[CHAPTER VIII]
THE MOTOR AFLOAT
PLEASURE BOATS — MOTOR LIFEBOATS — MOTOR FISHING BOATS — A MOTOR FIRE FLOAT — THE MECHANISM OF THE MOTOR BOAT — THE TWO-STROKE MOTOR — MOTOR BOATS FOR THE NAVY
Having made such conquests on land, and rendered possible aerial feats which could scarcely have been performed by steam, the explosion motor further vindicates its versatility by its fine exploits in the water.
At the Paris Exhibition of 1889 Gottlieb Daimler, the inventor who made the petrol engine commercially valuable as an aid to locomotion, showed a small gas-driven boat, which by most visitors to the Exhibition was mistaken for an ordinary steam launch, and attracted little interest. Not deterred by this want of appreciation, Mr. Daimler continued to perfect the idea for which, with a prophet's eye, he saw great possibilities; and soon motor launches became a fairly common sight on German rivers. They were received with some enthusiasm in the United States, as being particularly suitable for the inland lakes and waterways with which that country is so abundantly blessed; but met with small recognition from the English, who might reasonably have been expected to take great interest in any new nautical invention. Now, however, English manufacturers have awaked fully to their error; and on all sides we see boats built by firms competing for the lead in an industry which in a few years' time may reach colossal proportions.
A MODERN CAR AND BOAT
In the background is the racing motor boat "Napier II.", which on a trial trip travelled over the "measured mile" at 30·93 miles per hour. In the foreground is a "Napier" racing car, which has attained a speed of 104·8 miles per hour.
Until quite recently the marine motor was a small affair, developing only a few horse-power. But because the gas-engine for automobile work had been so vastly improved in the last decade, it attracted notice as a rival to steam for driving launches and pleasure boats, and soon asserted itself as a reliable mover of vessels of considerable size. To promote the development of the industry, to test the endurance of the machine, and to show the weak spots of mechanical design, trials and races were organised on much the same lines as those which have kept the motor-car so prominently before the public—races in the Solent, across the Channel, and across the Mediterranean. The speed, as in the case of cars, has risen very rapidly with the motor boat. When, in February, 1905, a Napier racer did some trial spins over the measured mile in the Thames at Long Reach, she attained 28·57 miles per hour on the first run. On turning, the tide was favourable, and the figures rose to 30·93 m.p.h., while the third improved on this by over a mile. Her mean speed was 29·925 m.p.h., or about 2 / 3 m.p.h. better than the previous record—standing to the credit of the American Challenger. The latter had, however, the still waters of a lake for her venue, so that the Napier's performance was actually even more creditable than the mere figures would seem to imply. At a luncheon which concluded the trial, Mr. Yarrow, who had built the steel hull, said: "To give an idea of what an advance the adoption of the internal combustion engine really represents, I should like to state that, if we were asked to guarantee the best speed we could with a boat of the size of Napier II., fitted with the latest form of steam machinery of as reliable a character as the internal combustion engine in the present boat, we should not like to name more than sixteen knots. So that it may be taken that the adoption of the internal combustion engine, in place of the steam-engine, for a vessel of this size, really represents an additional speed of ten knots an hour. I should here point out that the speed of a vessel increases rapidly with its size. For example: in what is termed a second-class torpedo boat, sixty feet in length, the best speed we could obtain would be twenty knots; but for a vessel of, say, 200 feet in length, with similar but proportionately larger machinery, a speed of thirty knots could be obtained. Therefore, the obtaining of a speed of practically twenty-six knots in the Yarrow-Napier boat, only forty feet in length, points to the possibility, in the not far-distant future, of propelling a vessel 220 feet in length at even forty-five knots per hour. All that remains to be done is to perfect the internal combustion engine, so as to enable large sizes to be successfully made."