742 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May ii, 1907. 
Boston Letter. 
The largest of her type in all the world, the 
auxiliary three-masted schooner yacht Alcyone, 
was successfully launched at the Lawley yard, 
Tuesday, April 30, without any ceremony other 
than the enthusiastic applause of the many on¬ 
lookers who crowded the sea wall and many of 
the yachts in the basin. Her owner, Mr. Henry 
W. Putnam, Jr., of New York, was not present, 
and no long line of “dead soldiers” marks the 
quiet plunge into, the sea, but Alcyone floats 
happily in the basin, high above her designed 
iines and dwarfing all the neighboring yachts by 
the vastness, the every graceful vastness of her 
bulk. When her masts have been stepped, rigging 
set up, furnishings and stores stowed away, she 
should come down to her true waterline. This 
fact and the height of her spars will give her 
proportion and perspective so that, once out of 
the confined area of the basin, she will be ad¬ 
mittedly the beauty that she really is. 
Her dimensions are, 180ft. over all, 140ft. 
load waterline, 30ft. extreme breadth, and 15it. 
draft. She will have a reciprocating engine of 
350 horsepower and a moderate sail plan and 
was designed by Messrs. Tams, Lemoine & 
Crane. 
News of importance to all yachtsmen of this 
vicinity is derived from a circular just issued 
by the majority of the yacht builders of Boston 
and its environs. It discloses the fact that tne 
Lawdey Corporation, the Murray & Tregurtha 
Co., the John Stuart Co., the Baker Yacht Basin, 
the David Fenton Co., Stearns & McKay, Bur¬ 
gess & Packard, F. and R. James, J. H. Frazier, 
J. W. James, P. J. Emery, James E Graves, A. 
Fenton, and David Fenton have entered into a 
combination to raise the charges for storing 
yachts and to maintain a uniform rate for such 
service. It will be seen that the subscribers in¬ 
clude all the South Boston and Hull yards, all 
but one at Marblehead and Manchester, two at 
Quincy, one at Wollaston, and one at Gloucester. 
1 lie rate agreed upon is two cents per square 
foot per month, the area charged for being found 
by multiplying the length by the breadth. 
Much may be said in justification of this move. 
A flat charge of so much “per season” is indefi¬ 
nite and the old rates may often have been in¬ 
adequate. The prices of materials and labor have 
advanced so much faster of late than has the 
yachtsman’s willingness to pay large sums for 
his boats that all the yards have been driven to 
accept smaller and smaller profits on new work, 
recouping themselves on repairs and storage 
charges. And they naturally see in the effected 
combination a chance to turn a little profit that 
one or two yards alone could not have made in 
competition with a more open market. 
Much may also be said against the new scale. 
Compare the relative advantages of hauling out 
at Lawley’s and at Hull, where there are no 
Sunday trains from November 1 to. May 1, no 
steamers at all between those dates, and poor 
enough train service on week days. In such a 
light the scale becomes as absurd as would an 
agreement between the landlords of the Back 
Bay and Hull to- charge the same rent for a six¬ 
teen room house on Commonwealth avenue and 
one of the same size on Telegraph Hill. The 
yacht builders of Hull, Quincy, Manchester, 
Gloucester and Marblehead are taxed less for 
their land than is the Lawley Corporation, and 
boats hauled out at their yards are very much 
less accessible to the purchasing world than are 
those stored in South Boston. Such men can 
afford to. charge less than Lawlev and, giving a 
less valuable service than does his concern and 
the Murray & Tregurtha Co., in decency they 
should charge less than the South Boston yards. 
Gentlemen of Marblehead, Gloucester, Manches¬ 
ter, Quincy, Wollaston and Hull, let me give 
you a tip. Messrs. Lawley, Murray and Tre¬ 
gurtha have placed as nice a little lemon in your 
hands as the financial side of yachting ever wit¬ 
nessed, by merely appealing to your avarice. 
Rates being equal everywhere the yachtsmen who. 
wish to sell and the yachtsmen who wish to have 
their boats near their Boston homes will all here¬ 
after winter their boats in the shadow of the 
South Boston heights, and you will winter only 
the yachts of your local yachtsmen and those 
others to whom you may surreptitiously give a 
cut rate. And if you were really eager to get 
Lawley prices, think well before you take the 
next step and agree to charge as much for new 
boats as does the Wizard of South Boston. You 
might like to get his prices, but pause! Perhaps 
he might like to get your business. 
A certain Boston restaurateur made a name 
and fortune for himself by cutting his pies into 
five quarters. It will be interesting to see if 
by packing the bow of one boat in between those 
of two others the yards can earn two charges 
upon the same foot of ground space. We all 
know that in many yards the boats are closer 
together than would be possible if they carried 
their extreme breadth throughout their entire 
length. 
Consider also the far-sighted wisdom of the 
framers of the universal rule. How they have 
been objurgated! And for what? Did they not 
foresee the present situation and do. their utmost 
to drive us to short-ended, narrow models that 
would he capable of economical storing? They 
did their best surely, but I fear that history holds 
little place for them. Will not the future yachts¬ 
man command his designer thus: “Build me a 
boat that will rate well under the storage rule.” 
Prizes, no doubt, will be offered for the $8 per 
month class and the $90 a year class, etc. 
For a winter season of seven months, based 
on these rates, charges would be as follows: 
Fifty-eight foot launch, Standard, $60.90; 21ft. 
sloop, Little Haste, $59.21 ; 25ft. sloop, Louise, 
$60.20; 40ft. cutter. Papoose, $ 77 ; 56ft. launch, 
Jule I., $8075; 30ft. yawl, Tanager, $94.50, and 
25ft. sloop, Sally VII., $95. Hauling out, launch¬ 
ing, rigging, dismantling, etc., will be charged 
for in addition to the storage charges, but a dis¬ 
count of 33 1/3 ner cent, will be made for yachts 
stored “outside.” Even at this rate the charge 
for storage of such a yacht as the 67ft. launch 
Naoma, $75.04, would nearly equal the charge 
heretofore made, $80, for hauling her out, stor¬ 
ing and launching her. 
The great majority of yachtsmen are always in 
favor of prosperous yards and wish only success 
to their owners, but how they will view a com¬ 
bination to raise prices, even , when disguised 
under the name of a uniform scale, remains toi 
be seen. 
Mr. B. B. Crowninshield has sold an interest 
in his new 22-rater Essex to Mr. John G. Alderr 
who has charge of the brokerage department of 
the Crowninshield office and who will act as 
Essex’s understudy skipper. 
The Boston Y. C. has joined the Ouincy Y. C. 
in challenging the Corinthian Y. C. for the Quincy 
challenge cun and the match, with sonderklasse 
boats, will consequently be a three-cornered 
fight. William Lambert Barnard. 
Two Views of the Same Yacht. 
Only too often has a coat of fresh paint made 
an old, rickety, rotten hull look smooth and in- 
INEXPERIENCE LENDS ENCHANTMENT TO THE VIEW.' 
viting to the amateur yachtsman, while the build- i 
ers know her to be so. far gone she is about ready 
to fall to pieces. 
Istalena, Mr. George M. Pynchon’s new 57- 
rater, the first of the new New York Y. C. one- 
design boats, built by Herreshoff, to be launched, 
was given a trial sail about Bristol Harbor onj 
Thursday, May 2, and in the light breezes that 
prevailed at that time she proved very satis¬ 
factory not only to. her owner, but also to Mr. 
H. F. Lippitt who will own the second boai 
Winsome, as she is called, when she is put over 
about May 20. Commodore Cornelius Vander¬ 
bilt w'ill receive his, the Aurora, the third oi 
this class and last one now building, about June 1 
All three are expected to meet for their first 
contest in the New York Y. C. spring regatta 
on June 13 at Glen Cove. They are typical 
Herreshoff in appearance, the only difference 
from ordinary is the extremely long lower mast 
and very short topmast and bowsprit. 
