Show Boats

Every half hour last week a ship's bell chimed from a loudspeaker through Manhattan's Grand Central Palace, followed by an announcement such as this: "Four bells. Two o'clock, nautical time. This signal was brought to you by courtesy of the Sea Scouts of America. The bell was struck by Scout Robert Schmidt." If the bell rang between times everybody in the hall stopped, listened. It meant that another boat had been sold from the floor of the 29th annual Motor Boat Show.

The sales bell rang often enough to keep up the general optimism of the 150 exhibitors. Notable absentees of last year, Gar Wood and Chris-Craft, were back in the fold. Sales emphasis had shifted from the glittering high-speed craft of yesterday to compact, comfortable utility runabouts and small cruisers, moderately priced, for family use.

A motorboat show differs from an automobile show in that practically all the new developments are invisible to the untrained eye. A five-year-old cruiser could be planted on the floor among its newborn sisters and the layman would never know the difference. Radical changes in design from year to year are practically unknown. But there are always new wrinkles. The talk of the 1934 show was rubber mountings for engines, to reduce noise and vibration. First introduced by Chrysler two years ago, it is incorporated in many new models, notably in Elco's Veedette 28. Another new twist is Dodge's "Multiple vee bottom," a system of overlapped planking which reduces side spray, adds stability and speed.

Deep into the low-price field dived Chris-Craft, the company founded by Christopher Columbus Smith and now run by himself, his four sons, three grandsons and two granddaughters. They offered a utility runabout for $495. Another notable new Chris-Craft is the 24-ft. family cruiser with four berths, stove, ice box and toilet for $1,495. The minimum in overnight comfort (two berths) in a utility cruiser, can be had for $1,295 plus $45 for a toilet. Chris-Craft also has its line of runabouts, ranging up to a showy 27-footer at $6,500.

Most conspicuous exhibit at the show was that of another famed boat-building family, the Wheelers, father and four sons. Months before the show opened Son Wesley Wheeler studied a floor plan of the exhibit hall, calculated that a 54-ft. ship was the biggest that could possibly be squeezed in. At their Brooklyn. N. Y. plant the Wheelers proceeded to build a 54-footer, serenely aware that nobody could steal the show from them. With salty, side-whiskered Father Howard Ernest Wheeler looking on, the big cruiser, a yacht-like affair with flying bridge and twin screws, was warped into place with less than a foot to spare. Crowds stood in line to go aboard and gape at her two staterooms with yellow brocaded bedspreads; her tiled shower with hot and cold water; her three toilets, her spacious saloon; her dining nook; her galley with gas stove, refrigerator, pantry. Unusual for a ship of that size was the flying bridge, with all controls away from the social quarters. Accommodations: eight plus a crew of two. Price: $24,500, most expensive in the show.

Of more interest to show crowds were cruisers under 38 ft., the biggest an owner can conveniently operate without hired help. Wheeler offers a 35-footer sleeping six for $4,975; a 28-footer sleeping four for $2,850. Elco's 28-ft. Veedette accommodates four persons in a deck cabin, two in a forward cabin, for $2,925. American Car & Foundry's new 36-footer with twin Chrysler motors ($7,150). houses four in a stateroom, two in a deckhouse. There was a profusion of sail craft, notably the 25-ft. auxiliary cruising sloop built by Matthews, heretofore identified only with motorboats.

There were engines galore, from one-cylinder outboards to the enormous 600-H. P. Winton Diesel which, resplendent in cream paint and shining nickel, looked like a gleaming soda fountain. Most newsworthy was the new Sterling Diesel. It has no crankshaft, camshafts, cylinder heads, connecting rod bearings, valves or valve gears. It consists of four horizontal cylinders arranged in tandem and each containing two reciprocating pistons. Working on a 2-cycle system, the pistons thrust against two inclined discs, like flywheels, mounted on a straight propeller shaft. Because of the pitch of the inclined discs, the thrust of the piston makes them turn. Not new in gasoline engines, the principle had never before been applied to Diesels.

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