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Diving Under Ice to Solve Polar Mysteries

by LEW HOLT

Sir Hubert Wilkins’ amazing journey under the North Pole in the submarine Nautilus, now under way, may discover evidence which will solve long-standing polar mysteries. Are there undiscovered islands near the pole—will the expedition discover a fathomless hole at the axis of the earth? Some of the riddles they will answer are described here.
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Crossing The Atlantic in this overgrown barrel is the intention of Peter Olsen and Mark Charlton. Their $2,500 tub is 10 feet long; 6 feet, 9 inches high at the bilge; weighs more than two tons; and has a four-foot, 700-pound keel and a four-foot rudder. A 22-foot mast fits into the foremost hole of the barrel.

Floating Fuel Station for SEAPLANES

IN THE future, when airplane travel comes to be as commonplace as automobile travel, we may expect to see floating filling stations, such as shown in the drawing above, dotting the airplane travel lanes of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This is by no means a fantastic project of dreamers, for already just such floating service stations are to be seen scattered along the Pacific coast; and a west coast oil company, looking to the future, has announced its intentions of establishing a chain of 99 such stations for the accommodation of planes journeying up and down the seaboard. Read the rest of this entry »

Auto-Boat Speedy on Land or Sea

YOU may take your choice and call it a sea-going auto or a road-boat, but whatever it is, the vehicle shown in the photo below performs nicely on land or water, developing 25 miles an hour in the liquid element and 40 per on terra firma.

The land-boat (or sea-auto) was invented by Peter Prell of Union, New Jersey, presumably for the purpose of beating the jam on both tube and ferry while commuting to New York.

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UNDERSEA SPIES

BY JAMES NEVIN MILLER

BACK in December, 1944, Lieut. Earl E. Cook of Seattle, won the Navy Cross for a unique achievement. First, in a successful effort to locate three enemy depth bombs known to be in immediate danger of detonation, he dove deep inside a patrol bomber sunk in a vital channel off Oahu, Hawaii. Then for three never-to-be-forgotten days he directed a six-man team of divers which finally recovered the death-dealing weapons.
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Auto Fitted With Floats to Navigate Both Land and Water

DESIGNED to ford streams and rivers on a 12,000 mile jaunt of exploration around the world, a new amphibian automobile has been constructed by Capt. Geoffrey Malin, British explorer, which floats by means of huge inflated bags attached to a special electron frame at the side.
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“Poor Man’s” Yacht

This floating dream-home will allow you to cruise the river in millionaire style.

By Rudy Arnold

HAVE YOU ever dreamed of cruising down the river in your own private yacht? If you have, now is the time to do it and enjoy the plushness of a modern dream-home complete with front and back yard.

Wesley H. Dyer’s “Dumbo” has made a low-cost family yacht a practical reality for the water-loving landlubber. Dyer, president of the Metal Products Company of Nashville, Tenn., named his original family yacht, shown on these pages, after Walt Disney’s flying elephant because his novel craft was big but surprisingly agile for its size. Read the rest of this entry »

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Mi’s “Flying Saucer” Cruiser

This 21 “foot dream boat cruises at 50 mph with its triple 25-hp outboard motors and will carry four people comfortably on a sea-going vacation.

By David Lockhart

HAVE the biological processes of mating and multiplying forced you to give up that fast* outboard hydroplane of your palmier days for a slow family cruiser? Well, the Flying Saucer is one cruiser that can trim the pants off your old hydroplane—even loaded up to here with a wife and two youngsters—and bring back the thrills of your misspent youth.
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Hand-Powered Motor Boat Gives Real Watersport Thrills

A DIMINUTIVE motor boat powered not by a motor but by a hand crank operated by the swimmer has been devised by a clever home craftsman to provide watersport thrills at the bathing beach. The propeller of this odd craft is geared to a pulley which is in turn belted to the hand crank on the front, as illustrated in the drawing above. Buoyancy of the craft is increased by use of small pontoons fitted between the boards running lengthwise of the craft.

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$5,000 Worth of Junk
IF you have a yen for something different like Robert A. Street of San Francisco, Calif., you can buy a bona-fide junk imported from Hong Kong for $5,000. The 30-ft. junks have some minor innovations like wells for the twin 18-hp outboards you need when there is no wind for the rust-colored sails. The boats are made of Borneo hardwood with one-inch thick decks. You get a charcoal hibachi-type stove with the craft and table service for six, including bowls, chopsticks and tea cups. You also get a proven 2,000-year-old design in these serene boats.

Undersea Sledge HUNTS Sunken GOLD

THE tedious and dangerous task of searching the ocean’s bottom for sunken ships laden with treasures is simplified by a diving sled perfected in Germany.

The floor of the ocean is literally strewn with ships which went down, taking with them to Davy Jones’ locker hundreds of millions of dollars in gold.
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Tunnel-Hull Boat Won’t Roll

GAR Wood, the silver-haired king of speedboat racing, has designed the most stable boat in the world.

The no-roll Venturi is 188 feet long and 40 feet wide, and has twin hulls which slice through the waves instead of climbing over them as do conventional craft. Propellers are 4-1/2 feet in diameter and extend below the hull, increasing draft at the stern to about 8 feet when underway. Read the rest of this entry »