Weld Launch "Veritas"

The new launch "Veritas," the gift of Mr. G. W. Weld '60 to the Weld Boat Club, and now in the course of construction at Seabury & Company's shipyard, Morris Heights, New York, is nearly completed and will probably arrive during this week. She is a few days overdue on account of delay in securing a bronze shaft for her propeller, but her trial trip will take place without doubt on Tuesday or Wednesday. A description of the boat follows:

Length over all, 51 feet; beam, 7 feet 9 inches; square stern; timbers and frames of selected white oak, planked with white cedar in two thicknesses, the inner layer 1-2 inch, outer planking 5-8 inch; copper-fastened and riveted through timbers; garboards and upper strake of white oak; stern and planksheer of selected teak; decks laid in narrow strips of white pine; coaming for cockpit of quartered oak. In the after end of the forward cockpit is a bulkhead, forward of the boller bulkhead, in which is placed the steering wheel, this space is the full width of the boat and is devoted to the steersman, so that there is no obstruction. Both cockpits are finished in white ash. The seats are slatted and so arranged that they can be taken out of the boat instantly. She is divided with four steel watertight bulkheads. Her rudder, with brass fittings on the outside, is made of teak. All the deck fittings are of polished bronze, including the deck plates fore and aft, chocks and cleats, heavy stemband, flagpole sockets, rudder cap and fittings. The steering wheel is of polished brass with mahogany handles. The boat is painted white above the water line to her fender rail, which is of heavy oak. About four inches below this rail a cove is cut the whole length of the boat, gilded and finished at either end with a carved scroll. The machinery equipment consists in a Seabury patent safety water tube boiler of about 100 horse power, and a Seabury triple expansion condensing engine with an 8-inch stroke of 75 horse power, independent air and feed pump and copper outboard keel condenser. She has steel coal-bunkers on each side of the engine and a boiler running fore and aft, capped with wood. The boiler is fitted with a double stack, the outer stack being polished brass, and fits over a nipple on the boiler, the stack being provided with handles on both sides so that it can be taken off quickly to pass under bridges. Her speed is guaranteed at 14 knots, but she is expected to exceed this on her trial trip.