I had built a machine for the trials which I thought would be very fast and had constructed it as a type of monoplane in order to cut down the head resistance to the very least possible point. America was represented by Anthony Drexel, Jr., in a Bleriot; by the Wright Brothers, who had constructed a racing machine by putting a powerful motor in a small machine which was about one-half the size of their regular model, and by Mr. Charles K. Hamilton, who flew a Curtiss type machine, but with a large power motor of another make. Mr. Grahame-White won the race in his Bleriot, although Mr. Alfred Leblanc, representing France, made remarkable time, but on the last lap ran into a telegraph pole on one of the turns and smashed his machine and had a most miraculous escape from being killed. I did not try out my monoplane, although my regular type was the speediest standard biplane at the meet and was very well handled by Ely, Mars, Willard, and McCurdy who flew in the contests. I had given up public flying in contests at this time. A new line of thought or to express it more accurately, the following out of a very old one was taking my interest and a great part of my time. The experiments I had in mind involved the problem of flying from the water and alighting on the water. The season of 1910 was now far advanced and it was time to make plans for the winter. Flying meets were to be held at Los Angeles again, and also at San Francisco, and California seemed the best place to go, for the weather there would be most favourable not only for winter flying, but also for carrying on the experiments which I had in mind. Meantime, when it seemed as if all the paths were open to the aeroplane over the land, and it was only a question of development, not of pioneering, it was suggested to me by the New York World to launch an aeroplane from the deck of a ship at sea and have it fly back to shore carrying messages. The Hamburg American Steamship Company offered their ocean liner Pennsylvania for this test, and I sent a standard Curtiss biplane to be operated by J. A. D. McCurdy. The ship was fitted with a large platform, erected on the stern, a platform sloping downward, and wide enough to allow an aeroplane set up on it to run down so that it could gather headway for its flight. The plan was to take McCurdy and the aeroplane fifty miles out to sea on the outward voyage from New York, and then launch them from the platform. A mishap at the last moment upset all the well-laid plans. In trying out the motor just as the Pennsylvania was about to leave her dock at Hoboken, an oil can, carelessly left on one of the planes by a mechanic, was knocked off and fell into the whirling propeller. The result was a broken propeller, and as the ship could not delay its sailing long enough for us to get another, the attempt was abandoned.