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April, 1917 construction of large numbers of auto- mobiles. Because of that we produced those 550 boats for England at a cost of about $40,000 apiece. Since that contract was taken, labor and material have increased in price about 30 per cent. If we were going to do business with the United States -gov- ernment now on a strictly business basis the cost of the same type of boat would be about $50,000 apiece. “This submarine chaser of ours was designed by Irwin Chase, the naval architect of the company, after I had told him what the boat must be able to do on patrol and. locating and chasing submersibles. Simply because we had, through our parent company, the Submarine Boat Cor- poration, dione our best in making the submarine itself effective, we had some ideas of our own as to the best sort of a boat to cope with the submarine and put it out of business. Dimensions of the English War Boats “The chaser is. a boat of 32 tons, 80 feet long, with a beam of 12% feet, and she draws only 4% feet. It is in her shallowness that we have our chief protection against the tor- pedo of the submarine she is com- peting with. Torpedoes are arranged to travel much further under water than 4% feet, partly to make sure of striking the vulnerable part of a big ship’s hull and partly because a torpedo is not manageable unless moving through solid ,water. If it gets too near the surface, especially when ‘there is a heavy sea, a part of it at least is apt to get above the sur- face and then there is no telling ‘what direction it will take. “Each boat is equipped with two gasoline engines of 250-horsepower each, turning 450 revolutions a min- ute. With this power, low enough to be reliable under all sea and weather conditions, we get a speed of 19 knots an hour. And the boat can travel at that maximum rate for 650 nautical miles. She can travel a thousand sea miles at 15 knots an hour. Her fuel tank capacity is 2,200 gallons. “Each boat is equipped with a 3-inch rapid-fire gun, firing 20 shots a minute. One shot from these boats, if it hits the hull, will sink the sub- marine; that’s why they are so much feared by the German U-boat com- manders. They are so fast and can be maneuvered: so rapidly that the English call them their “sea-wasps”. A-fleet of them protecting our harbors would make the United States im- pregnable against U-boat attack. “The speed of the German sub- marine of the U-boat type, many of which would be available for hostile THE MARINE REVIEW operations along the east coast of the United States, is only 16 knots. That would give the chaser a mar- gin of 3 knots an hour in pursuit. Aside from its torpedoes the German U-boat carries at least one 4-inch gun, with which she could hammer any town on our coast. Or she could torpedo the boats in our har- bors and practically institute a block- ade that would close our ports to commerce. “Of course our coast fortifications would be no protection against. such a craft, for it could simply dive and stay under till within easy shooting distance for herself and entirely out of range of our coast defense guns, which have only a seaward range. The U-boat, for example, would have no . difficulty in coming by Sandy Hook and the forts at the Narrows into the upper bay and the rivers themselves and taking pot shots at big boats in the harbor and. buildings on Manhattan. She could dive by Fort Wright and attack New Lon- don from the Thames river. where no coast gun could touch her. And so on, all up and down the coast. No city is safe from this new form of boat attack with our present equip- ment for defense. “Tf we had chasers on this coast, they should operate in small fleets or packs, with 20 or 25 boats in a group and each lot doing hunt and patrol duty with an important harbor as -its headquarters and rendezvous. AND DELIVERED IN 550 DAYS. 131 In that way every city and town would be protected. It may seem out of proportion to have so many boats on guard against a single sub- marine, but it is) not so in reality. Remember that the chasers cost $40,- 000 apiece, and can. be turned out at the rate of three a day. The 800- ton German U-boat. costs a million and a half, takes a long time to build, and the damage it could do to a port in a very short while would far ex- ceed the value of a fleet of chasers.” It would be quite possible for the United States government to order and have delivered ready for service 1,000 wooden war boats of the same size and speed of the English craft in 12 months time. The hulls could be standardized and there are 10 large boat building firms and five engine manufacturers that have facili- ties for taking over such a contract and carrying it out successfully with- out embarrassing any other mobiliza- tion plans of the government. Tug Paut Jones, largest vessel of its type ever built for towing on the seaboard, has left for France with a loaded barge in tow. She will be em- ployed as an auxiliary in French navy. The Oregon Shipbuilding Co., Port- land, Ore., has secured contracts to build three wooden motorships. The work will be done under the super- vision of J. H. Price, who recently de- signed and built Crry or PortLanp. The concern is capitalized at $200,000. Photo by Paul Thompson. SCENE IN THE ELCO PLANT, BAYONNE, N. J.,. WHERE A LARGE PART OF THE 550 SUBMARINE CHASERS, 80 FEET LONG AND 12-FOOT BEAM, ORDERED BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT, WERE COMPLETED EACH BOAT IS EQUIPPED WITH. TWO STANDARD SPECIAL ENGINES OF 250- HORSEPOWER EACH