Letters

From The Ozone Hotel, Bridlington, to War Poet, Robert Graves,
February 4th 1935.

...''I have been so curiously fortunate as to share in a little revolution we have made in boat design..... they have (power for power) three times the speed of their predecessors, less cost, more room, more safety, more seaworthiness. As their speed increases, they rise out of the water and run over its face. They cannot roll or pitch, having no pendulum nor period, but a subtly moulded planing bottom and sharp edges. Now I do not claim to have made these boats. They have grown out of the joint experience, skill and imagination of many men.But I can (secretly) feel that they owe to me their opportunity and their acceptance.... In inventing them we had to make new engines, new auxiliaries, use new timbers, new metals and materials.It has been five years of intense and co-ordinated progress. Nothing now hinders the application of our design to big ships - except the conservation of man, of course.''
T.E. Lawrence