Steamboat Mary Powell passed by Steam yacht Stiletto

Editor's note: The following text is from articles printed in the New York Tribune on June 11, 1879. Thank you to Contributing Scholar Carl Mayer for finding, cataloging and transcribing these articles. The language, spelling and grammar of the article reflects the time period when it was written.

Steam Yacht Stiletto https://www.herreshoff.info/Docs/P00118_Stiletto.htm

BEATING THE MARY POWELL. EXCITING RACE ON THE HUDSON RIVER. THE BLIND BOAT-BUILDER’S STILETTO AN EASY WINNER — CHAGRIN ON THE MARY POWELL.
Some time ago the steamboat Mary Powell beat Jay Gould's steam yacht, the Atalanta, and won the distinction of being the fastest boat on the Hudson River. Her owners have printed a little pamphlet descriptive of her virtues, in which they claim that she is “the fastest river boat in the world,” and have christened her the “Queen of the Hudson." She makes an average of twenty miles an hour, and, according to this pamphlet, “in the year 1882, she ran at the very fast rate of twenty-six miles an hour between Milton and Poughkeepsie, making the four miles in nine minutes.”

A look of scornful indifference was cast by the Goddess of Liberty on the forward deck of the Mary Powell, at a little mite of a yacht that steamed impertinently up alongside of her yesterday afternoon as she started from her pier at the foot of Twenty-second-st. The little yacht was only ninety-five feet long over all, with a water-line length of but ninety feet, and a beam width of eleven. Her stern declined into almost as narrow a line as her bow. She was built by Herreshoff, the blind boat-builder of Bristol, [R. I.,] and he brought her up the Hudson a few days ago to show her to Franklin Brandreth, of Sing Sing. He calls her the Stilleto [recte Stiletto]. He asserted that she could beat the Mary Powell in a straight-away race of thirty miles. That this question might be fairly tested, he sent word to Captain Anderson, of the Powell, that he might expect to be defeated by the [Stiletto] yesterday afternoon, and warned him to be ready to protect the honor of speed that the Powell had easily won and long carried.

Rumors of the contest got abroad among the Hudson villages and nearly a hundred ladies and gentlemen interested in yachting matters were among the boat’s [Powell's] passengers. When she came up the river, the [Stiletto] was in waiting. The Powell left her pier at precisely 2:38 o'clock. The [Stiletto] was some distance up the stream, and the two boats came abreast of each other near the elevators of the New-York Central Railroad. The contrast between them was extraordinary. The big wheels of one smote [hit] the waters defiantly, clouds of black smoke rolled out of her smokestacks, and her walking-beam plunged up and down with a force that made her decks tremble. The other, lithe and slim, looked like a needle on the waves, through which she slid with an easy, graceful motion, flinging the spray behind her.

Mr. Herreshoff sat on a camp-stool on the Stiletto’s deck. With him were Franklin Brandreth, Ralph Brandreth, Colonel E. A. McAlpin and Frank D. Robinson. The two boats cut the waves nose to nose, and the Powell's pilot eyed his saucy neighbor a trifle anxiously. Soon the firemen began to shovel on the coal, the steam gauge showed a pressure of thirty-six pounds, and the river boat bounded ahead. But the yacht’s smokestack belched out an angry cloud, and she whisked up to her first position bow to bow. The Powell made another effort to win the advantage, and crowded the steam to a pressure of thirty-nine pounds. But the yacht was again equal to the occasion and refused to yield an inch. The passengers began to get excited, and shouted bravos to the blind boat-builder. He answered the salute by rising and shouting: "Good-by! We're off now!"

He was as good as his work. The queer little craft shook with the earnestness of her effort. She swayed to and fro like a sloop beating to windward. Her bow parted the waves with a clean cut, but her screw whipped the water into foam, and threw it out behind, while with each revolution of her engine she shot nervously ahead. It was a great exhibition of speed, and the passengers of the Powell cheered loudly. At Manhattanville the Stiletto had cleared the steamboat and had turned into her course. She kept right on at this pace, passing the  Atalanta, which saluted with a gun shot, and when she drew up off Sing Sing, she had completed twenty-nine miles in one hour and seventeen minutes. She was then just two miles ahead of the Powell. 

The officers of the steamboat were much surprised, and said that it was the first time the Powell had taken another boat's swell. Mr. Herreshoff may sell the stiletto to Mr. Brandreth, who wants a fast boat, but he is strongly inclined to offer her for naval service as a torpedo boat. She shoots along without any other noise than is made by cleaving the water. Her boiler is a beehive coil, with the fire directly under it. He claims that it cannot explode, but even if it could, the danger would not be great, as it never contains more than a gallon of water at a time. She can carry 200 pounds of steam.
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Just before the Powell came up to her pier, A. E. Bateman's steam yacht, the Skylark, stopped there, and took her owner and a party of ladies and gentlemen aboard. As she moved away, a tugboat with two scows in tow bore down upon her and struck her bowsprit, tearing it completely away and crushing her bow badly. The tug went unconcernedly on its course.

Yonkers Statesman, June 10, 1885

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