thus automatically to sterilize the water placed 
in them. Experiments in which cultures were 
made from water that had been kept in zinc 
vessels for various lengths of time will tell us 
before long whether this principle can be util¬ 
ized on a large scale for sterilizing drinking- 
water intended for domestic or community 
consumption. 
