Stars and Stripes.
J

.. In the fall of 1875 I was thinking and thinking how to get great speed out of single hulled boats, of the kind in common use. To get great speed, thought I, one must have great power, one must have a great sail, you must have something to hold it up, and that something must be large and wide, and have a large sectional surface, and also a great deal of frictional surface...

Well, a boat must have width, and the wider she is, generally speaking, the more stable she will be. But a wide boat cannot have great speed, apply what power you will to her, so the next thing that is to be done is to decrease the sectional area and in a measure retain stability; the boat would have power to lift at a distance each side of the keel, where it would do great work. I kept on following this principle, getting the keel higher and higher, until by and by the keel came out of the water, when, lo and behold! there was the double boat!...

Nothing else to be done but take a saw and split her in two, spread it apart a little way, and cover all with a deck, and there you are! That was the rough road which I traveled, and having arrived thus far I abandoned my ill-shaped hulls, and in their place substituted two long, narrow, very light boats and connected them at the bow, stern and middle....