544 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 2, 1909. 
just as fair for an extra tax to be put on cigars 
and some inspector might come to you now 
and tell you to go and pay an extra 10 cents 
for the cigar you are smoking and for which 
you have already paid.” 
Block Island Catboats. 
An example of what the gasolene motor is 
doing is seen in the Block Island catboat. All 
of these craft now have power. There was a 
time not long ago when one would have as 
soon expected to see an engine in an American 
clipper ship as in a Block Island catboat. 
Famous in their way to more than one genera 
tion of island visitors, these big cats propelled 
by any other means than sail would once have 
seemed to lose half their romance if not more. 
Now they all have auxiliary engines. 
The first of these boats to have an engine 
installed in her was thus equipped ten years 
ago, and throughout one entire season she re¬ 
mained the only boat with power. I he en¬ 
gines were rather costly and their utility more 
or less in doubt, and other owners thought they 
would wait a little and see how the catboat 
with an engine in her came out. There was no 
doubt remaining at the end of the season, for 
throughout the summer the cat with an engine 
in her had the cream of the trade m fishing 
and sailing parties, with all the business she 
could handle, because people that went out in 
her knew they were going to get back. 
In the old days when the party came down 
in the early morning to go bluefishing, perhaps 
there was no wind and they had to wait, or they 
might start with wind aplenty and be becalmed 
an hour or two later and maybe-not get back 
till night, but the boat with an engine could go 
and come when she would and people flocked 
to her. The next season half the boats at the 
island had engines in them, and by the third 
season pretty much all had been thus -equipped. 
A boat without an engine was practically out of 
the business. . , , . .. 
And after all the engines detracted little 11 
anything from the boat’s fine appearance. The 
big catboats here referred to are those used 
through the summer for carrying out visitors 
and to some extent before and after for 
straight fishing purposes. They are from 31 
to 32 feeit in length, heavily built, weatherly 
boats and not only beamy, but deep. 
There may be Block Island way a sloop or 
two used for swordfishing without an engine, 
but power is the rule. All the fishing catboats 
have engines. They sail when they can. and, if 
the wind dies down, 'they don t wait; they start 
the engine and come home when they want to. 
There are now at Block Island one or two, per¬ 
haps more, fishermen using boats without a 
mast, no sail at all, power only. 
While- the smaller fishing boats here, as well 
as the pleasure boats, almost all now have en¬ 
gines, the Block Island fishing schooners now 
all carry auxiliaries, and thus they are all able 
to come and go when they want to without 
loss of time; and when you have seen the 
skipper of a Block Island fishing schooner 
handle his vessel under power you j begin to 
think -that an engine in a boat isn’t such a 
prosaic matter-of-fact, cold blooded thing after 
all. 
Along in the afternoon you see the big cat- 
boats out with pleasure parties coming in along 
shore, under sail, and heeling over to it just 
as you see them in pictures and in life, until 
they have come near to the narrow, breakwater- 
protected entrance to the harbor; and then 
they start their engines and, without beating 
in as they might otherwise have had to do, they 
come the rest of the way under power, with 
certainty and dispatch. 
The smaller fishing boats, carts and sloops, 
come in just the same way, and then you may 
see in the offing, making for the harbor, a Block 
Island fishing schooner, with everything set and 
drawing well, and coming along as gayly as a 
fine schooner yacht; and so till she’s half a mile 
off the breakwater, and then you see her jibs 
go down, and then foresail and mainsail. But 
still she keeps a-coming; they’ve started her 
kicker, and she answers her helm just the same, 
and now she’s rounded into the channel and is 
making for the harbor -entrance. 
In the Block Island Harbor, most frequented 
by pleasure boats and by -the fishermen, there 
isn’t room for the boats to lie all broadside to 
bulkhead or wharf. The pleasure boats, moored 
bow and stern, lie along the bulkhead side of 
the harbor with their bows to the s'trmgpiece; 
the smaller fishing boats come up in the same 
way with their bows to the fishhouse wharf, 
and on the other side of 'the harbor the 
schooners lie side by side along in, a tiei 
moored bow and stern, with their sterns to the 
wharf. From the schooners, for the little dis¬ 
tance necessary to go, they go ashore in a dory, 
and they take their catch ashore to the fish 
wharf in the same way. 
And now here is that schooner coming into 
the harbor, and at the schooner wharf there s 
a berth for her between two other schooners, a 
berth just wide enough for her but no more; 
and in this little harbor, not very much more 
than big enough to turn a schooner around in, 
how is the skipper going to turn his vessel 
around here and then back her into that berth 
where there’s just room for him and no more, 
just watch him and see him do it. 
On these fishing schooners they have, of 
course, as engine room and they carry an en- 
gineer, and from the engine room runs a signal 
wire with a hand pull attached to it secured to 
a little stanchion rising from the deck along¬ 
side the wheel aft. And at the wheel the 
skipper stands, with one hand on the spokes 
and the other on the hand pull of the engine 
room wire, and just as quietly and easily as 
you would turn the leaves of -a book he turns 
ithe spokes of the wheel with one hand, while 
with the other he pulls on the hand pull and his 
signals are answered promptly in the engine 
room. And as you stand on the wharf and 
look at the schooner you see her swinging 
around very quickly and easily, and the first 
thing you know the skipper has got her 
straightened out in line with the berth he is 
now going to back into. 
Now he does not back her, and he comes into 
that narrow berth stern first, so true and 
straight that he scarcely chafes the fenders 
hanging over the schooner on either side; and 
he keeps her coming that way till she brings up 
gently on the anchor that men have got over 
forward, her bow mooring. At the same time 
there’s a man making for the wharf in a dory 
with a line from the schooner from one quarter, 
and when he has made that line fast the skipper, 
standing on deck, hands him a line from the 
other quarter and the dory man makes that fast 
on the wharf. And now there s the schooner 
all snug and secure, and brought in as handily 
and easily as if she’d been a catboat. 
Yacht Racing to End To-day. 
The yacht racing season will come to an end 
to-day with races for motor boats and small 
sailing craft on Newburgh Bay. These races are 
under the auspices of the Hudson-Fulton cele¬ 
bration committee. The regatta was arranged 
by the commission early in the year. It would 
have- been a greater success if the commission 
had consulted with some yachtsmen before mak¬ 
ing its plans. A regatta was wanted somewhere 
on the Hudson, and Newburgh was selected 
The yachtsmen, owners of large boats did not 
car-e to take their vessels up the Hudson, and so 
only small boats will take part. Had the com¬ 
mittee consulted with the Gravesend Bay As¬ 
sociation, a fine regatta could have been 
arranged to be sailed at the mouth of the Hud¬ 
son, and there is no doubt that yachtsmen would 
have kept their boats in commission for this week. 
Bayside Y. C. Records. 
E. Andrews, Jr., has figured out the results 
of the season’s racing of the Bayside Y. C. 
which are as follows: 
May 31.—Peggy, first; Adios, second; Edna 
J., third; Alberta, fourth; Tiger Lily, fifth. 
June 5.—Kiddo, first; Adios, second; Peggy, 
third; Edna J., fourth. 
FIRST SERIES. 
June 12.—Edna J., first; Adios, second, Peggy, 
third; Kiddo, fourth; Alberta, fifth. 
June 19.—Edna J., first; Kiddo, second; 
Adios, third. 
SECOND SERIES. 
July 3.—Kiddo, first; Edna J., second; Peggy, 
third. 
July 5, a. m.— Kiddo, first; Adios, second; 
Edna J., third. 
July s, p. m.—K iddo, first; Adios, second; 
Peggy, third; Edna J., fourth. 
THIRD SERIES. 
July 10.—Kiddo, first; Peggy, second; Edna 
J., third; Adios, fourth; Alberta, fifth. 
July 17.—Kiddo, first; Peggy, second; Edna 
J., third; Adios, fourth. (Ladies’ race.) 
July 31— Kiddo, first. First annual cruise. 
FOURTH SERIES. 
Aug. 7.—Peggy, first; Kiddo, second; Edna 
J., third; Adios, fourth. 
FIFTH SERIES. 
Aug. 14.—Kiddo, first; Peggy, second; Adios, 
third; Edna J., fourth. 
Aug. 21.-—Adios, first; Edna J., second; 
Kiddo, third; Peggy, fourth; Tiger Lily, fifth 
SIXTH SERIES. 
Aug. 28.—Peggy, first; Kiddo, second; Edna 
T., third; Adios, fourth. 
Sept. 4.—Edna J., first; Peggy, second; Kiddo 
third; Adios, fourth. (Skippers’ race.) 
SEVENTH SERIES. 
Sept. 6.—Kiddo, first; Edna J., second; Peggy 
third. 
Sept. 11,—Kiddo, first; Edna J., second 
Adios, third; Peggy, fourth. (Fall regatta.) 
Sept, ii.-—I nvader, first; Elihu, second 
(Handicap class, fall regatta.) 
The records of the four leading boats in th 
one-design class, including the ladies race air 
the skippers’ race when they were not sailed b 
their owner, is as follows: 
Firsts. Seconds. Thirds. Fourth: 
Kiddo . 9 2 1 
PcEfsrv .. 3 2 
Ed g n S a y j. 2 4 5 3 
Adios . 1 6 1 
The one-design class season series has bee 
hotly contested and the result of the work a 
the entire summer was in doubt up to the firmi 
gun of the last race, when the two leading boa 1 
finished thirty-two seconds apart. If their orde 
in the last race had been reversed, the season 
work would have resulted in a tie between Kidd' 
and Peggy, but it was not. The summary f( 
the season: 
Point 
Kiddo, A. C. Andrews. 
Edna J., J. E. Hill.. fj 
Adios, C. L. Willard. 
A tie between Edna J. and Kiddo is to j 
sailed off for the June cup. Kiddo wins tl 
July cup. A tie between Peggy and Kiddo 
to be sailed off for the August cup. 
The ladies’ race of July 17 was won by Mi 
McBride. Second, Mrs. Louis C. Berrian. 
The handicap series was won by Invad 
(Shirley Guard) with F. J. (Frederic Floy 
Jones) second. 
Sumida Going South. 
New Class of 46-Footers. 
As soon as the Hudson-Fulton celebrations 
are over, Commodore F. M. Wilson and a few 
friends are going to cruise south in the yacht 
Sumida. They will go through the canals into 
Chesapeake Bay, and after some fishing and 
shooting there, will go on as far as Jackson¬ 
ville, where Sumida will winter. 
Several yachtsmen are talking of a new r 
foot class for next season. It is not cert.' 
vet if it will be a one-design class, but the n- 
bioats will be similar in size to Adventure, 
built by Herreshoff for Chester C. Runw, 
and which under certain conditions showed n - 
self to be a very fast boat. 
