342 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 2, 1907. 
The Motor Boat Show. 
The absence of the water tank at the late 
Motor Boat Show was considered a great im¬ 
provement. . There was much more room, more 
floor space available for exhibitors and permitted 
more freedom in moving about. 
The actual running qualities could never be 
satisfactorily demonstrated in such a small place 
as the waters of the artificial lake. By being 
high and dry on the floor, prospective buyers 
could “rubber neck” to their heart’s content at 
the keel, rudder, shoe, propeller, stuffing box, 
etc., and judge whether these vital parts to a 
launch were to their satisfaction or not. 
In less than an hour after the doors were 
opened on Tuesday, the first day of the show, the 
building was packed, and except for two or three 
booths not completed, might, to all appearances, 
have been running for a week. 
Everybody interested in boats was at this 
show one day or another. Commodores, ex-com¬ 
modores, captains, engineers, builders and the 
every day plain yachtsmen met here and shook 
hands and then went along the line of booths to 
see what new ideas had been perfected. 
There were all kinds of power boats and en¬ 
gines on the main floor and all sorts of acces¬ 
sory, in booths around the balcony, and each and 
all had its particular admirers. 
The booth of the Williams Whittlesey Co. had 
on exhibition five beautifully made little full 
models in glass cases. Four of them were of 
yachts they had already built, Horka, Aida, 
Lydia, Cactus II. -and the fifth represented the 
maximum size admissible for a motor boat and 
showed that company’s ideas for the layout of 
such a craft. One can see and appreciate the 
qualities of a boat when such a model is in front 
of one far better than by looking at plans. 
A set of other models, keel up, showed off 
their lines of the various types of boats. 
It was most amusing to see the various ex¬ 
hibits of jump sparks. One with six dry bat¬ 
teries demonstrated the intensity of the power 
stored in them by having two wires standing up 
in the air about a foot high and about half an 
inch apart. Across this gap the bluish lightning- 
like flashes snapped and cracked, forming a fiery 
ladder. Another exhibit had a wheel revolving, 
and the electricity playing around its circum¬ 
ference looked like a Coney Island Ferris wheel 
afar off. Others showed six spark connections 
and showed how regularly and faithfully the 
spark timed to explode the charge in each cylin¬ 
der took place. Snap! snap! snap! six times in 
succession the blue spark jumped in each com¬ 
partment as regular as clockwork. 
The largest boat shown was a hunting cabin 
launch 40ft. long exhibited by the Milton Point 
ship yard. She loomed up above the smaller 
surrounding boats like an elephant at a circus. 
Inside she was elaborately fitted up with all the 
luxuries possible, but from an outside view the 
type can hardly be said to be beautiful. Still 
“handsome is as handsome does” they say, and 
we cannot have everything in one boat. 
Adjoining this exhibit and facing the entrance 
was the familiar sign Elco spelled in incandescent 
lights calling attention to boats of the Electric 
Launch Co., of Bayonne, N. J., one of which 
was decorated with a row of red and white 
lights around the awning. 
Their exhibit included four boats done up in 
varnish so their decks looked glass coated. An 
electric 30-footer, a 40ft. motor boat showing 
many new ideas in arrangement, all the after 
part being given up to cabin or cockpit space 
with the motor way up forward under a hatch 
ventilated by a cowl on deck. • 
The Standard Motor Company, of Jersey City, 
exhibited one auto boat, but the great attraction 
was the 400 horsepower 6 cylinder engine that 
made the record in the launch Standard. 
To- one not initiated into motor mysteries it 
looked like about four machine shops condensed 
into one machine; but the way the eyes of the 
engineers sparkled when they gazed upon it 
convinced one that they, understanding such 
machines, had struck something good. It was 
crank shaft, eccentrics, bore, stroke, bearings, ex¬ 
haust and similar terms for yards around that 
monster machine. 
They had smaller machines set up, but the 
400 horsepower was the center of attraction. 
The Gas Engine and Power Company’s exhibit 
about in the center of the room consisted of 
four boats, one of which in particular deserved 
admiration, was a 35ft. motor boat planked with 
teak and of very pretty model, her engine being 
toward under hinged hatches and controlled 
from the after end of this hatch by levers, etc. 
Another 30ft. boat of the ordinary type and 
build painted white, and two—one all mahogany, 
one mahogany trimmed—yacht tenders 21ft. long, 
auto horn in the exhibit of C. 
the hall. 
one fitted with their old style gas engine, the 
other a gasolene driven boat. 
They also exhibited several Speedway engines. 
And what advancement one sees in the many 
displays of boats and engines! It does not seem 
many years ago that gasolene motors were first ex¬ 
hibited at the Garden. A small rough looking 
casting that not one man in twenty cared to stop 
and look at. Yet at this show one of the main 
attractions was an immense complicated mass of 
steel representing 400 horsepower that was the 
center' of an admiring circle of spectators. 
Four hundred horsepower to be instantaneously 
acquired by the flashing of an electric spark and 
then controlled and used in the engine with so 
little vibration that not even a flywheel is used 
to govern or steady it as this amount of energy 
is absorbed. 
In hulls, the shapes have changed as they will 
perhaps always keep on doing, varying to suit 
the different requirements as people and customs 
change. But for finish it does seem almost im¬ 
possible to get closer to perfection than the glass¬ 
like coating of transparent varnish over the 
decks of some of those boats at the Garden. 
And for cheapness, some builders are selling the 
finished product—boat, engine and all her fittings 
—for less money than one could purchase the 
materials alone for here. 
It was. truly a motor boat show, as every craft 
in the Garden, even down to canvas canoes, were 
fitted with those little “iron horses.” 
The exhibit of the Gas Engine and Power Co. 
and Chas. L. Seabury & Co. showed a line of 
Speedway engines, some of which were in opera¬ 
tion to demonstrate fhe noiseless running of 
the machines, that are, for their power, very com¬ 
pact and simple. 
The teak planked launch in their exhibit is 
as near perfection as we may expect to see boats 
built. When every cut, even to the ending of 
the half round battens on the sides show as 
clean as a razor cut, and the planks seams so 
tight you could not get a knife blade between 
them, yachtsmen are assured the rest of the work 
is on the same plan of excellency. 
The Mullins steel boats were represented in all 
styles from a large power launch to the small 
paddling canoe. 
The Truscott boats showed a great variety in 
styles of finish, some light oak, some dark oak, 
with the grain showing beautiful markings like 
a tiger skin. 
C. D. Durkee & Co. exhibited a full line of yg.cht 
hardware, and their ne v v patent yacht whistle, 
operated by one pull on the cord, screeched 
in echo to the growl and scream of the siren 
across 
F. Miller, 
C.d-0^ ,v 
CR1TIC5 AT THE MOTOR B0f\T 5H0W. 
