The Hunter and the Motor Boat
FIFTEEN years ago, before the gas engine made a new epoch in mechanics, the man who wished to visit the open reaches of water along the coast in quest of wild fowl did one of two things. If he lived inland, he took a train to the water where he desired to shoot and then hired a sailboat and guide to take him to the blind. If he lived along the coast, he spent half an hour getting sail on his sloop or schooner and then, placing his fate at the uncertain mercy of wind and weather, usually prepared a plot of himself in the deepest and warmest corner of the bottomless pit.
You know the things that even you a perfectly good and respectable citizen, will say when the wind's dead ahead, or there isn't any wind, or it's blowing a living gale and you are in a hurry. And it's usually one or the other of those things when you really want to get anywhere in a sailboat -- too much wind, too little wind, wind that heads you off, or something else the matter with the wind nearly every time.
The poor chap who relied on weather was up against trouble nine times out of ten. Calm weather held him stationary; head winds delayed him. Only free breezes enabled him to go directly to his destination, and even then the speed of his progress was governed entirely by the strength of that breeze.
Consequently the sportsman who wished to run up the coast a score of miles to a favorite duck- or shore-bird ground was entirely subservient to elemental conditions over which he had no control and upon whose whims he was obliged to wait. And these whims the very perverseness of fate seemed usually to turn against him.
Then came the gas engine and with it an entirely new state of affairs. Instead of following waterways by rail, or beating up them in sailing craft until the section to be gunned was reached, the man with the motor boat saved railroad fare, time, and hard work by a twist of his engine crank. Weather, provided there was not a hurricane, took a back seat.
The "chug-chug" of the two-cycle "make and break" of the man with the motor boat, or the purring roll of his six-cylinder speed machinery carry him at an even rate straight into the teeth of a breeze that would have headed off his sailing vessel for hours. He can go direct to his destination and come directly home, and wind and weather may show their teeth in rage.
More Comfort in Bad Weather
Besides being able to go and come at will, there are other advantages for the gunner in the motor boat. He had no puzzling mass of tackle to trouble him with kinks and tangles in autumn and with ice in winter. There are no lazy jacks, no down-hauls, no tangling sheets and banging blocks. He does not have to wait for the ice to let go its hold on halyard and canvas to get under way. He simply casts off moorings and turns his engine crank. That's all.
Once under way he is not obliged to stand at a wheel in an open cockpit with frigid seas breaking over the bitts and racing aft in hissing walls of frozen needles; nor do his hands crack and bleed on the ice-crusted sheet as he trims her close on the winter gale. He dives below to the brass-spoked wheel forward in the stove-heated gunning cabin and keeps her on her course with the temperature about him at seventy. Only one concern he has, to hearken to the chug-chug behind him and to keep it going, evenly.
That is a pretty tough job, you say! No, not if you are a student, as is every man who has owned a gasoline engine for any length of time. Nor is that an exaggerated statement, for a gas-engine owner is a gas-engine enthusiast and sage. He is on intimate terms with his machine's every whim. He caresses, cajoles, insists as is necessary, and the engine goes.
Then there is another feature that argues in favor of the motor-boat gunning craft as against the sailing cruiser. When gas engines first made their appearance they were pretty expensive affairs. The increased demand for them resulted in increased skill and facility in their manufacture, and with the reduction in cost of production their prices went down until to-day they are within the reach of any man who could formerly afford to own and operate a sailing craft.
A very good cruiser with gunning cabin, thirty to thirty-five feet in length, and with a modest but serviceable engine, can be bought for from $1,000 to $1,500 nowadays. Such a craft is suitable for gunning excursions along the coast or on any of the larger lakes, and the cost is not much if any more than that of a well-fitted sail cruiser.
In selecting a motor cruiser for hunting purposes, the money to be expended is the first consideration, as money governs size, equipment, etc. Draft, arrangement, and fittings come next. Speed is not of much importance in a boat to be used exclusively for hunting purposes. A man who can get to his favorite brant shoal at eight to ten miles an hour is going plenty fast enough to suit him, as a rule.
On the other hand, roominess and strength are essentials in the gunning power craft. Hunting motor boats may be divided into three classes. There is the big, high-powered cruiser that will take you and a party of friends down to the Carolina coast after geese and brant in the autumn and keep you there all winter. Then there is the smaller and less expensive little vessel of, say, thirty
to forty-five feet, on which you make week-end excursions down the coast bays, seldom going far outside the protection of the sand beaches that bar the onslaught of the ocean.
Last comes the open-power craft that you use merely to tow your duck boat on one-day trips about the shallow bays and rivers as you gun one point or bar after another. With this little fellow, it is enough to say that any kind of a seaworthy skiff, high forward and aft, and with a good single-cylinder engine of two to four horse power, will do admirably. It is used merely for short excursions and is not meant to cruise in or to sleep aboard.
Let us take the moderate-sized cruiser of, say, thirty-six feet over all. She is a handy and comfortable craft for most of the coast bays, will accommodate four persons easily and six at a pinch, and is by far the most practical type for the average sportsman.
A trip from New York Bay down the coast line to Fire Island Inlet and thence into Great South Bay with its abundance of feathered game is not beyond her capabilities, nor is she to be sneezed at on Chesapeake, Currituck, and even larger waters. Such craft are used by sportsmen on the north shore of Lake Erie and on most of the big coast sounds and bays.
Your hunting boat of this type should be of light draft, about two feet to thirty inches, not more, as shoals where most open-water duck shooting is obtained will prevent a deep-draft vessel from approaching them close enough to reach the blind without a long row. She should have plenty of freeboard, the maximum of beam to make her a good sea boat, and above all, she must be stanchly built, as "ducking" in winter weather is rough work and will try the mettle of the boat.
A closed wooden gunning cabin, running well aft and built high enough to allow a fair-sized man to stand upright, is necessary, as there is nothing more unpleasant that to be forced to move about below decks in a crouching position, with a bumped head as a penalty for forgetfulness. In addition, there should be plenty of head room forward on your cruiser to contain the gasoline tank, spare tackle, cables, and anchors.
The fittings of the cabin should be plain but serviceable. A small coal range just forward of the engine, with a stove pipe running high enough above the top of the cabin to produce a good draft, is the first essential; besides acting as a cook range, it heats the cabin against the cold November gales that so often sweep over the ducking grounds. Some of the most modern cruisers are fitted with a regular galley, which is an advantage as it prevents cluttering up the living quarters.
The stove should be supplemented by a certain number of cooking utensils, but not nearly as many as the average man is prone to think necessary. An oblong griddle, a good-sized frying pan, a coffeepot, two agate-ware pails, four quart capacity, for mixing pancakes and boiling, one big kettle for potatoes, four tin plates, as many tin cups, knives, forks, and spoons in proportion, and if you are a man who wants ducks and not style, your culinary outfit is complete. In addition, a set of tin canisters for coffee, tea, and sugar are handy and dry; these should be stowed in one of the three special lockers provided for food and utensils.
Plenty of Room to Sleep
Bunks on either side of the cabin should contain lockers beneath them, or, more properly speaking, they should be made up of lockers covered with oak tops on which six-foot cushions are placed to serve as mattresses. The more locker room the better, for there are always a thousand and one things to be stowed on a cruise and never enough room for them.
Forward of the lockers, which serve also as bunks and which should be long enough to allow two person to sleep on them, may be arranged a pair of folding canvas bunks for the crew, or, if you have no crew, for extra guests. These bunks can be made with a few feet yard of light cotton lacing. Fasten hinges to the sides of the boat, make
an oblong frame of the gas pipe, and lace the canvas tight across it. Then attach the bunk so constructed to the hinges, and you have a sleeping place that can be folded up against the sides of the craft when not in use and let down and secured in a horizontal position by a bit of rope when needed.
Coal and water are two essentials for which careful provision should be made. If your craft is built with a "V-transom" stern and the consequent ample room, there is plenty of space for a coal locker under the short after decking. A large galvanized tank under the forward deck, carrying enough water for at least two weeks, meets the other need. Some cruisers carry their water supply in two casks lashed to the forward end of the cabin on decks. This is space economy and does well except in very cold weather when there is danger of freezing.
Never be without a good water supply and plenty of coal if you are out gunning in the autumn. There is always a chance of being frozen in one the ducking grounds a dozen miles from shore. I know of two men who met this fate a few years ago and nearly died of thirst and cold before the ice broke up and allowed them to get in.
The Power You Need
With the above list of accessories, your craft is fitted to sleep and feed four persons with ease and six at a pinch. Now let us look at the engine. It may be a ten-horse single cylinder if your pocketbook is modest, or a four-cylinder jump spark of the latest speed design, if you can stand the gaff. In the first instance your thirty-six footer will develop a speed of from six to eight miles an hour; in the second she will slip along at from nine to fifteen.
For a boat of this size, heavily built for winter cruising, ten-horse is the minimum. Sixteen to twenty-four is better and safer in a hard blow, for the low-power engines will sometimes fail to drive a bulky craft against a big sea.
A neat wooden hood for the engine, or, better still, an inclosed cockpit with the machinery under the flooring is the most convenient way of carrying the power plant. Unlike the auto boat, the cruiser never has her engine under the forward decking for the obvious reason that the long gunning cabin runs too far forward and leaves too little deck to conceal an engine. In the cruiser the machinery is well aft.
The particular make of engine is a matter that every man must decide for himself. Any one who has owned a gas engine knows fairly well what he wants. Of course his own machine is the best in his estimation, and he is every ready to take up its defense. The best way to choose your power is to talk with friends who own different makes of engine, listen to the good points of each, and then make your choice according to the knowledge gained and your pocketbook. Most all manufacturers in this advanced age of gasoline engines put out a reliable machine.
Your gunning outfit that you take with you on your autumn cruises to the haunts of water fowl is partly a matter of choice, and partly one of necessity. Your gun, of course, depends on individual taste and you have probably decided it years ago. Here is a handy way to carry it. Fasten loops of marlin or fish twine to cabin stanchions and slip the barrel and stock through them. Then your gun is ready for use at any moment, is out of the way of scratches and knocks it would receive if lying around, and occupies much less room that if it were placed on a cumbersome wooden rack.
Shells should be kept as free from dampness as possible, as they are apt to swell, and there is nothing more fitted to stop the action of a "pump" gun than a swollen cartridge. If you are to shoot from a battery, a shallow tin box covered with leather is desirable. There is always more or less water in the bottom of a battery, and if you leave your cartridges on the flooring in their pasteboard boxes there is danger of their getting wet and failing to work well. Paper shell boxes break open easily and your ammunition goes rolling about the battery promiscuously, while if it sis in a solid tin case it is safe from moisture and always at hand. Every gun-
ner knows how useless it is to try to keep shells in a coat picket in a battery. They roll out when you lie down, or you find a series of acrobatic stunts necessary to get them out when the shooting is fast and furious.
In most wild-fowl shooting, decoys are essential, as are duck boats, skiffs to carry decoys, and the battery. There are two methods of carrying a battery and its layout of stool. One is in a large, flat-bottomed skiff, the method in most frequent use; the other is on the cruiser itself.
If your power boat is fairly large and equipped with a good strong engine, which makes a few more or less smaller boats to tow a matter of no importance, the best way is to use the stool boat. This craft is usually from fifteen to twenty feet long, flat-bottomed and strongly built. The two hundred decoys are loaded into her stern and the battery laid across her amidships. When the sportsman is ready to put out his rig, he pushes off in this craft, heaves over the battery, throws out the stool, and arranges himself for business, while his partner poles the stool boat back to the cruiser, which tows her away. The rig is picked up in the same manner. Thus the only province of the stool boat is to act as a freighter for the outfit. The picking up of dead birds is done in a rowboat or a small power skiff.
Ways of Carrying the Battery
A loaded stool boat is a pretty heavy drag to a motor boat. Some smaller cruisers have adopted a novel method of carrying the battery and escaping the cumbersome freights. They are rigged with a pair of flat davits on the stern, and the battery, with the stool in it, is lifted to these davits and lashed fast. The rig is put out from the cruiser, and the decoys set from a rowboat. In this manner the completed outfit is carried without the stool boat, and at the same time not an inch of deck room is wasted.
The tender to pick up game and to transport the gunner from the cruiser to the battery is another essential to the outfit which is governed by the amount of expense a man decides to put into his rig. By far the best tender is a power dory with a two- or three-horse power engine. Its operation is far preferable to pulling a rowboat against a freezing thirty-mile gale. Then, too, rapidity in picking up dead birds from the stool is a prime factor when ducks are flying fast. A man who is forced to dawdle about in a rowboat "picking up" may spoil half a dozen shots for the gunner before he can get away from the decoys, while a power dory can dart in, sweep up a pair of redheads, and dash away again with the loss of only a minute or two to the man in the battery.
There are very few open-water gunners along the coast to-day who have not given up sailing craft for motor boats, or who if they have stuck to their old wind jammers have not supplemented their usefulness with auxiliaries. During the open season scores of handsomely fitted power cruisers can be counted on the flats of Chesapeake, each with her party of gunners. Along the reach of Great South Bay there is hardly a gunning craft that is not fitted with a gasoline engine. Some of them are old sloops, remodeled, and boast only single-cylinder "make-and-break" engines, but many of them are clean-bowed, knife-stemmed motor boats with up-to-date machines. More of this type are being added to the ranks every year. It will not be long before every sportsman who follows ducks along the coast will do it in his winter-cabin motor cruiser.
On most waters, of course, the motor boat as a facility to hunting is merely a floating home for her owner in which he moves about from place to place to suit his desires. Actual shooting from a motor-propelled craft is prohibited, and wisely so, on nearly all waters, but there are a goodly number of wealthy sportsmen who leave New York and other big harbors every year on hunting cruisers that take them as far south as Florida or as far north as Nova Scotia before the season is over. These men, who own magnificently fitted vessels of large size are the advance guard who are showing the way to motor-boat hunting for thousands of others, less pretentious in equipment, perhaps, but every whit as good sportsmen.