Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/195

 Popular Science Monthly

��181

���It looks like a peaceful, dumpy affair, but it can squirt death

��shortly afterward six were shipped to Archangel, before that Russian port closed for the winter. Great secrecy was maintained as to the details, but after the second order was given, proving in the only way possible that the boats were successful, general specifications were admitted.

Each boat carries three 175-horse- power engines, giving a total of 525 horsepower to drive the load. The speed called for was twenty-six miles an hour, but the average, on the trials which could be held, was over thirty miles. The boats are sixty feet long, ten feet beam, and two feet ten inches draft. They weigh twenty-eight thousand pounds. There are accommodations for eight men, si.x bunks forward and two aft, the latter for the engineers. The pilot house, which is practi- cally the only obstruction on the deck.

��armored and has room for a quick firer, which of course was not mounted before the iioats were shipped to Russia.

The boats are of the \'-type, a design which is but a year or two old in American motor-boats. The bow is sharp, but a few feet back is a shoulder on each side of the hull, which performs the same duty as the steps on a hydroplane, and lifts the hull partly out of the water. The first large boat of this design which was completely successful was the famous champion racing cruiser Flyaway III, which is stilt champion. Were the new Russian sub- marine swatters to compete with Fly- away, a new winner would probably be announced. They are much larger, faster boats, in fact, the largest V-type ever constructed, and it is the success of this development which has so inter- ested Americans.

As fighters, these motor-boats should be efficacious against submarines. They draw so little water that they can ride safely over the ordinary mine-fields with- out exploding the mines. They are equipped with two rudders so that they

��Equipped with wireless it cuts through the water and rides safely over mine fields

��� �