The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-20
NO STEAM NEEDED.
Electric Boats to Be Put ON
Lake Washington.
FIRST oFTHE KIND oNTHE COAST
Chamber Inquiry in the Victor
ian-Seattle Collision.

The first electric launches ever seen on the
Pacific coast will next spring plow the waters
of Lake Washington. They are now being
fitted up by Leo Daft for the Union Trunk lines
and will be ready by next May.
There will be two boats thirty-fve feet long
with SIX horse power motors and two twenty
eight feet long with four horse power motors.
The former will seat about thirty five and the
latter from fifteen to eighteen persons. The
motors will be operated by electrical energy
from storage batteries placed on board the
boats and charged from the trolley wires of the
electric railway. The batteries will be charged
Tor an eight-hours run, and the process OF
charging will occupy ABOUT four hours They
mighs be charged faster, but it would be at the
expense Of their efficiency, as the efficiency of
the battery is inversey in proportion to the rate
OF charging il.
The advantage of electric over steam boats is
the freedom from smoke aud cinders, the clean
illness OF the boat and the smallness of the space
occupied by the machinery. The batteries aud
motors will be placed in the biIge or under the
seats, so that they will take up no space avail
able for passengers.
The boats will be constructed after the Heres
hoff models. which are the fastest in the world
for small boats. The nlodeler, Herreshoif, has
been blind from infancy, but has the greatest
reputation in the world Tor designing small
high-speed boats. The larger launches will at
the smaller ones six to eight and a half miles,
SO that the larger ones will be able to run to
either end Of the lake without recharging, If
run at q moderate speed Ii driven 20 their ut
most speed they could not go SO far, as the in
creased consumption OF energy would be so
much more in proportion than the increased
speed.
Mr.. Daft said to Posi- ISTELLIGENCER re-
porter yesterday: "Electric launches are in
pretty general use on the river Thames in
England by private parties and the British gov
eminent storage stations have been estab-
lished at intervals along the river as far up as
Oxford To charge the batteries. The boats have
an ordinary capacity of eight hours run, and
their ordinary speed is eight miles an hour. The
battery must be reeharged within the eight
hours, as it is not advisable to exhaust the
energy. Between London and Oxford there are
two stations, So that launches can recharge and
return up or down the river. 1t is like
taking an impalpable energy without increas-
ing the weight. Each launch has flexible cable
containing two thoroughly insulated conduct
ors, and these terminate in binding posts. When
the boat comes to charging station she makes
fast to the wharf and throws the cable ashore.
The cable is hooked onto two of several ter
mlnais connected with a charging dynamo,
the current Is passed through an amrneter and
the Quaatity of electricity in watts-one watt
being the seven hundred and forty-sixth part of
one horse power-is read off and charged for
You can put on just as many watts as you re-
quire. for at the station there is an automatic
cu.-of, which snaps as soon the required
charge has been given and cuts off the eonnec-
ton, so that there is no danger of overchargng.
1t would be possible to have spare batteries, so
that an exhausted one could be exchanged for a
fully charged one, but they are very heavy, and
there is an objection to disturbing the internal
arrangements. They also have to be so placed
as to trim the boat"