506 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 26, 1910. 
tion to the new articles of association, which 
provide for the organization of local branches 
of the association, composed of five or more 
clubs, such sections constituting local divisions 
and the chairman of such a section becoming 
a vice-president and member of the council of 
the national association. One-half of the dues 
of the clubs forming the local sections are re¬ 
mitted by the association to the sectional body 
as a nest egg for its treasury, and as to all local 
matters the sectional body has full jurisdiction. 
It is the intention of the officers of the associa¬ 
tion to foster the local section idea, and it is 
hoped that your club will take the initiative and 
push the formation of a local section in your 
locality. 
“The officers of the association are also con¬ 
sidering the advisability of calling a meeting of 
the underwriters with a view of getting from 
them standard installation specifications, to 
which new boats built may conform and secure 
lower insurance rates. The secretary will be 
pleased to receive suggestions from you as to 
this matter also. 
“It is the hope of the officers of the associa¬ 
tion that a closer acquaintance between the 
clubs may be obtained and that your club will 
be perfectly free to take up with the secretary 
any matters that you think of importance or 
likely to promote the general interest of motor 
boat owners, and prompt attention will be given 
to all communications to the secretary.” 
For Restricted Motor Boat Classes. 
H. T. Koerner, who has recently been elected 
president of the American Power Boat Asso¬ 
ciation, is actively working to give motor boat 
racing the boom it has needed for some time. 
He has taken up several matters of importance 
to the sport and is giving much attention to de¬ 
tails that have been overlooked in the past, and 
he hopes soon to clear away all the troubles 
that have handicapped motor boat racing and 
arrange things to the satisfaction of all in¬ 
terested in the sport. In sizing up the situation 
recently, and suggesting remedies for trouble, 
Mr. Koerner said: 
“Why the sport of motor boat racing lan¬ 
guishes, except in well-known and clearly de¬ 
fined instances, has been a fruitful source of 
conjecture during the past two years. The 
meteoric rise of the sport and its more or less 
dormant state to-day cannot be explained away 
by difference or apathy or by a waning of in¬ 
terest on the part of either spectators or par¬ 
ticipants. 
"It is a fact that the sport has languished des¬ 
pite the phenomenal development of the motor 
boat as a means of convenience, pleasure or 
business. 1 he actual use of pbwer boats has 
progressed in astounding leaps and bounds, yet 
the craft devoted to racing and pleasure com¬ 
bined have dwindled in very perceptible num¬ 
bers. 
“Many reasons, as I have said, have been ad¬ 
vanced for this peculiar condition, but none is 
convincing. No sport should languish in the 
face of brilliant development in its own par¬ 
ticular sphere of activity unless abnormal and 
detrimental conditions are at the bottom of such 
a retrogression. 
“To make a hasty survey of the rise of gaso¬ 
lene-driven boat racing we need go back no 
more than ten years, when the small power 
boats, built on speed lines, made us gasp in as¬ 
tonishment at what we believed was well-nigh 
record speed, yet these early examples were cap¬ 
able of but twelve or thirteen miles an hour. 
Each year saw faster and finer lined boats 
launched, and the interest of the public kept 
pace with the new speeds developed. 
Naturally this development suggested a new 
line of sport. Motor boat clubs were founded 
by the dozen, and thousands of individuals be¬ 
came interested. The young mechanic, the arti¬ 
san, the clerk, the professional man, men of all 
occupations and shades of thought—but usually 
of modest means—became devotees of the fine 
snort. But this state of affairs was of very 
short duration. 
“The next few ( years saw the 22-mile boat 
make its debut, and the hundreds became scarce 
who ventured to play this increasing game of 
miles and cost. Twenty-four miles an hour 
came, and then others of the already dwindling 
lot fell away. So, when thirty miles and more 
were reeled off and the limit seemed nowhere 
in sight, most of the men who were pioneers of 
the game were put entirely out of the running. 
“The sport languished not because of lack of 
interest in lower speed boats—for a race of 
twenty-two to twenty-seven mile boats is as 
spectacular to the observer and as exhilarat¬ 
ing to the participant as a trial of speed of 
much faster craft—but because the men who 
loved the sport and doggedly played the game 
up to a certain point were discouraged by the 
ever-increasing cost and the precarious life of 
their boats as racers. 
The speed wonder of to-day was relegated to 
the shades to-morrow. The cost of the under¬ 
taking grew entirely out of proportion to the 
meagre results obtained, and the battle of rec¬ 
ords confined itself entirely to a very few men 
who cared little for expenses provided a victory 
was within reach. The man of moderate means 
was thereby put absolutely out of the game. 
“Even in the lower record boats the same 
conditions prevailed. A good sensible 40-footer 
developing thirty to thirty-two miles with a re¬ 
liable 75 horsepower engine became a back num¬ 
ber on the appearance of a freak 32-footer over¬ 
engined with a 100 horsepower motor. A race 
under such conditions entailed a shrinkage in 
value to the loser of hundreds of dollars in a 
day. The game became discouraging even to 
those that could still afford the expensive pas¬ 
time and who stuck to the sport despite the tre¬ 
mendous financial burden. 
“The past year proved no exception. Speed 
results increased, while the number of speed 
boats decreased. Exceptional races, like the 
gold challenge cup contests on the St. Law¬ 
rence, are and will be in evidence, and there is 
no flagging of interest in the competitions which 
the wonderful fliers entered therein naturally 
create. 
“But is a sport confined to such a few excep¬ 
tional instances in a healthy, normal condition? 
What becomes of the dozens of localities, the 
hundreds of boats, where racing saw its rise 
and fall? What of the men who have dropped 
out of the noble game and who would again be¬ 
come actively interested under different condi¬ 
tions and on more modest lines? Will a return 
even now to the conditions hitherto prevailing 
be entirely satisfactory? 
“I am emphatically of the opinion that it will 
not. In an experience extending over a decade 
the fact has become evident to me that nothing 
but scratch races fill all requirements. With 
the starting gun comes the thrill. And now, 
what can be done to produce races where all 
boats start on scratch, where any number of 
boats have an equal chance of victory? 
In my opinion there is but one thing that will 
revive the waning interest generally. That thing 
is the adoption of classified boats. Let there be 
several classes and let each class be restricted 
in length and volume of power. Let each class 
be so adjusted that a 26-foot boat shall not race 
with a 21-footer, but have no chance with a 32- 
foot boat. Let the volume of power be propor¬ 
tionate to the hull, and insist upon a boat, not 
a freak, in each class. 
“Under such conditions it is perfectly appar¬ 
ent that men will again enter into the true spirit 
of motor boat racing and buy such craft in the 
various classes in proportion to their means. It 
is also plain that when once they have entered 
into the class selected they will find many boats 
of like length and cylinder volume to race with. 
The freak cannot disturb them. It has no place 
under this arrangement. 
“The general adoption of this system of classi¬ 
fied boats will make locality and district rac¬ 
ing a certainty. It will produce a class of rac¬ 
ing men who will look into the refinements of 
hull and engine, and who will learn seamanship 
—which, in boats where power alone is the fac¬ 
tor, has been notoriously bad. 
“The adoption of standard sized boats for rac¬ 
ing will enormously increase the business of 
hull and engine building and all interests di¬ 
rectly connected with these industries, whereas 
it will in no measure affect the free-for-all con¬ 
tests in which the great fliers meet annually. 
The gold challenge cup races and other like 
events will be run with enlarged interest, stimu¬ 
lated by a general revival of racing interest. 
“The idea of standardizing motor boats was 
first brought to my attention last July by Clar¬ 
ence S. Sidway, of Buffalo, a racing man well 
known for his enthusiastic adherence to the 
sport even in the face of most discouraging con¬ 
ditions. 
“The American Power Boat Association re- 
lizing that an earnest effort must be made forth¬ 
with to rehabilitate the sport on scientific lines 
has now actively undertaken the task of reform. 
It has appointed a number of naval architects 
of national reputation to formulate a series of 
restricted classes of boats. 
This final standardization will be authorized 
by the council of the American Power Boat As¬ 
sociation after the most careful consideration 
and will be spread broadcast in a determined 
effort to arrest the downward course of power 
boat racing and to put the magnificent sport on 
the high plane to which it belongs. Then we 
must all work to keep it there.” 
Sparks. 
The racing catboat Romp has been sold by 
T. C. Hallsted, of Narragansett Bay, to W. 
Gilkenny, of the Edgewood Y. C. The yacht 
is to be equipped with a motor and converted 
into an auxiliary. 
Robert T. Fowler's new high-speed motor 
boat Kathmar was launched from her builder’s 
yards, the Luders Marine Construction Co., at 
Port Chester this week. She will fly the flag 
of the New Rochelle Y. C. 
A Boston yachtsman is negotiating with 
Herreshoff for a 70-foot motor boat which may 
be built in time for the opening of the season. 
F. B. Chesbrough, of Boston, is having a 
steel motor boat built by Seabury & Co. She 
will be 50 feet long, 10 feet 6 inches beam and 
equipped with a 6-cylinder 80 to 100 horsepower 
Speedway motor. 
Loantaka, owned by J. F. Peters, of Dover, 
N. J., has been entered in the Philadelphia- 
Havana motor boat race. This yacht is of the 
raised deck type, and is 74 feet over all, 14 feet 
beam, 4 feet 6 inches draft and is equipped 
with a 40-horsepower motor. 
Canoeing . 
A. C. A. Membership. 
NEW members proposed. 
Atlantic Division.—Raymond E. Margerum, 
278 Bellevue avenue, Trenton, N. J.; J. Leslie 
White, Morrisville, Pa.; Frank L. Muschert, 
Morrisville, Pa.; Gershom M. Howell, Morris¬ 
ville, Pa.; Aaron B. Young, Morrisville, Pa., 
and Harry J. Burns, Morrisville, Pa., all by 
Chas. E. Tyson; Walter L. Reeder, Borden- 
town, N. J., by Louis W. H. Wiese; Joseph 
Borden Reynolds, Bordentown, N. J., and 
Mahlon E. Wallace, Bordentown, N. J., both 
by Elmer B. Ayres. 
Eastern Division.—Clarence E, Page, 63 
Pennacock street, Manchester, N. H., by Edw. 
B. Stearns. 
Northern Division.—S. J. Chapleau, P. O. 
box 203, Ottawa, Ont., Can., by C. E. Britton. 
' NEW MEMBERS ELECTED. 
Atlantic Division.—5970, H. W. Davis. 59 
Hamilton avenue, Yonkers, N. Y.; 5971, Hugh 
Brooks, 59 Morningside avenue, New York 
city; 5968, Merle V. Cox, 2 Duane street, New 
York city. 
Eastern Division.—5969, Frank D. Jenks, 
Pratt & Whitney Co., Hartford, Conn. 
Western Division.—5966, Henry J. Goodrich, 
Highland Park, Ill.; 5967, George E. Moore, 
Highland Park, Ill. 
