"My invention relates to short-range free-going torpedo-boats, which are intended to be substituted for the ordinary torpedo-boom carried on torpedo-launches. The boats contain within themselves sufficient propulsive power to run a short distance - say five or six hundred feet - and are so constructed as to travel through the water in the direction in which they are pointed. By this means it becomes unnecessary to run the torpedo-launch as close to the vessel to be blown up as was previously the case, because this torpedo; when started, will itself, from its own power, traverse the distance between the launch and the vessel to be blown up."