New Hydroplane Skims on the Hudson

Every one along the Hudson from Seventy-second street to Ninety-fifth street watched for an hour last night for a strange small craft that flew up and down the river at a rate varying from twenty-five to thirty miles an hour. It was not the speed of the device that attracted attention quite so much as its gait, which was more like that of a bucking bronco than of a motor boat.

The little craft was the Ricochet 16, a hydroplane, owned and driven by Chevalier Joseph de Korwin, chief of aeronautics of the Austrian army, who in the last year had devoted his attention to the development of a type of water vehicle that would make speed by skimming along the surface of the water rather than by driving through it. He arrived last week on the Provence with his hydroplane to try it in American waters, but it was not until yesterday that he succeeded in getting the craft through the Custom House.

At high speed it seemed as if the spray thrown up by the Ricochet would drench the operator, as he sat guiding the boat as much by the position of his body after the fashion of a cyclist turning a corner as by the twin rudders, the flat, scow shaped bow sending the spray high in the air at each bound. But the drenching was more apparent than real, for when after an hour's run he went aboard a yacht, the Nushka, his craft had not shipped a cup of water.

On the Nushka Chevalier de Korwin was entertained by Joseph H. Hoadley, who had as his guest Nikola Tesla, who of late has been devoting his attention to power boats, discovered that the Chevalier came from a short distance of his home in Austria and knew many of his relatives, after which they entered into a discussion of the value of relative types of propellers.

To him Chevalier de Korwin explained that his craft was twelve feet over all, four feet beam and at rest in the water drew only eight inches. In it is a 12-horse power gasolene engine, set well amidships at an angle of twenty degrees, which is also the angle at which the propeller is set. At high speed, as in all hydroplanes, this has the effect of pushing the boat upward and onward at the same time, which explains the skipping motion.

Before coming to New York Chevalier de Korwin took part in the motor boat races in the Adriatic from Flume to Pola, a distance of 128 kilometres, for a trophy offered by the Prince of Monaco, finishing third in a heavy sea. In this race the winner had a 120-horse power engine, the second had five less and the fourth 100-horse power, as compared to his twelve.

In June two years ago the Chevalier made an attempt to go to Austria from England in a balloon and narrowly escaped being swept out over the Atlantic. After giving himself up for lost he made a landing near Dieppe, more dead than alive. Before making this trip he refused Oscar Lewisohn's offer of $50,000 to take him as a passenger, on the ground that he did not care to risk any life but his own.

Chevalier de Korwin will be in New York about a month, leaving for England to race at Cowes. He will do no racing while there.

"I came over for a chance to use the hydroplane on the Hudson," he said last night, "and I am glad I came, it is such a wonderful river."

"De Korwin is a wonderful fellow," said Nikola Tesla, after watching him run about the river, "and he gets every bit that is in his boat out of it, but that type will not develop the most speed. The resistance of the waves as he would strike them in a heavy sea would be greater than the resistance a boat would meet gliding through the water. He is a wonderful operator and knows every trick apparently. With my new propeller he could go twice as fast."

"Speed is largely a matter of power," said the Chevalier. "With a twenty-four horse motor in this type of boat I have travelled at the rate of mile a minute. I have made high speed in the roughest of weather; in fact, I rather like to have it some rough."