Across The Pond Under Power

were a The late 19th and early 20th centuries them the time of technological wonders, among and the incandescent light bulb, the automobile combustion airplane. Refinements in the internal- innovation. gasoline engine also were fueling into an Put one of these small, powerful engines one in a airplane, and how far could it fly? Install motorcar, and how fast could it go? industry. It was no different in the marine flying over About the same time daredevils were beaches in the English Channel and racing cars on W.E. Scripps Florida, yachtsman and industrialist would decided to see how the gasoline engine 1912 when fare during a long sea voyage. It was Motor Boat Scripps, commodore of the Detroit Co., took Club and president of Scripps Motor motorboat. delivery of his trans-Atlantic-capable Boat Co. Scripps had turned to the Matthews Ohio comfor the boat’s design and build. The Race winpany was known for its Gold Cup foot cruiser ner Standard, as well as the the 74- family more Onward, which carried the Matthews Mississipthan 9,000 miles from Illinois down the Florida, up pi River to the Gulf of Mexico, around to Ohio. the East Coast and through the Erie Canal a Scripps’ pioneering vessel was Detroit, and plenty husky 35- footer with a 10-foot beam supplied of freeboard. The Scripps Motor Co. Fleming her 2-cylinder, 16-hp engine. Thomas Day would be the skipper. was the No stranger to bluewater boating, Day Race — driving force behind the first Bermuda across the which he won — and had just sailed Rochelle, Atlantic. Taking Detroit’s wheel at New to Long New York, Day and two mates steamed Island Sound and into the Atlantic. in Ireland Twenty-one days later, they landed become the “barely able to walk.” Detroit had Atlantic. smallest gas-powered vessel to cross the — Steve Knauth