Some News and a Little Gossip. 
It is not at all unlikely that the race for 
sailing boats to Bermuda next season will be 
started from Boston. The start was made from 
Marblehead in 1908, when Dervish won the 
race, and since then the race has been handled 
by the Atlantic Y. C. and started from of? Sea 
Gate. Eastern yachtsmen have always patron¬ 
ized this race well, and of the two starters last 
year one, the Shiyessa, was from Boston, and 
naturally eastern men think that it is their turn 
to manage the long distance event. The Boston 
Y. C. would like to have the race, and it might 
make the start from Boston instead of Hull or 
Marblehead. Thomas Fleming Day, who first 
promoted the race and who represents the 
Royal Bermuda Y. C. has been in conference 
with the Boston Y. C. officials and he favors 
some eastern port as the starting place next 
season. C. W. Chapin and T. W. Powell, mem¬ 
bers of the Boston Y. C., are. to visit Bermuda 
shortly and talk things over with the yachtsmen 
there. It is understood that the Bermuda men 
are in favor of the race being started from 
Boston. 
The auxiliary three-masted schooner Visitor 
II., owned by W. Harry Brown, of Pittsburg, 
had the distinction of being the first pleasure 
craft to navigate the Panama Canal as far as 
is at present possible. The Visitor, with some 
friends of the owner, is cruising in the Gulf of 
Mexico and later is to visit the West Indies. 
On Nov. 23 the yacht went up the canal from 
Colon as far as the Gatun Lock and returned. 
In the party on board were Mr. Brown, Col. 
Goethals, William Diehl, formerly Mayor of 
Pittsburg; Capt. Scott, Harry Paul, H. W. Wil¬ 
liams, D. Gillespie, C. W. Taylor, John Phillips, 
Congressman J. Barchfield, and some others. 
The first winter meeting of the Waterway 
League of New Jersey was held last week. 
After a brief preliminary session devoted to 
business, Capt. Howard Patterson made an ad¬ 
dress. Capt. Patterson is principal of the New 
York Nautical College and a former officer in 
the United States Navy, being an Annapolis 
graduate. His talk was intended as an intro¬ 
duction to a series of six lectures which the 
league will have during the winter, provided 
the members support them properly. Capt. 
Patterson talked of the compass and its history. 
He pointed out the distinction between the 
geographical pole of the earth and the mag¬ 
netic pole, the magnetic pole being at latitude 
70° N. and longitude 97 0 W. The variations of 
the compass needle when nearer or further from 
the line of no variation were explained and ac¬ 
counted for; and the differences between the 
three terms used—variation, deviation and local 
attraction—were made clear. Capt. Patterson’s 
address was full of telling side remarks, and at 
its close he was heartily applauded and given a 
rising vote of thanks. 
At the business session resolutions were 
adopted condemning the practice of bridge 
tenders in keeping the bridge draws closed for 
long periods, and the league was authorized to 
prosecute offenders. An informal report was 
submitted on the proposed sea level ship canal 
across the State from Raritan Bay to Borden- 
town. It was announced that the membership of 
the league is now 221, and the members were 
urged to bring in new members in order that 
the power and influence of the league might 
be enhanced. 
The annual meeting and election of officers 
of the Brooklyn Y. C. will be held at the Hotel 
Knickerbocker next Wednesday. The ticket 
nominated is as follows: Commodore, William 
Randolph Hearst; Vice-Commodore, Alfred C. 
Sopej - , Rear-Commodore, Conrad V. Dykeman; 
Treasurer, Willard Graham; Secretary, John G. 
Faist; Measurer, Edson B. Schock; Trustees 
(for three years), William C. Towen, Daniel A. 
Hawkins, Charles I. McLaughlin; for one year, 
Frank A. Fox. Regatta Committee—Peter 
Bentley, Harvey B. Griffen, Daniel J. Toffey. 
Membership Committee—Curtis Bell. Rentsen 
S. Mills, Edward J. Steiner. Nominating Com¬ 
mittee, William H. Fleming, Charles E. Sim¬ 
mons, William A. Kerr. 
A new one-design class has been organized 
by members of the American Y. C. The object 
of the class is to develop yachting and a fond¬ 
ness for racing among the junior members of 
the club and the sons of members and to pro¬ 
vide boats of a type which has been demon¬ 
strated seaworthy, safe and speedy. The new 
boats are very similar in model to the “bug” 
class of Manhasset Bay. They have been de¬ 
signed by William Gardner, and their dimen¬ 
sions are 2 feet 3 inches over all, 15 feet 3 inches 
on the waterline, 5 feet 7 inches beam and 3 
feet 4 inches draft. They will spread 260 square 
feet of canvas and cost $200 each. Twelve have 
already been ordered, and it is expected that 
the fleet will be much larger when the next 
sason opns. Some members of other clubs are 
thinking of purchasing boats, and if they do, 
some inter-club racing will be arranged. 
Stuyvesant Wainwright has organized the syndi¬ 
cate, and those who have already ordered boats 
are George D. Barron, John Hallett Clark, J.' 
Temple Gwathmey, William Samuel Johnson, J. 
M. Macdouough, Mulford Martin, George 
Mercer, PI. deB. Parsons, Dr. C. F. Wolff, Mrs. 
William G. Nichols and Stuyvesant Wainwright. 
B. B. Crowninshield has designea a one-de¬ 
sign class for the summer residents of Isleboro, 
Me., which boats will be similar in many ways 
to the Manchester and North Haven classes, al¬ 
though much improved. They are 25 feet over 
all and carry 311 square feet of canvas. They 
will be built this winter and next season sailed 
against the North Haven boats. Boston and New 
York men are prominent in establishing this 
new classe. 
Frederick T. Adams, formerly commodore of 
the Atlantic Y. C., and afterward of the Larch- 
mont Y. C., died last Saturday. He had been 
ill three weeks with pneumonia. It was largely 
through his efforts that the Atlantic Y. C. was 
able to move from Bay Ridge to Sea Gate, 
where it built its present home. Commodore 
Adams helped finance the scheme and carried 
it through to success. He was vice-commodore 
of the Atlantic Y. C. when Commodore George 
J. Gould was senior flag officer, and as the com¬ 
modore was abroad racing Vigilant, Vice-Com¬ 
modore Adams was acting commodore. When 
Mr. Gould declined a renomination, Mr. Adams 
was chosen commodore and he worked hard in 
the club’s interests, and it was during his regime 
that ocean racing was revived, and which has 
since grown wonderfully in popularity. 
While the Atlantic fleet was at Shelter 
Island an ocean race was planned. The schoon¬ 
ers Sachem, Katrina, Coronet and Hildegarde 
started to sail to Sea Gate. When the four 
passed in by the Romer Beacon, a little over 
two minutes separated the first and last of the 
quartet. Katrina won and Sachem took second 
prize. Afterward Commodore Adams was 
chosen as senior flag officer of the Larchmont 
Y. C. 
He first owned the sloop Espirito and after¬ 
ward the schooner Sachem, which had twice 
won a Goelet cup. Commodore Adams when a 
young man went fo sea because he had a fond¬ 
ness for the water. He shipped before the mast 
and rose to become first officer of a Pacific 
mail steamer. Then he returned to New York 
and established a brokerage business in which 
he was active until the .time of his death. His 
father was a banker. 
He made an ideal commodore, and knowing 
thoroughly seamanship, had his yacht kept in 
the finest possible shape, and always well 
handled. Sachem was a favorite vessel with all 
•yachtsmen. Her owner was a knightly enter¬ 
tainer. After Commodore Adams retired from 
office he sold the schooner and purchased a 
motor boat, which he named Sachem II. He 
used that vessel on the Hudson off Coxsackie, 
where he had an estate and laughingly used to 
tell his friends that he had become a farmer 
and raised the finest buckwheat in the country. 
Captain Thomas Bohlen, one of the best 
known of the Gloucester fisherman and who 
has also sailed yachts, died last week while on 
his way to Birchy Cove, Newfoundland. He 
was on the schooner Avalon with Capt. Whar¬ 
ton and was going to Birchy Cove for medical 
treatment. 
Capt. Bohlen had been ill for some time of 
kidney disease, but decided to go to Newfound¬ 
land this season, taking command of the 
schooner Constellation. 
His fame was countrywide. He had been 
taken 'as the hero by many a novelist who 
sought to depict the Gloucester fisherman 
master. He was born in Sweden about sixty 
years ago and when a young man came to this 
country. He had been bred to the sea and was 
familiar with the navigator’s calling. He' be¬ 
came master of some of the finest clipper 
schooners and was most successful in landing 
remunerative fares. In the dead of winter in the 
teeth of a gale Capt. Bohlen would drive his 
craft for home to market in weather in which 
the average skipper would heave to. 
When the trans-Atlantic race for the Kaiser’s 
cup in 1905 was announced. Dr. Lewis A. Stim- 
son engaged Capt. Bohlen to fit out and sail 
his schooner Fleur de Lys. Capt. Bohlen 
rigged the yacht as the Gloucester fishermen 
are and he drove her across the Atlantic through 
gale after gale, and although Fleur de Lys did 
not win, she was credited with having made 
the best day’s run in the race. 
Isaac Stern, the New York merchant who 
died last Saturday, was a member of the New 
York Y. C., and owned the steam yacht Vir¬ 
ginia, which was built from designs by the late 
George Watson. Mr. Stern made many long 
cruises in the Virginia and had often crossed 
the Atlantic. 
L. D. Huntington, Jr., for twenty years 
prominently identified with, yachting as a de¬ 
signer and builder, has given up both entirely 
to enter partnership with Stanley M. Seaman, 
under the firm name of Seaman & Huntington, 
operating strictly a general yacht brokerage 
business with offices 220 Broadway, New York 
city. 
To Prevent Ships Rolling. 
A device exhibited before the annual con¬ 
gress of the German Marine Engineers’ Soci¬ 
ety in Berlin by Herr Frahm is intended to de¬ 
crease the rolling and pitching of ocean liners. 
The apparatus consists of U-shaped tanks ex¬ 
tending through the hold of the vessel, which 
admit water, which rises and falls as the ship 
rolls, thus steadying her. Tests of this device 
made on two steamers plying between German 
ports and Buenos Ayres reduced their rolling 
from eleven to two degrees. 
