Launchings

Corsair IV. John Pierpont Morgan, with his two sons, Junius and Henry, their two wives and his two daughters--Mrs. George Nichols and Mrs. Paul G. Pennoyer--all went to Bath, Me., in two private cars which were shunted into the yard of the Bath Iron Works. Letters from people threatening to dynamite the new yacht on the ways made the officials of the Iron Works uncomfortable; they kept the crowd outside the fence. Mrs. Nichols hit the bow of the Corsair IV with a bottle of 1915 champagne donated by the Iron Works. The Corsair IV slid perfectly into the Kennebec River, where it floated nicely. In the excitement one Fred Meillieux, employe of the Iron Works, fell off a 40-ft. roof.

Each Morgan Corsair is a little bigger, faster, more comfortable than the preceding one. The Corsair IV, which took ten months to build and cost $2,500.000, is 343 ft. long and has oil-burning engines which develop 6,000 h. p. It has the traditional piratical look of Morgan yachts --long, dark, heavy underneath; paler, suaver in the superstructure. Owner's quarters include a stateroom, office, bath, and big cedar closet. There are five staterooms for guests on the starboard side and a pantry, galley, and laundry to port. The Corsair IV is ten feet longer than the Orion, erstwhile "biggest in the world," built last year in Kiel for Julius Forstmann, New Jersey textile manufacturer.

Shamrock V. In Camper & Nicholson's yard at Gosport, England, the Countess of Shaftesbury christened the Shamrock V for Sir Thomas Lipton. It is a heavy boat, 77 ft. long, "made," said Builder George Nicholson, "to last a quarter of a century, maybe more." Its hull is of mahogany on a steel frame. The deck of the Shamrock IV was only half an inch thick and made of plywood, but you could load bricks on the two-inch planks of the Shamrock V. It will be much less speedy than the graceful boats which raced for the America's cup in the old days and which, with tiny hulls, carried far more sail than modern racers and were useless for any purpose except racing. The change has come about because Sir Thomas, and the syndicates building U. S. boats to defend the Cup, have agreed that they ought to use only a "sensible type of yacht." The Shamrock V will compete in English regattas in May and will sail across the Atlantic with 20 men aboard, for the Cup races in September. Her skipper will be Ernest Heard, mate on the Shamrock IV.

Enterprise. In the famed Herreshoff Yards at Bristol, R. I., almost simultaneously with Shamrock V against which her backers hope she will race, workmen with a donkey engine gently lowered and launched the Enterprise, first and smallest of four yachts planned by rival U. S. syndicates to contend for the honor of defending America's cup. Awaiting Enterprise at City Island, N. Y., was "the biggest mast ever stepped into a sailing craft of any kind anywhere." Her backers: Harold Stirling Vanderbilt. Winthrop Williams Aldrich, Vincent Astor. George Fisher Baker Jr., Ogden Livingston Mills. E. Walter Clark, Floyd Leslie Carlisle. George Whitney. Christener: Mrs. Aldrich.

Gertrude L. Thebaud. People drove over from Gloucester and Rockport, parked their cars along the causeway and up all the side streets and along the main road clear to the Essex Depot. Workmen knocked out the blocks and a two-masted fishing schooner skimmed down the ways and across the Essex River. They had put on no snubbing line so the craft bedded into the soft earth of the opposite bank. Paid for by Mr. and Mrs. Thebaud, their son-in-law Robert McCurdy. and Basset Jones -- all "summer people"; built by Capt. Arthur D. Story; designed to outsail any fishing boat afloat, the Gertrude L. Thebaud will go to the Grand Banks for a summer of fishing to season her for the fish-schooner races in the fall.

Builder Story smoked a corncob pipe, watching the tug Eveleth pick up the schooner to tow her to Gloucester. Five generations of Storys, tall, spare, taciturn, have built fishing boats at the same deep crook in the stream called the Essex River . . . little Chebacco Boats, Heel Tappers and Pinkeys, the bigger boats of the 1850's, the 1890's. Like other Massachusetts builders, he thinks of racing as he sees a boat grow, but builds it for work. No fishing schooner races before it has gone fishing. The twist of the water on the boat's underbody loosens it and settles it at racing depth. They race around the Gloucester course -- a run, a reach and a beat: 40 mi. in all.

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