The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-07
THE BEST PRACTICAL YACHT.
CHARLES II. CRAMP DISCUSSES THE
FINEST PLEASURE CRAFT To
BE BUILT.
A Great shiDbuiIder's Opinions-Giv-
en- n Million OF Money, what sort
OF boat Would Come Nearest TO an
Ideal Standard of Luxury.

OF boat would Come Nearest TO an
Ideal Standard of Luxury.
Copyright
New York, June 29.-There is no more
fascinating problem OF the end OF the
century than the. construction of the best
yacht which human ingenuity and ex-
perience can devise. Not toy, not a
racing machine, nor yet a man-of-war;
but a pleasure craft whose proportions.
materials and equipment shall be the most
useful luxurious and effective that IN
limited money can procure. The recent
announcement that Mr.. Henry Mccall
mont's thousand-ton boat, Giralda, is rot
only the fastest yacht aioat. but can
readily be so armed that she would be
a formidable addition TO the British navy,
has been followed by an order from
rich and famous American to the firm OF
Cramp & Sons for a steam yacht bigger.
faster and better than the Giralda IN
every way. That order will be filled; for
/ it is as yet by no means true the limita-
tions Of the yacht have been so nearly
reached as have those of the express tram
/ and the trotung horse. But / do believe
that perfection in the battleship. the ar
I sea-
/ going yacht has been almost attained,
and that too. here on our own AmerI-
/ can shores.
/ What should the proportions of such
a craft be? There has been but little
notable change in the model for fifty
years. The form of the practical craft
/ has been modified by almost infinitesinai
degrees. Consider the. difference between
the printing press Of Franklin and the
| printing press of Hoe. In the century
that has seen the one grow into the
! other there have been as great and as
gradual changes in ships. Yet until TWEEN
ty years ago the sailing yacht continued
to be the fayorite; a steel cruiser was net
thought of as a pleasure craft. Even in
Great Britain, the seagirt island, whose
innumerable bays and sounds afford sucn
broad encouragement TO the amateur sad
or, only in the present generation have
yachtsman sought each his man-of-war.
All one would have To do to make naval
vessel out Of such craft as the Giralda,
| for example, would be to put on gun
mounts for four-inch, rapid-fre guns two
forward and two aft, and then add twelve
six and one-pounders as desired.
Suppose we choose for the yachts pro-
portions $50 feet length, IA feet beam and
20 feet draft with her coal in on these
lines the greatest combination of comfort,
safety and efficiency would II seems to
me, be obtained. The dimensions of the
idea sailing yacht, judging from those of
Nalkyrie III, and Defender. seem to indi-
cate an average beam Of about % feet,
| with the enormous draft, comparatively
of Is or 20 feet. But no one would choose
a cup racer for pleasure craft. and A feet
beam, while ample for comfort below
decks, is, in proportion to the length of
$50 feet not too much to justify the ex-
pectation of speed Of thirty knots an
| hour.
| mr. ,toov. fa.t . da-,,.4 o. . 49,,
purpose Is no more likely than the sail
ing cup racer to meet the proper ideal.
Jules Nerne's SulettO was not only a
marvellous pleasure nefsft5i her fghting
equipment made her the scourge Of the
seas, but she has never been built The
torpedo boats recently constructed for
the British navy-such as the Boxer, for
example. with a mean speed of twenty-nine
knots, and of a racing record of 30. 85
| knots-are more likely 10 fill the builders
eye in the next generation as models for
a yacht than such racing machines as
the Norwood. which for two hours in 1890
developed a speed of thirty miles per hour
or the Vamoose. which astonlshed ex-
perts in New York waters by running all
around the Mary Powell, the record-break-
| ing passenger carrier of the Hudson river
But their model Is not to my taste even
though the Boxer has the serviceable
length of 200 feet. which enables her to
I InInHS,
and people, and is above all absolutely
free from vibration. the famous English
man, Thorneycraft, having SO deftly stow
ed the various parts of her machinery as
toperfect her balance throughout.
The King of siam, who had money
enough to build a yacht and brains enough
to design her, ordered several years ago
at Leith. a 2.OOO-ton private cruiser" of
steel, 275 feet over all, finished with teak
wood and furnished with marble bath
rooms, and armed with broadside guns of
an improved pattern. A private citizen,
with a yacht like that might free Cuba
in spite, perhaps, of sucn torpedo boats
as those ,the Herreshoffs have recently
offered to build for the Spanish govern
ment, with length of from 95 to l2O feet
and a speed of from eighteen to twenty
one knots, The steel plates on a torpedo
cruiser are about one-eighth of an inch
in thickness, being necessarily of O fixed
size, while those of the lGiralda for exc
ample, must, be from one-half TO nine
sixteenths Of an inch In thickness, There
are, indeed, no engineering or naval ar
chitectural principles involved in building
a torpedo boat-which is, in fact, O naval
toy. fH
The ATLANTA is the finest yacht we ever
built; Jay Gould used her as the rail-
road king might have employed his pri-
yate car, to carry him back and forth
up the Hudson between his country seat
and his office He asked for no unheard
of speed or novel furnishing. Nor did
Charley Osborn when we turned out the
Corsair for him, nor George Osgood, the
brainy broker, when we launched his
yacht Stranger, But there was workman
ship in them; each time the stranger
changed owners she brought more money
1t has only been twenty-five years since
the ATLANTA was launched, The Nourma-
hal, $50 feet long was launched for Will
lam Aston in 1884, the Alva, 2S5 feet long,
for William K. Vanderbilt in 1856, and
the Valiant, also for Mr.. Vanderbilt, in
1892 325 feet long, and costing $3.50, 900, it
was said, before she received her finish
ing touches. The steam yacht Eleanor,
on which William A. Slater of Norwich,
Conn. has gone on voyage around the
world, was spoken of when she left the
ways at Bath, May 8, 1894. as in some re-
spects the finest yacht ever built in the
country and probably the finest ever
owned by an American. She is 231 feet
over all, of steel throughout with water
ballast tanks forming double bottom,
the most complete fittings, a Hyde pat
ent steam windlass, a Williamson steam
steerer. a distiller, an ice machine, a pro-
pellor 10 feet AZ inches In diameter and
120 suuare feet of crate surface These