During the early Seventies the steam launch, or open yacht, rapidly multiplied in numbers and seemed to fill a demand for afternoon sailing in the sheltered waters of our seaports, and as preparatory to something better they did good service.
The open steam-launch as then used was from 25 to 45 ft. long, and 6 to 8 ft. wide, usually with vertical engines, and used a pipe condenser and boiler of upright form, generally of tubular construction. After the open launch came the small yacht, having a small cabin enclosed mostly by glass with a standing room aft. This very popular form is still much used, and answers a widely sought demand for day sailing or short cruising; the boats are usually about 45 to 70 ft. long, and from 8 to 10 ft. wide. This style of small yacht had no deck room that was available for real use, but the standing room with an awning over it with adjacent cabin made a very serviceable craft, in which cruising could be done from May until October on our coast with perfect safety.
In those days 8 miles an hour was thought fast enough for anybody, but in a few years, when the engine and boiler were both more perfected, more speed was demanded, so that the type in question attained to 12 or 13 miles an hour, which in some cases has been pushed to 15, whilst the speed of the open launch which at first was but 8 to 10 miles an hour, reached, under the stimulus of popular desire and better motive power, to 16 and even 20 miles an hour in quiet smooth water.
About 1885 the flush-deck yacht became more popular, and most deservedly so, as the style is superior in all essential points to the old deck-house form. It is true that the cabin of the older form is pleasanter, being lighter and more airy, but the strength of construction gained by the flush deck, its broad expanse of deck everywhere available for sitting and promenading, all these points of advantage give the present form decidedly the first place in the estimation of all lovers of steam yachting. Since 1880, steam yachting has increased with prodigious rapidity, and, particularly since the introduction of naphtha as a factor in motive power, our waters fairly swarm with craft propelled by a machine.