LONG MOTOR-BOAT RACE.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13337, 1 February 1909, Page 8

LONG MOTOR-BOAT RACE.

• FROM AUCKLAND TO RTJSSEiLL AND BACK.

(press association telegram.) AUCKLAND, January 31. What is considered locally to be the longest motor boat race yet held in Australasia, was contested yesterday and to-day, ibetweeniMr H. H. Adams's Kliza and air J. ReM's Seabird. Tho conrso -w-as from Auckland to Kussell and back, a distance of 240 knots. The boats left Aucklnnd at 7.5 X) a.m. yesterday. The Eliza, which led throughout, passed tho half-way mark at Ituseell at 10.50 yesterday evening, having taken exactly 15 hours (an average of 8 knots) to do the 120 knots. The sea increased greatly on the run home, the boats taking a lot of -water aboard. Auckland Harbour was readied at 2.25 this afternoon by the Eliza. The whole journey occupied 30 hours 35 minutes, the average running rate being approximately 8 knots. The Seabird rounded the- mark at Bnssell 48 minutes after the Eliza. Captain McLeod. of the Northern Steamship Company's Clansman, "who navigated the Eliza, *«ikl at one time he felt like stopping and running for shelter. He considered tho boat a wonder to get through oa tho return journey. The raco aroso out of the Rudder Cup Contest (105 knots), in. which the Soabird made the fastest time, the Eliza being one of the defeated competitors.