44 
FOREST AND STREAM 
ijAN. 23, 1909. 
the Canadians had notified the Manchester 
Club that they would challenge and it was 
expected that the conditions to govern this 
contest would soon be arranged and the terms 
announced. Unfortunately many members of 
the Manchester Y. C. had made plans to build 
Sonder boats and take part in the races to 
be sailed off Marblehead to select those to 
meet the German yachts next September. To 
accept a cnallenge for a race for the Seawan- 
haka Cup would have meant a change of plans 
all round and so the Manchester Club wrote 
to the Royal St. Lawrence Club asking that 
club to defer its challenge until next year 
when it thought they would be better able to 
give more attention to the Seawanhaka Cup 
races. The Canadians have agreed to this 
proposition and will shortly send a formal 
challenge for a race in 1910. 
The Manchester Club_ have made sugges¬ 
tions to change the conditions slightly so that 
the yachts built to take part in these races 
and in the trials will be better suited to the 
conditions off Manchester, where the races 
will be sailed. They suggest that the limit of 
sail area be increased from 500 square feet to 
625 square feet and that the weight of a crew 
of four be not less than 650 pounds. These 
two suggestions have met with the approval 
of the Royal St. Lawrence Club. 
Scooter Racers Ready. 
The scooter men who race in the winter 
months on the Great South Bay are ready for 
the sport as soon as the bay freezes over. 
Last year after a very successful season, a 
match was made with the ice yachtsmen. This 
race was the result of an idea that ice yachts¬ 
men held that their craft could sail two miles 
to a scooter’s one, and when these yachts met 
on Orange Lake, the scooter won, and the 
Long Island baymen carried away.some of the 
ice yachtsmen’s money. 
Now the scooter men want a return match, and 
they think that the ice yachtsmen should visit 
the Great South Bay, but Commodore Higgin- 
son, who made last year’s match, says he will 
not race on the scooter’s home waters or ice, 
as the scooter would have an unfair advantage. 
Those queer craft are able to race on ice or on 
open water, while an ice boat must have good 
solid ice to show to its best advantage. Com¬ 
modore Higginson, of the Orange Lake Ice 
Y. C., says he is willing to make a match for 
$500 to sail an ice boat 17 miles on Orange 
Lake, while the scooter sails ten miles. 
This proposition does not please the scooter 
men. They say they were put to considerable 
expense sending their craft to Orange Lake 
last winter, and think that it is only fair that 
the ice yacht should visit them. They do not 
want to sail on anything but good ice and say 
that a good course can be staked off on the 
Great South Bay, and that there are better and 
steadier winds on the bay than on Orange Lake. 
Activity in Yachting. 
Recent sales and contracts reported by 
William Gardner, naval architect and yacht 
broker, indicates that the season of 1909 will 
be a very active one. Orders have already 
been placed for several good-sized cruising 
launches, a 170-foot steel steam yacht, two Son- 
derclass boats, one 33-rater for the Pacific 
coast, one 7.5-metre class boat for a Finland 
yachtsman, a class of 12 one-design boats for 
the Islip Yacht Club for use on Great South 
Bay, and a fast 70-foot steam launch to be 
built abroad for an English yachtsman. 
The recent transfers of vessel property in¬ 
cludes the 
Three-masted, bronze, auxiliary schooner 
Azara, by Chester W. Chapin, to George 
H. Gooderham, Royal Canadian Y. C. 
Schooner yacht Crusader II, by Seymour L. 
Husted, Jr., to Edwin Palmer, Atlantic Y. C. 
Steam yacht Katrina, by Col. L. F. Heub- 
lein, N. Y. Y. C., to Hon. W. C. Edwards, 
Rockland, Ontario. 
90-foot twin-screw launch Lasata, by Ma¬ 
comb G. Foster to A. C. Hardy, Brookville, 
Ontario. 
Schooner yacht Esperanza, ex Ingomar, by 
J. D. McKee, to Charles Morgan, New York 
City. This boat has had a general overhaul¬ 
ing and been changed into an auxiliary by in¬ 
stallation of a 50-horsepower Craig engine, 
with feathering propeller, all under the super¬ 
vision of the above architect. The name of 
the boat has been changed to Grace, and Mr. 
Morgan has left for an extensive cruise in 
Southern waters with hflis family and several 
guests, among whom are W. B. Long and 
W. T. H. Gray. 
Twenty-six Miles an Hour. 
The new power speed yacht building at Sea- 
bury & Co.’s yard for Julius Fleischman, of 
Cincinnati and a member of the New York 
Y. C., is to be fast. A speed of 26 miles an 
hour has been promised by the builders. This 
yacht will be one of the largest of her type yet 
built, and its work will be watched with interest. 
The general dimensions of the yacht are iii 
feet over all, 105 feet on the waterline, 12 feet 
beam and 4 feet 3 inches draft. It will be 
driven by three Speedway gasolene motors of 
six cylinders each and these will drive three 
propellers. 
Selected white oak has been selected for the 
keel, stem, stern and frames. The side stringers 
are of steel, the keelson of yellow pine, the 
deck stringers and sheer strake of galvanized 
steel plate. Five steel bulkheads are fitted. 
The engine girders are of steel plate and 
angles and the planking will be double, the 
outer being yellow pine. 
The deck house and the cabin trunk will be 
of mahogany. The saloon, which will also be 
the dining room, will be in the deck house for¬ 
ward, and this will be fitted with Pullman 
berths for use when required. There are two 
staterooms aft, each the full width of the 
vessel, which will be fitted with brass beds. A 
bathroom connects with these staterooms. The 
finish of the staterooms will be in butternut 
and the bathroom in white enamel. The galley 
is in the after end of the deck house. The craft 
will be lighted with electricity, and a powerful 
searchlight is to be placed on the deck house. 
The fuel tanks will hold 2,100 gallons. The 
contract calls for the delivery of the yacht by 
May I, but work is so far advanced that it will 
be ready before that date. 
Power ^ Boats at Springfield. 
The members of the Springfield Y. C. expect 
a busy season, as more than twenty new power 
boats are being built by members of their club. 
Among the yachtsmen who will fly owners’ 
flags over new boats at the opening of the sea¬ 
son are: A. R. Littlefield, Fred C. Hubbard, 
J. R. Gould, C. L. Woodward, Albert W. Gates, 
A. W. Bolles, W. O. Stanton, H. F. King, 
Charles D Hubbard, Dr. W. W. Swazey, Harry 
R. Painter and C. M. Woodward. 
Practically all of the yachts are of the same 
cabin design and of a type especially good for 
cruising both North and South, on the river 
and along the Sound. They are of about the 
same design as the cabin cruisers used in the 
rough shoal waters of the New Jersey coast. 
The length is about 32 feet on deck, 9 feet 
beam and 30 inches draft. The cabins are 20 
feet long, with 6-foot headroom and extend 
from the stem aft to the bridge deck, and are 
laid out with a large stateroom with two berths 
forward. The main cabin is open and con¬ 
tains the engine, and lockers on both sides for 
provisions, clothes, and batteries. Two com- 
panionways are in the cabin, one on each 
side of the steering wheel, which is on the 
bridge deck. 
To keep the cruisers dry in heavy seas and 
to gain room in the cabin, the decks forward 
are very full. This allows sufficient flare for¬ 
ward to throw the water either side. The boats 
are all for one-man handling 
Captain John Barr. 
Capt. John Barr, who died last week at his 
home in Marblehead, was best known among 
yachtsmen on this side of the Atlantic as the 
skipper of the Scotch cutter Thistle, cup chal¬ 
lenger in 1887, and of Gen. Charles J. Paine’s 
yacht Jubilee, which was built to defend the 
cup in 1893 and raced with Colonia, Vigilant 
and Pilgrim. He sailed many other yachts and 
sailed them all well, but it is always the records 
of the big boats that live longest. His best 
record in these waters, however, was made in 
the cutter Clara, when he won twenty-two races 
out of twenty-four starts, and later, when in 
Cinderella he sailed against the older cutter 
Clara and won eleven races. 
Capt. Barr was born in Glasgow in 1845, 
but when very young his parents moved to 
Gourouck on the Clyde. There young Barr, 
who had inherited a taste for the sea, amused 
himself with small boats and there he sailed his 
first race and began his yachting career. He 
was a success from the start, and in his first 
twelve years won an average of ten races a 
year, and all in small craft. He was fifteen 
years old when he sailed his first race. It was 
in a boat 18 feet long with a lug sail rig, and 
his father was crew. He used to fill in his 
spare time fishing, and when fishing was poor 
he learned the trade of boat building. He 
was ambitious for larger boats and built a boat 
named Gypsy, which had five seasons of good 
luck. This was followed with Gypsy Queen, a 
20-footer, which won almost everything. His 
next boat was a 2i-footer, built for cruising, 
and then came a 22-footer, which proved to be 
very fast. In 1866 the yacht Blanche went on 
the rocks near his home and Barr and his 
father bought her of the insurance men. The 
yacht was rebuilt and made a success as a 
racer, winning four out of five starts. The 
yacht Blanche was sold and a new yacht was 
built from Watson designs named Quairaing. 
This was the first of his really big successes, 
and in two seasons she won forty prizes out of 
fifty starts. This craft was the first to. have the 
lead ballast entirely on the outside of her keel. 
Two seasons in a Fife boat named Neptune 
followed and thirty-five prizes out of fifty starts 
were won. These races were all sailed in Scotch 
and Irish waters. The next yacht was the 40- 
tonner May, and she won twenty-four out of 
thirty-five races. A Watson boat named Ulerin 
took twenty-seven prizes out of twenty-nine 
starts, and then Barr took the Fife cutter Clara, 
a 20-tonner. 
The cutter Clara was brought here in 1885. 
She was owned by Charles Sweet, a London 
barrister, who was visiting New York for an 
indefifinite time, and Charles H. Tweed, a New 
York lawyer, who had a summer home at 
Beverly, Mass. It was on this cutter that 
Capt. Charles Barr, a brother of Capt. John, 
first came to this country and served in the 
crew. Capt. John crossed in a steamer and 
took charge of the yacht here. Clara proved 
to be almost invincible. She was a plank-on- 
edge type of yacht and sailed against the broad 
beam, shallow draft American centerboard craft 
so popular at that time. 
After his successes with Clara, Capt. Barr re¬ 
turned to his home and was then selected as 
skipper of Thistle, which had been built from 
Watson designs for a Scotch syndicate to try 
for America’s Cup. Thistle did well in home 
waters, winning thirteen out of fifteen races, 
but she was hopelessly beaten by Volunteer in 
the cup races. 
In 1889 Capt. Barr returned to this country 
with his family, settled at Marblehead and 
sailed Cinderella for Dr. W. Barton Hopkins. 
In this yacht he defeated hi§ old cutter 
Clara. In 1895-6 he had charge of Niagara, 
which Howard Gould had built by Herreshoff 
for racing in British waters, and Niagara took 
forty-one prizes out of fifty-three starts. Re¬ 
turning to this country, ne sailed Gloriana for 
one season, and then had other boats until_i903, 
when he had charge of Jubilee, a yacht designed 
by Gen. Paine, which was a compromise be¬ 
tween a finkeel and centerboard. Jubilee did 
well, but was not quite good enough to beat 
