The Harvard Launch.

The launch is laid up for the winter at Sawley's yard, South Boston. The boat is an expensive one to run. She has a coil boiler which has a habit of bursting about every other day. The virtue of being able to get up steam in a few minutes has to be paid for by an uncertainty of keeping it up. The cost of keeping the boat in repair is fully equal to that of running her. She is not a good boat for cold weather. There is no house over the running gear, so that the many water pipes around the engine are liable to freeze on a cold night and burst.

These faults in the boat will probably prevent the crew from using her until the weather is warmer-about the end of March. This is unfortunate for the crew this year depends more than most crews upon the coaching they receive. The men are not expected to think for themselves or to be able to improve, except under the eye of a coach. If they had the launch out at the earliest possible minute, say March 1, the coaching could be done to much greater advantage. Many of the crew men are already impatient that such fine weather as the present should be wasted dawdling around in the tank. Without a launch it is impossible to do much coaching on a cold day (which of course must be a frequent thing for the next month) on account of the danger of making stoppages. There are not a few who urge that the launch be got ready and tried immediately in spite of expense, cold, and danger of being caught in a frost.