From Yachting, March, 1923

Years ago, before the dawn of the gasoline engine and the “flivver,” (In general terms, a small, cheap car. Ed.) yachting was a game for rich men, and those with red blood, but small pocketbooks did their cruising in a small, decked sailing canoe. Cook and captain bold, crew and camp commandant were rolled into one, and that one the owner of the ship with no one to say “stay here” or “go there.” It was the best kind of cruising and made self-reliant men. But played out with the coming of the automobile.

Now, with the congestion of the roads and the ever-increasing cost of gas, the sailboat is coming again into its own and, with it, the “poor man’s yacht” as the sailing canoe was affectionately called in the old days. Memories have been revived, old barns searched and canoes that have the dust of twenty years on them have been repaired and put overboard again. It is safe to say that more canoes have been afloat in the last two years than in the twenty preceding.

In the old days, a canoe built by Stevens, Eggleston or Gilbert ranked with an Elgin watch and the owner of one was proud indeed. Most of these craftsmen are gone now and the few that are left have retired long ago. Once in a while one of them can be persuaded to try his hand again for old times sake.

Here are the plans of a canoe designed by Dwight S. Simpson and built in 1919 by E. G. Eggleston, one of the best of the old timers. She is owned and sailed by Mr. Arthur A. Marwin on Lake Hopatcong, who says she has given him more pleasure than any other thing he has ever possessed. The Breeze differs considerably from the old canoes in that she is larger and more powerful, being intended originally for a long cruise down the Great Lakes with two men and their duffle. She would doubtless have been called a canoe yawl once, and while she can keep going in weather that would drown out the smaller canoes she is still portable and two men can take her anywhere. She is cedar planked, finished in mahogany and with her nickeled trimmings is a beautiful creation.