984 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. i 7, 1910. 
Royal Yacht for Sale. 
It is stated that the Republican Government 
of Portugal, having no use to which they can 
put the royal yacht Amelia, which King Manuel 
sent back to Lisbon after his safe arrival at 
Gibraltar, have decided to offer the vessel for 
sale by auction. She cost £85,000 at the time 
she was built in 1900, and is a handsome vessel, 
according to Shipping Illustrated. Her builders 
were the well-known firm of Ramage & Fergu¬ 
son, Leith, and she was originally known as the 
Banshee. She is of steel, with two screws, two 
funnels, two pole masts and a ram bow. Her 
displacement tonnage is 1,240, length 229 feet 
6 inches, beam 29 feet 6 inches, draft 15 feet 
5 inches. Engines of 1.800 i.h.p. give her a sea 
speed of 14 knots. While commissioned as a 
royal yacht she was manned by the only royal 
crew in the whole Portuguese Navy, and as 
soon as she returned to Lisbon, after landing 
King Manuel at Gibraltar, her officers were re¬ 
lieved of their command and the crew paid off. 
As regards the future of the rortuguese Navy, 
it is reported that as a result of the setting up 
of a Republican Government, a position of 
affairs has arisen which cannot fail to have an 
interest for international jurists. The late 
Royalist Government had for some months 
been negotiating contracts in connection with 
the reform and development of the Portuguese 
Navy and the country’s defenses. Some of these 
contracts were signed, and a number more were 
ready for signature; but the new government 
are disposed to regard much of the expenditure 
they involve as unnecessary. It is possible, of 
course, that some sort of settlement may be 
arrived at, but indications are not in that direc¬ 
tion at present. 
Sale of Kanawha. 
The fast steam yacht Kanawha has been pur¬ 
chased by A. Baudouine, of the New York Y. 
C., and will be seen in commission next season. 
Kanawha is a popular favorite because she has 
considerable speed, and when owned by the late 
Henry H. Rogers was often tried against some 
of the fastest vessels on the coast. She is 227 
feet over all, 192 feet on the waterline, 24 feet 
6 inches beam, 14 feet 10 inches depth and 10 
feet draft. She has twin screws and is driven 
by two sets of triple expansion engines. 
She was built by Charles L. Seabury & 
Company for John P. Duncan in 1899. and 
two years later on the death of Mr. Duncan was 
purchased by Mr. Rogers, who used her for 
cruising off the coast and particularly to run 
to his summer home at Fairhaven, New Bed¬ 
ford. Kanawha could leave here in the evening 
and land Mr. Rogers at Fairhaven the next 
morning. 
She won the Lysistrata cup, offered by James 
Gordon Bennett for steam yacht racing. The 
first race for this trophy was off Newport 
on July 24, 1903, over a triangular course 
sixty miles in length. Kanawha defeated the 
Noma, owned by W. B. Leeds, by 4 minutes 
and 56 seconds. The next year F. M. Smith’s 
Hauoli raced with Kanawha for the cup. The 
course was thirty miles out and return of Sandy 
Hook, and the Kanawha won by 3 minutes 29 
seconds. In that race Kanawha averaged a 
little better than twenty knots. The cup then 
became the property of Mr. Rogers. 
Thrilling Yachting Experience. 
, On Friday, Sept. 2 , at 1 p. m., the yacht 
Gwalia, whose station when out of commission 
is Pleybridge Basin, near Maldon, Essex, was 
towed out of Ymuiden (the entrance port to the 
sea canal by which large steamers up to 700 
feet in length can proceed to Amsterdam). The 
owner, Mr. John E. Matthews, of Slough 
House, Danbury, had sailed her across to Rot¬ 
terdam some four or five weeks earlier, and 
after a cruise on the Dutch Canals and the 
Zuider Zee was returning to the river Black- 
water, according to The Yachtsman. Gwalia is 
a barge yacht of 115 tons yacht measurement, 
and was formerly owned by the late Right Hon. 
H. O. Arnold Forester and Mr. Wylie the 
artist, the yacht then bearing the name of 
Four Brothers. She afterward came into pos¬ 
session of a gentleman living at Bangor, North 
Wales, 'who altered her name to Gwalia 
(Wales), and Mr. Matthews, who is himself of 
Welsh descent, and had a branch office of his 
business (shipowner) at Bute street. Cardiff, for 
about 20 years, has preferred to retain the name 
Gwalia. The following details of Gwalia's 
terrible experience form a thrilling chapter: 
On reaching the sea outside Ymuiden and 
casting off the tug’s towrope, there was not 
sufficient wind (then blowing from the S.W.) to 
enable her to make head against it, so she 
drifted northward on a slack tide. An hour or 
two later the wind freshened, and the Gwalia 
making a long leg and a short one, tacked 
some miles to the southward of her port of de¬ 
parture, the wind freshening all the time. To¬ 
wards dusk the sky, which had clouded over, 
looked somewhat threatening, with occasional 
rain squalls. Altogether it looked promising 
for a dirty night, and as we had no port on our 
way that we could make nearer than the Hook 
of Holland, 30 miles distant, we decided to run 
back to Ymuiden, where we brought up in a 
snug berth under the shelter of the southern 
breakwater in the outer harbor in about 3)4 
fathoms. The wind was then blowing fresh 
from the S. W., but the glass was high, the 
barometer having dropped only the fractional 
part of a tenth, and knowing that we had good 
ground tackle, we set our riding light and 
turned in without any misgiving. On the morn¬ 
ing of Saturday, the 3d inst., we turned out in 
bright sunshine to find the wind had veered to 
the N. W., and though it had increased in 
strength and we were now facing the sea, which 
rolled through the entrance and gave us a heavy 
pitching, we were not at all anxious, as the 
glass had now recovered the small fraction 
lost, and by hook and experience the wind 
should continue to veer to the N. and N. E. We 
therefore declined the offer of a tug to tow us 
into the inner harbor, as we wished to be able 
to catch the first of a favoring wind and be out 
on our passage. 
Later on in the afternoon when the wind in¬ 
creased to a gale, we looked out for the storm 
signal, but none was hoisted, and as the sea did 
not increase much in height and it was then 
low water, we still did not feel at all anxious, 
but kept anchor watch, and I turned out every 
now and then to see how things were going. 
The skipper, expecting an increase of sea on 
the high water, put out the second bow anchor, 
but by this time—through the wind having held 
in the same direction for 24 hours—some tre¬ 
mendous billows began to roll in from the 
North Sea, which, coming on to the shallows 
where we were anchored, caused the waves to 
run up steep like the side of a house. The wind 
about the same time increased to hurricane 
force, so that we knew nothing could stand 
against it for long, and we decided to light 
flares for assistance. These were answered by the 
coastguard, but long before assistance came the 
port cable snapped, and immediately the strain 
came upon it the starboard cable also, and we 
could just see by the early glimmer of dawn 
that we were driving on to the center of the 
breakwater, where the waves were breaking 
clean over. 
I went down below to call my friend, Mr. 
Drover, of Great Baddow, who was making the 
trip with me, and suggested to him “that one 
never knows what may happen,” and that he 
had better lay hold of a life-buoy. The crew 
were now busy launching the dinghy, but I felt 
convinced she would be bottom upward directly 
she touched the water, and shouting that the 
safest plan was to jump for the breakwater on 
striking, I went into the port bow where she 
seemed likely to strike, and as she rose level 
to the masonry and struck I jumped clear, land¬ 
ing safely on the breakwater, which wfis all 
awash with seas flying over from both sides. 
Immediately I had jumped the yacht sheered 
off. Then in a temporary lull broached to 
alongside, enabling everyone to get clear. The 
next back wash sucked her stern out at right 
angles to where we all stood, and she charged 
the breakwater stem on several times. Once 
she was carried so high on a wave I thought 
she would land on the breakwater amidships. 
I could see under the fore part of her bottom 
as I sprang back to get clear of her bowsprit; 
her bows, in fact, actually overhung the struc¬ 
ture, but the backwash catching her amidships 
sucked her down and only her lore foot struck, 
and slipping backward snapped off the bowsprit 
like a carrot, snapping the shrouds and tearing 
the jib into ribbons, the butt of the bowsprit 
making a big hole in the forecastle deck. All 
this time the Gwalia was drifting toward the 
shore, all of us following her along the wall. 
Sometimes there was a momentary pause. 
Then the seas would come on again in fury as 
if to make up for lost opportunity. The waves 
flew over us from either side as we steadily 
crept shoreward along our slippery path, the 
yacht charging the breakwater again and again, 
stem first, both bows and both quarters and full 
broadside-—every part of her in turn except her 
stern. 
By this time a tug had arrived from the har¬ 
bor, but as she could not follow us into the 
broken water she returned. Land sharks, how¬ 
ever, were assembling on the shore, and as the 
Gwalia came against the breakwater again with 
her broadside on, the skipper shouted, “This 
is no place for me. I won’t leave her to the 
wreckers,” sprang for the mizzen rigging, just 
landing on the yacht’s after-rail. Then every¬ 
thing was blotted out for what seemed an in¬ 
terminable time, as at that moment a tremend¬ 
ous wave struck the yacht aft and smothered 
her completely above the deckhouse, but when 
this cleared, we were rejoiced to see the skipper 
standing upon the deckhouse with his hand in 
the mizzen rigging, where he remained until 
the vessel drove her nose into the sands, and 
though her stern still bumped upon the jagged 
pieces of concrete which were strewn all along 
her course toward shore, she was anyhow now 
safe for another 12 hours, as the tide had com¬ 
menced to fall. 
We still had to wait nearly an hour, shivering, 
wet and cold, squalls washing the salt out of 
our clothes before we could slimb on board; 
but we cared little for that after our night’s ad¬ 
ventures, and, speaking for myself, everything 
was soon forgotten when I had stripped, dried 
and got beneath a pile of warm blankets. 
Motor 'Boating. 
Sparks. 
The Seawanhaka-Corinthian Y. C. has placed 
an order for a 39-foot motor ferry launch, to be 
used for the transportation of members and 
guests between their club house and the Oyster 
Bay railroad station. The launch will be 
equipped with a 25-horsepower semi-heavy duty 
motor, and is to be ready for delivery when the 
season opens, May 1. 
William J. Matheson expects to cruise in 
Florida waters this winter with his auxiliary 
yawl Normona. He has just received an 18- 
foot power dory tender to be carried on the 
yawl during the coming trip. 
Com. M. B. Mills, of Detroit, Michigan, is 
having a cruising yacht no feet long, 20 feet 
beam, built in a New York yard for use in 
Florida. This handsome cruising boat is to be 
fitted with two ioo-horsepower motors. 
A prominent builder in the northern part of 
New York State reports the following boats 
under construction. A 30-foot cruiser carrying 
a 17-horsepower, 3-cylinder engine for a promi¬ 
nent resident of Philadelphia, who will use the 
boat at Palm Beach; a 32-foot flush-deck cruiser 
for' off-shore work on the coast of, Brazil 
ordered by a resident of that country, and 
carrying a 15-horsepower convertible kerosene- 
gasolene engine; a special design open launch, 
32 feet long by 5 feet 6 inches beam, with a 17- 
horsepower, 3-cylinder engine, ordered by an 
