The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-08-02
Fastest Boat in the World.
The Yacht Ellide-Her Rate Mile in One Minute
and Thirty-Five Seconds.


Special Correspondence Of the Globe.
NEW YORK, July 15.-Think of a
summer cruise at the rate Of a mile
in one minute and thirty-five seconds.
This pleasant possibility is one Of the
perquisites of E Burgess Warren, of
Philadelphia, the owner of the speedy
steam yacht Ellide, which has proved
herself to be the fastest thing afloat.
There have been rumors for some
time that there was being constructed
at Upper Nyack, n. Y, pretty little
Hudson river town, a boat that was
going to astonish the natives. Those
rumors are circulated every once in a
while, locations being different, and so
at first people paid very little atten-
ton to the talk. Presently, it became
known that Charles D. Mosher, a naval
architect Of whom every one knows,
was the man who was engineering the
construction of the boat. Since that
news leaked out, there has been good
deal of anxiety or rather interest as
to how the craft would perform when
she was given a chance.
She has shown exactly what she can
do. and Charles D. Mosher has gained,
by means of her. a fame among boat
men that will last as long as Robert
Fulton's. Over in Europe they are
making a great deal Of noise about
that hundred-foot torpedo boat, cal
led the Turbinia, but when it comes to
a question of speed, she is not even in
the same class with the Ellide. When
the latter was ready for this trial IN
which she showed her speed possibiH-
ties, she had on board twenty-five pas
sengers, who weighed in the aggregate
something like $500 pounds
Mr.. Mosher had agreed with Mr..
Warren that the boat should make
speed of thirty miles an hour, which
would have been very fast but not
extraordinary Incidentally 1t might
be of interest to Mr.. Mosher's friends
to know that he gets a bonus Of $1,000
for every mile the Ellide can make
over thirty an hour. 1t was a sight not
to be forgotten-and the writer was
there so he knOWS-tO see that little
craft when she made her start. To
look over her stern it seemed for a sec
ond as if some giant fish had suddenly
beaten the water into fragments with
his mighty tail. Then the Ellide shot
forward like an arrow from a bow
string.
Second by second her speed increased
until the people aboard began to Won
der when she was going to stop. Pilot
Packard held her to her course as true
as a plumb line and never boat an
swered her helm more beautifully than
this. Down on the floor of the engine
room was Designer Mosher, watching
her engines with the same care that a
mother watches an infant child. He
told every stoker and every engine man
just what to do, while he watched the
CLEAN child of his brain with a
fervor that almost mounted to ecstacy.
Faster and faster she went until her
propeller was making $50 revolutions "a
minute and her boilers were under a
pressure of $50 pounds of steam. The
auxiliary engines were moving at a
rate considerably faster than their su-
periors.
Now while you are thinking about
the speed of the Ellide, and she is the
speediest beauty that ever f1oated on
keel. take these facts into considera-
ton. She is 80 feet long and feet 4
inches deep. Her mean draught is 3
feet inches Here is a point that is
not to be forgotten as we'll, The
Ellide's planking is Of that finest ma
terial FOR boat, double skin mahos a ".
Otherwise she is steel, and it would
seem as if, like the Coney Island steam
boats. she will not burn, she cannot
sink" .. ts.. =
She is a combination of the pleasure
and the speed craft. Her forward deck
is 13 feet long, with the cockpit just
ahaft wherein are located the steering
wheel, the compass pinnacle, the voice
tubes, and the annunciatorS. On the
port side of the Ellide is the refrigera-
tor and china closet, and on the star
board side is the bath room with toilet
accessories. Look at the engine, which
is in the machinery space that comes
next. 1t is a quadruple expansion
affair, with nine cylinders, 9x13X18X24
inches by 10-inch stroke. Beside the
main propelling engines there are what
are called an inboard surface conden-
ser, beside six specially designed en-
gines for running the feed pumps. air
pumps and circulating pumps.
The Ellde's boiler is water tube in a
polished brass casing. There are two steam
drums, placed over two water drums and
connected together by a great number of
solid drawn steel tubes so arranged that
the gases pass twice the length of the boiler
among the tubes before entering the stack
thus practically absorbing all the heat from
the gases of combustion. The boiler is sub
divided into two Independent sections to pro-
vide against accident. In case tube should
give out in either section, the boat could
still be run by the remaining section or half
boiler power.
The eighteen-foot dining room comes after
the machinery space and next to that is the
after deck. A permanent wooden awning
with glass windows, the full length of
the boat and encloses everything in staunch
and ship-shape fashion. Now you can see
what the Ellide is like, what sort of boat
it is that has smashed all records now and
will make plenty of new ones in the future
unless all probabilities fail
To go back where we were before telling
what the Elide is like brings US right to the
time when the yacht was moving at a speed
that is only comparable to an express train
me most curious fact of all was that If
spite OF her tremendous velocity she SCENE
to leave no wake. 1t was a remarkable fac
10 see boat cut through the water at tn
rate OF speed at which she was moving am
! Haroly disturb the element at all. Their.