Dec. 9, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
845 
Ticks from the Ship’s Clock. 
There may be some argument when the 
election of officers of the Atlantic Y. C. takes 
place at the Waldorf on Dec. 11. Ernest Mal¬ 
colm, chairman nominating committee offers 
the following ticket: For Commodore, J. 
Stuart Blackton, cruiser Paula; Vice-Commo¬ 
dore, Willard U. Taylor, cruiser Adrea; Rear- 
Commodore, Arthur W. Teele, motor boat 
Arval; Trustees—Charles B. Ludwig, William 
H. Barnard, J. W. Copmann; Secretary, Edward 
I. Graff; Treasurer, P. H. Hart; Membership 
Committee—Charles B. Ludwig (chairman), 
Herbert L. Jones, Kenneth Lord; Nominating 
Committee (yacht owners)-—Francis M. Wilson, 
George P. Dillenback, W. Hunt Hall; non-yacht 
owners—Charles N. Lindley (chairman), Max 
Grundner, Walter H. Sykes, Jr. 
The flag officers all are new men. The pro¬ 
posed new commodore built two motor boats 
to defend the International trophy. He owns 
Paula. 
With his arrival in Boston, Nov. 18, 20-year- 
old Frank Hines, of Halifax, has completed 
12,800 miles of a 15,000-mile walk that he is 
making for a purse offered by the Halifax Y. 
C. Hines started his trip in 1909. He expects 
to finish on Oct. 17, 1912. 
The four-masted yacht Alvina arrived last 
Saturday at South Brooklyn from Duluth, 
Minn. She will be overhauled and made ready 
for a trip to South America. She will start 
Dec. 15, under charter by Commodore E. C. 
Benedict. 
Alvina has been in service on the Great Lakes 
and carries a crew of forty. Her speed is about 
14 knots. Engineer Hummill, of Oneida, went 
to meet Alvina at Montreal to make a report 
on her engine. 
The South American trip will extend to 
Buenos Ayres, lasting four months. Commo- 
done Benedict will have as his guests James 
McCutcheon and Colgate Hoyt and two of his 
New York office men. His daughter, Mrs. Clif¬ 
ford Harmon, will take two friends, Miss M. 
K. Bird, of Westbury, L. I., and Miss Mary 
Finley, daughter of Major Finley. 
The Indian Harbor Y. C., under whose colors 
Joyant sailed, will appeal the decision of the 
majority of the Manhasset Club cup committee 
in its disqualification of Joyant and Corinthian, 
to the executive committee of the Yacht Racing 
Association. The question is whether the com¬ 
mittee did not exceed its authority in making 
such a ruling. 
The deed of trust for this cup states how the 
committee is to be selected, one member to 
represent the challenging club, one to represent 
the defenders, and these two are to select the 
third member. They are to see that the races 
are properly conducted and to accept the meas¬ 
urement certificates of the measurer, but this 
committee declined to accept those certificates. 
Two members of the committee, Charles Lane 
Poor and /Emilius Jarvis, decided against the 
Joyant and Corinthian and declined to adhere 
strictly to the interpretation of the rules, but 
decided on what in their opinion was the intent 
of the rule. 
Their decision has been criticised by some of 
the best designers in the country, including N. 
G. Herreshoff, who was instrumental in fram¬ 
ing the rule and who practically worked out its 
details. Joyant is a big boat for the class, and 
she is what the rule was intended to develop, a 
good-bodied, stanch, seaworthy craft, but in her 
racing it was distinctly shown that the type was 
not a good one to perpetuate. 
Two Pacific Coast yachtsmen have placed an 
order for a yacht, decidedly unique in design, 
with Norman L. Skene, the New Bedford, 
Mass., architect. 
In appearance the yacht will resemble a 
British clipper, although on a much smaller 
scale. She will have a clipper bow and British 
stern and the bowsprit will come inboard above 
the sheer line. She will be built to deep-sea 
lines. 
This topsail schooner, which will be built on 
the Pacific Coast, will have a moderate sail 
area. The foremast will be rigged with both 
fore and aft sail and three squaresails, the fore 
and aft rig for coast cruising and in Alaska 
waters and the squaresails for long voyages in 
the trade winds to the South Sea Islands. 
She will be 80 feet over all, 65 feet on the 
waterline, 17 feet 6 inches beam and 7 feet draft. 
Her auxiliary power will be a six-cylinder, 40- 
horsepower, heavy-duty engine, which is ex¬ 
pected to drive the boat at seven knots an hour. 
The deck house will contain a roomy saloon. 
On this is the bridge, the boat being controlled 
from both the bridge and a small pilot house 
in the forward part of the saloon. The engine 
and galley are under the deck house, shut off 
from the remainder of the boat by bulkheads. 
The crew quarters are forward. 
Aft of the engine room is a large double 
stateroom taking up the full width of the boat. 
Abaft of this on the port side is a single state¬ 
room, on the starboard side the bathroom, and 
in the stern another double stateroom. The 
interior finish will be in redwood and white 
enamel. 
When Was the First Steam Yacht Built? 
This is the centenary time of the rendering 
practicable of steam navigation on the Clyde, 
and a tablet has just been erected in honor of 
the event in the crumbling gable of Torphichen 
Mill, four miles from Linlithgow, the birth¬ 
place of Henry Bell, to whose genius we owe 
the pioneer steamer, Comet. The centenary of 
the Comet, and this honor to the man who de¬ 
vised her, have suggested to a correspondent 
the question, “When was the first steam yacht 
built and by whom?” It may be taken as a fact 
that there were no steam yachts in the birth¬ 
place of the steamer on the Clyde in 1827, for 
in the summer of that year the Royal Northern 
Y. C. was anxious (as the Clyde clubs have 
very seldom been since) to vary its regatta pro¬ 
gram by introducting a race for vessels pro¬ 
pelled by steam, and there was nothing for it 
but to offer its prize, a handsome cup, for a 
run from Rothesay to Largs and back by the 
river steamers. It was won by a good-looking 
and powerful vessel bearing the name of 
Clarence, which had been built a short time 
before by one who was destined to play a 
prominent part soon after in connection with 
the steam yacht movement, Robert Napier, of 
Glasgow, through the success of his river 
steamer in this race of the Royal Northern 
Club. 
THE MOVEMENT IN THE SOUTH. 
It so happened that at this very time one of 
the best and most prominent all-round sports¬ 
men in England, and representative members 
of the Royal Y. C., as the Royal Yacht Squad¬ 
ron was then called, Mr. Thomas Assheton- 
Smith, was fighting (practically single-handed) 
a stout battle for the “recognition” of the 
steam yacht by the Squadron, and here is how 
the matter stood in May of 1829. At the early- 
summer meeting of the club, at its famous 
Metropolitan quarters, the “Thatched House,” 
the following resolution was put and carried: 
“That as a material object of this club is to 
promote seamanship and the improvements of 
sailing vessels, to which the application of steam 
engines is inimical, no vessel propelled by steam 
shall be admitted into the club, and any member 
applying a steam engine to bis yacht shall be 
disqualified and cease to be a member.” It may 
be a little difficult in the light of our fuller 
knowledge to sympathize with the conservatism 
which is embalmed in that resolution, but at 
the same time it is impossible not to admire its 
straightforward simplicity. The use-and-want 
men had their champions in the press, too, and 
one of them would seem to have loved the 
smoke of the steamer in the Solent in 1825 as 
little as did the Field’s famous correspondent, 
Harry Horn, when it was obscuring and soiling 
the rare beauties of the Clyde near seventy 
years later. In 1825 the older writer said: 
"Such clouds of smoke issued from the steamers 
when they were all in motion as completely ob¬ 
scured all distant objects. Calshot Castle and 
the New Forest were scarcely visible, and the 
murky vomitings of the furnaces covered the 
surface of Southampton Water from side to 
side.” The result of Mr. Assheton-Smith's dif¬ 
ferences of opinion with the Royal Y. C. was 
his withdrawing his name from its roll, and 
summoning the builder of the Glasgow steamer 
Clarence to his aid for the purpose of helping 
him to give practical expression to his views 
concerning the application of the steam engine 
to the yacht. For the next twenty years he 
pursued his aim with the greatest skill, en¬ 
thusiasm, tenacity and liberality. In the great 
Glasgow engineer and builder he found a kin¬ 
dred spirit, and their relationship might be said 
to furnish one of the most interesting chapters 
in The Romance of Shipbuilding. The steam 
yachts supplied to Mr. Assheton-Smith by Mr. 
Napier were: 
Tonnage 
Horse 
Year. 
Name. 
(About). 
Power. 
1830. 
. 400 
120 
1838. 
. 300 
100 
1810. 
.Fire-King . 
. 700 
230 
1844. 
.Fire-Queen . 
. 110 
30 
1845. 
.Fire-Oueen II. ... 
. 230 
80 
1S46. 
. 300 
120 
1S49. 
.Jennv Lind . 
. 220 
70 
1851. 
.Sea-Serpent . 
. 250 
80 
It may be taken, then, that these were the 
first steam yachts, and that the honor of having 
introduced the steam yacht to the Pleasure 
Navy belongs to Mr. Assheton-Smith. It might 
not be without value to add that the man who 
had so much to do in modern days with the 
producing and improving of steam yachts, G. 
L. Watson, while a lad was for some time in 
the drawing office of the establishment which 
had once been presided over by Robert Napier, 
and Watson told with pleasure till the end, of 
the boyish interest with which he was wont to 
look at the models (on the walls of the office) 
of these pioneer steam yachts. 
IN THE GRAND STYLE. 
It will have been gathered from what has 
gone before that Mr. Assheton-Smith was in 
the habit of doing things in the grand style 
(and that is using that term in its very best 
sense), and the Fire-Iving cost, in round figures, 
£20,000. Mr. John Clark’s famous steam 
yacht, Mohican (of only some few tons more), 
which was built more than fifty years later, cost 
only £30,000, and she was one of the most 
sumptuous vessels of her kind in every way seen 
up till the time of her advent. The building of 
the Fire-King was a matter of much moment 
in the shipbuilding and engineering world, and 
the scene on the Gareloch when she ran her 
first trial was more suggestive of a regatta day 
than of almost anything else. Of those great 
in the shipbuilding and engineering world on 
board Fire-King that day was Scott Russell, 
and no one was more generous in his praise 
than he over the success achieved by her. So 
great was Mr. Assheton-Smith’s faith in Fire- 
King that even before he had had her thor¬ 
oughly tried he caused a challenge to be in¬ 
serted in Bell’s Life to the effect that he was 
open to steam her from Dover Pier, round the 
Eddystone, and home for 5,000 guineas, or more 
if desired. The challenge was left open for 
three months to give the Americans an oppor¬ 
tunity to see it, but it was never taken up. The 
challenge, while failing to bring forth an op¬ 
ponent, had at least one curious effect. The 
high courage and fine faith of it made the 
