YACHTING AND PLEASURE-BOATING
Yacht is a word derived from the Dutch language, which has given to
the English so many of its sea-terms, meaning, originally, a fast
boat, such as was built for chasing pirates and smugglers, and, later,
a pleasure-boat. The latter meaning alone is now kept in view by the
word, which is properly applied to anything designed and used for
pleasure-sailing, whether moved by sails, steam, or electricity.
In Great Britain, where yachting, as we now understand it, arose, it
was not until about 1650 that races between pleasure craft began to
be sailed on the Thames and in the quiet waters about the Isle of
Wight, while the first yacht-club was not formed until 1720 (at Cork,
in Ireland). Even then, a century elapsed before yachting as a sport
attracted much attention even among the British, famous for their love
of the sea. In 1812 a “yacht-club” was founded at Cowes, in the Isle
of Wight. It received a new impetus and became the “Royal Yacht-Club”
in 1817, the Prince Regent having joined it, and in 1833 was again
reorganized by King William III as the “Royal Yacht Squadron,” the
designation it bears to-day. It carried on races, or regattas, as they
soon came to be called (borrowing from the Italians a term descriptive
of the old Venetian gondola races), but all sorts of cruising-boats
were matched against one another, classified by a tonnage rule with no
allowances for size or any of the systems by which contestants are now
classified and equalized.
By this time, however, there was peace on the North Atlantic, and many
a good seaman was free to turn his attention to enjoying and improving
the tools of his profession. By this time, also, the Americans had made
great headway as ship-builders and seamen, and by rivalry with the
Old World for trade, and by experience in the Newfoundland fisheries
and the West Indies fruit-trade, had acquired a skill in building and
rigging ships that astonished the world by their speed and weatherly
qualities. It was natural that these ideas should influence pleasure
craft on this side of the water, as Great Britain’s long sea-struggles
had influenced its sailors; and when, in 1844, the New York Yacht-Club
was founded, the conditions were favorable for beginning that home
development of yachting as a sport which was soon to place the
Americans and Canadians among the leading yachting peoples of the
world, and to lead to those international tests of speed that nowadays
excite so wide-spread and intense an interest.
[Illustration: “AMERICA” (AS ORIGINALLY RIGGED) AND “MARIA.”]
The great preponderance in numbers and value of pleasure-vessels in
the United States, and in the number of clubs and club-members, is due
not only to our large population and long coast-line, but to the great
extent of inland waters furnished by our rivers and interior lakes, and
to the prevalence of bays or protected lagoons, such as Narragansett
Bay, the Great South Bay of Long Island, New York harbor, Delaware
and Chesapeake bays, and the long series of “sounds” that border the
southern Atlantic coast from Barnegat to Biscayne. The Great Lakes are
bordered by yacht-clubs on both sides, and furnish space and weather
for quite as serious work as tries the skill of ocean navigators,
while a hundred smaller lakes make fine pleasure-waters and excellent
training-grounds for fresh-water sailors.
Though the first regatta in America was sailed in 1845, little over
half a century ago, the evolution of American yachts began with the
building of the sloop _Maria_ by Robert L. Stevens, one of that family
of remarkable inventors, who had already devised the first practical
screw-steamer, and afterward created the _Monitor_. Her model, as we
learn from an excellent article in “The Century” for July, 1882, by S.
G. W. Benjamin, was suggested by the low, broad, almost flat-bottomed
sloops employed to steal over the shallows of the Hudson and the
Sound—vessels depending upon beam rather than on ballast for stability,
and imitated by many of our coasters, which are so stiff that they
sometimes make outside voyages without either cargo or ballast; but
the _Maria_ had a long, sharp, hollowed bow, whence she expanded aft,
with little taper at the stern, so that her deck-plan was that of an
elongated flat-iron. The principal novelty about her, however, was the
use of two “center-boards.”
A center-board is a plate of wood or metal, suspended, usually by a
corner pivot, within a sheath or box in the waist, which can be let
down through the keel into the water, so as to form an adjustable keel.
It is the most convenient form of a very old device for preventing a
boat’s drift to leeward, or tendency to capsize under the pressure of
the wind. In earliest times, a mat was hung over the side. Later this
was replaced by the leeboard, apparently a Dutch invention, which may
still be seen on the canal barges in Holland, and which was a feature
of the pirogues or periaugers (shallow double-ended sailing-canoes)
that in early times formed almost the only type of small sail-boat in
New York waters. Two other novel, foreshadowing features possessed by
Mr. Stevens’ boat, were the use of rubber compressors on the traveler
of the main boom to ease the strain of the sheet (rubber is applied in
many places about modern rigging), and the bolting of lead to the keel
as outside ballast.
The _Maria_ justified the expectations aroused by these and other
novelties in hull and rig by beating everything in existence, until
a Swedish gentleman in New York constructed a much smaller boat, the
_Coquette_, on very different lines, for although only sixty-six feet
long she drew ten feet of water; and in a match on the open sea she
beat the _Maria_ easily, showing the superiority of the deep-keeled
model for windy weather.
Profiting by these experiences and widely gathered information, a new
designer essayed the task of making a still better yacht. This was
George Steers, the son of a British naval captain and ship-modeler,
who had become an American naval officer and was the first man to
take charge of the Washington navy yard. He built several graceful
and fleet-winged sloops, famous in their day, such as the _Julia_,
David Carl’s _Gracie_, and many pilot-boats and ships. His most
celebrated production, however, and the one which gave our yachtsmen
an international reputation and established their method of pursuing
recreation as the foremost American sport, was the _America_, from
which the “America Cup” races take origin and name.
The origin was really accidental. When the first World’s Fair was to be
held at the Crystal Palace in London, one of the attendant festivities
was a great national gathering of British yachts in their favorite
harbor, Cowes, at which, it was announced, foreign yachtsmen were to be
welcome, especially Americans. In preparation for it, John C. Stevens,
of Hoboken, then Commodore of the New York Yacht-Club, and some of his
friends, ordered a new yacht from George Steers with which to cross
the Atlantic and meet the English racers. This new boat, completed in
the spring of 1851, and named _America_, was schooner-rigged, but had
raking masts, no topsails except a small main gaff, and only one jib,
whose foot was laced to a boom. Such was the style of the day; but
later she was changed in rig so as to carry far more and bigger sails,
more like those of a modern schooner-yacht.
The moment she arrived in Cowes, in the early summer of 1851, her
superiority in speed was conceded, and no British captain would consent
to meet her; but finally a match was extemporized, open to all nations,
for which a prize was offered in the form of a cup presented by the
Royal Yacht Squadron—not by the Queen, as usually said. Fifteen yachts
responded, but none showed what it could do, for there was little wind,
and the cup was awarded to the _America_ more in general acknowledgment
of its excellence than because of any great performance there. Not
much importance was attached to the incident, but the silver tankard
was brought home and left to ornament Commodore Stevens’ drawing-room
until 1857, when its owners dedicated it to the purpose of a perpetual
challenge cup, in charge of the New York Yacht-Club, for international
races under specified conditions. Fifteen years elapsed, however,
before the first contestant appeared.
The _America_ had differed prominently in shape from all her opponents
at Cowes, by having fine hollowed bows and a wide stern, instead of
the bluff bows and narrowing after part—the “cod’s head and mackerel’s
tail” pattern—of English craft; she also had sails that hung very flat
instead of bellying out under the wind as was the foreign style. In
these directions British yachtsmen saw good, and tried to improve; but
they would have nothing to do with center-boards, and clung to their
cutter-rig. We, on the other hand, had gained ideas as to improving
rig, especially in the schooners, and in the bestowal of ballast,
outside and in.
[Illustration:
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY G. WEST & SON, SOUTHSEA, ENGLAND.
“GENESTA,” “TARA,” AND “IREX”—THE BRITISH TYPE OF CUTTER OF 1884-85.
“Galatea,” 1885, belonged to the same type.]
At length, in 1870, an English schooner, the _Cambria_, came over to
compete for the cup, and was pitted against a fleet of crack yachts
off Sandy Hook; but again the wind was so light that the boats did
little more than drift. The Englishman, nevertheless, was outdrifted
by nine others, and the leader was the little sloop _Magic_, which
became the custodian of the cup. The next year, however, another
challenge was received, and the British keel-yacht _Livonia_ appeared
and was defeated by the American keel-schooner _Sappho_, which, under
a new rule, had won her right to defend the cup by first beating
in preparatory ocean races all other rivals for the honor. As this
contest was between single representative yachts, tried in five races,
and in all sorts of weather, it was a fair and conclusive measure of
comparative qualities. The next yacht to come after the international
cup was the Canadian _Countess of Dufferin_, which was promptly
defeated by the _Magic_ in 1876. Five years later another Canadian
appeared, the _Atalanta_, differing from previous contestants in being
a single-masted center-board yacht; but her rigging and finish were
so bad that her excellent model could not save her from defeat (1881)
at the hands of the elegant iron sloop _Mischief_ which had been built
especially for the race, and had won her foremost place through severe
trial races, as before.
Up to this time, as Mr. W. P. Stephens tells us in “The Century”
for August, 1893, whence many of the portraits of these racers have
been taken, no pleasure-boats had been built except after the rule
of thumb—some practical sailor whittled out a model according to his
ideas, and the builder followed it.
Systematic designing was unknown, and ... one type of yacht was in
general use, the wide, shoal center-board craft, with high trunk
cabin, large open cockpit, ballast all inside (and of iron, or even
slag and stone), and a heavy and clumsy wooden construction. Faulty
in every way as this type has since been proved, in the absence of
any different standard it was considered perfect, and open doubts
were expressed of the patriotism if not the sanity of the few
American yachtsmen who, about 1877, called into question the merits
of the American center-board sloop, and pointed out the opposing
qualities of the British cutter—her non-capsizability, due to the
use of lead ballast outside of the hull; her speed in rough water;
and the superiority of her rig both in proportions and in mechanical
details.
A wordy warfare over these types raged for several years, gaining
strength with the building of the first true English cutter, the
_Muriel_, in New York in 1878, and bearing good fruit a year later
in the launching of the _Mischief_, an American center-board sloop,
but modified in accordance with the new theories. The plumb stem, the
straight sheer, and higher free-board, with quite a shapely though
short overhang, suggested the hull of the cutter, and though quite
wide—nearly twenty feet on sixty-one feet water-line—she drew nearly
six feet. Even with her sloop rig she was a marked departure from
the older boats of her class, especially as she was built of iron in
place of wood, and consequently carried her ballast, all lead, at a
very low point.
One of the results of this controversy was the sending to this country,
from Scotland, of a little ten-ton racing cutter, the _Madge_, purely
to show what capabilities lay in “a deep, narrow, lead-keeled craft
with the typical cutter rig.” The only American able to beat her was
the _Shadow_, a famous Herreshoff sloop of unusual depth, and she did
it but once. Nevertheless, the controversy was not decided in the
United States, and the Britishers thought it worth while to try to
give us another lesson. In 1884 they launched two big cutters, _Irex_
and _Genesta_, and in 1885 a third, _Galatea_; and Sir Richard Sutton,
owner of _Genesta_, and Lieutenant William Henn, R. N., owner of
_Galatea_, challenged for the America Cup.
Then the question arose: What should be done to meet them? The British
cutters differed from those previously met, in that they were built
for racing, not for general use—were “racing machines” instead of
cruising-yachts. To meet this, a scientific designer of marine vessels,
Mr. A. Cary Smith of New York, was called upon to produce a moderately
deep, center-board, iron sloop-yacht on the lines of the _Mischief_,
but much larger, and he produced the _Priscilla_. But while she was
building there was quietly begun another yacht, the _Puritan_, owned
and built in Boston from designs by an almost unheard-of architect, Mr.
Edward Burgess, who previously to this performance had been renowned
only as a student of insects!
“The stout oak keel of the new _Puritan_ was laid upon a lead keel of
twenty-seven tons, carried down into a deep projecting keel; the plumb
stem, the sheer, and the long counter suggested the British cutter
rather than the American sloop; the draft of eight feet six inches was
greatly in excess of all of the old center-board boats, and the rig was
essentially that of the cutter rather than of the sloop.”
A struggle decided that she was better than the _Priscilla_, and in
the cup races in September she proved herself better than the famous
English cutter _Genesta_.
[Illustration: THE CUTTER “MURIEL,” SHOWING THE ENGLISH DEEP-DRAFT TYPE
OF BUILD AND RIG.]
Nevertheless, when the _Galatea_, whose challenge had been postponed
until 1886, came out, the _Puritan_ had already been distanced by
an American rival, the _Mayflower_, practically a larger copy of
herself, as _Galatea_ was of _Genesta_, and, therefore, a lead-keeled
center-board boat, having a cutter-like rig. Trial races showed that
the _Mayflower_ was able to beat all her beautiful predecessors, and
again the British contestant was obliged to take a defeat and leave the
prize in New York.
The result of this last contest (1886) was to cause British yachtsmen
to abandon their old tonnage rule of measurement and adopt the far
better modern one of load-line and sail-area measurement. Another
challenge immediately came from Glasgow, supported by a boat named
_Thistle_, built under the new rule; and to oppose it Mr. Burgess
built the _Volunteer_, which differed from its predecessors mainly in
increased draft and tendency toward the cutter model. She easily beat
the _Thistle_, and the discouraged foreigners rested for some years
before trying again to wrest from us the coveted trophy.
[Illustration: “PURITAN.”]
[Illustration:
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY J. S. JOHNSTON AND PURVIANCE.
“MAYFLOWER.”]
In 1891, however, there came to New York, from the yards of the
Herreshoff Brothers, in Rhode Island, a new forty-six-foot yacht, which
soon put the fame of the _Volunteer_ and all her glorious rivals into
the background. This was the _Gloriana_, “remarkable as a daring and
original departure from the accepted theories.” The radical novelty in
her form consisted in the great cutting away of her bulk under water
while preserving the full extent of the water-line, and the making of
a very deep, heavily loaded keel, trusted for stability. Her hull was
also novel, consisting of a double skin of thin wood on steel frames,
while the upper part of the hull projected excessively at both ends.
She was everywhere a winner, and was immediately followed by a smaller
boat, the _Dilemma_, whose keel was an almost rectangular plate of
steel, the ballast, which alone was trusted for stability, being in the
form of a cigar-shaped cylinder of lead bolted to the lower edge of the
“fin,” as this kind of keel was appropriately styled. Many boats of
this pattern were soon afloat, most of them highly successful at home
and abroad, and carrying a surprising spread of canvas.
The year 1893 brought another challenge for the cup in the person
of Lord Dunraven, sailing the yacht _Valkyrie_, but he was met by a
new, well-proved Herreshoff fin-keel, the _Vigilant_ (built of a new
alloy—Tobin bronze), and handsomely defeated. The following season the
_Vigilant_ went to England, and found herself equally overmatched by
the _Britannia_, owned by the Prince of Wales, while _Valkyrie II_ was
wrecked. In 1895 Lord Dunraven sent a second challenge, backed by a new
_Valkyrie (III)_; and this produced a fresh American contestant, again
designed and built by the Herreshoffs, named _Defender_. The races came
off amid intense public excitement, outside of Sandy Hook, but were
most unsatisfactory; “in the first, _Defender_ won; in the second,
_Valkyrie_ was disqualified as the result of a foul, and Lord Dunraven
declined to sail a third.”
[Illustration: COMPARISON OF OLD AND NEW TYPES.
1. “America,” 1851, water-line 90 feet.—2. “Cambria,” 1868,
water-line 100 feet.—3. “Magic,” 1857-69, water-line 79 feet.—4.
“Sappho,” 1867, water-line 120 feet.—5. “Mischief,” 1879, water-line
61 feet.—6. “Puritan,” 1885, water-line 81 feet.—7. “Genesta,” 1884,
water-line 81 feet.—8. “Thistle,” 1887, water-line 86 feet.—9.
“Volunteer,” 1887, water-line 85 feet.—10. “Gloriana,” 1891,
water-line 45 feet.—11. “Wasp,” 1892, water-line 46 feet.—12. “El
Chico,” 1892, water-line 25 feet.]
Such has been the history of this long series of races for the America
Cup, and such the development of its defenders; but while they and
their work have stimulated interest in yachting all over the world,
they have really not influenced it greatly, because all of the later
boats competing were not practical yachts, in which one might cruise
and live afloat, and enjoy life with his friends, but “machines” in
which every quality tending to comfort and safety was sacrificed to
the requirements of speed. In fact, the owners of these “big boats”
kept small, handy, comfortable yachts for their own enjoyment, and the
racers were as a rule sailed by a skipper and crew of professional
racing sailors.
There are said to be over two hundred yacht-clubs in the United States,
enrolling about four thousand yachts, an eighth of which are steam or
electric boats, scattered wherever any water suitable for the sport
exists. With the lakes and rivers we have nothing to do, except to
say that the yachtsmen of Montreal and Quebec are really salt-water
sailors, for they cruise in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and elsewhere at
sea as well as their fellow-sportsmen of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
At the other extreme the Havana Yacht-Club has American members who
take their boats to the West Indies every winter. Bermuda is another
favorite resort, and the scene of lively races with a local, narrow
sort of craft, called a “flyer,” which will beat almost anything if
only it can be kept right side up.
On the Pacific coast, ... wherever there is a bay that will afford
a harbor, and a town that will support people, the yacht is used as
a vehicle of pleasure.... Many of the San Francisco boats are large
schooners, a number are powerful sea-going sloops, while of smaller
craft there is an abundance of almost every type, although the New
York catboat and the flat-bottomed sharpie of Long Island Sound are
seldom met with, and seem not to be in favor.... Pacific yachters
appreciate the good points of the yawl, for the squalls which blow
over the waters of the west coast are sudden and severe, and no rig
meets these conditions of weather so well as does the yawl.
[Illustration:
DRAWN BY W. TABER FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY WALTER BLACKBURN.
THE NEWPORT CATBOAT.]
The most important and numerous yachting interest of the country,
however, as would be expected, is along the northeastern seaboard,
where, measured by numbers and the investment in boats, wharves,
club-houses, and equipments generally, it surpasses any other district
in the world. More than one hundred clubs exist between Maine and
Philadelphia.
The earliest form of yacht [as Mr. F. W. Pangborn reminds us in “The
Century” for May, 1892] was, of course, a rowboat with a sail....
From the primitive sprit-sail pleasure-boat comes the ever-present
and universally favored center-board catboat, a type of yacht which,
for speed, handiness, and unsafeness, has never been surpassed.
Keel catboats are also built, but the typical American “cat” is
the center-board boat of light draft, big beam, and huge sail.
The two objectionable points about boats of this class are their
capsizability, and their bad habit of yawing when sailing before
the wind. Yet the cat is the handiest light-weather boat made. It
is very fast, quick in stays, and simple in rig; but it can never
become a first-class seaworthy type of yacht. It belongs among the
fair-weather pleasure-boats....
[Illustration: RIG OF THE YAWL.]
From the center-board catboat grew the jib-and-mainsail sloop, a type
of yacht which has always been noted for its great speed and general
unhandiness. Small yachts of this kind are always racers, and the
interest in racing is sufficient to keep them in the lists of popular
boats. In design they are like the catboats, the only difference
being in their rig. These two boats, the center-board cat and the
jib-and-mainsail sloop, are what yachters call “sandbaggers”; that is
to say, their ballast consists of bags of sand which are shifted to
windward with every tack and thus serve to keep the yachts right side
up. A boat ballasted in this manner can carry more sail than rightly
belongs on her sticks, but she cannot be very safe or comfortable.
Her place is in the regatta. It is not beyond the truth to assert
that the sandbaggers constitute probably two fifths of the total of
small yachts. They will never cease to be popular, for the reason
that speed and sport are synonymous terms with a great many yachters,
and no one can deny that these boats, like Brother Jasper’s sun, “do
move.”
[Illustration:
DRAWN BY W. TABER, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY WALTER BLACKBURN.
ENGRAVED BY A. NEGRI.
A SANDBAGGER SLOOP.]
Passing the sandbaggers, the next popular and most universally used
yacht is the ballasted sloop. A sloop may be a center-board boat,
or a keel boat, or a combination of both. She has only one mast and
carries a topmast. Her sails are many, and, like the cutter, she is
permitted to carry clouds of canvas in a race. Technically speaking,
a cutter differs from a sloop only in one point, as the terms “sloop”
and “cutter” really apply to the rig of the yacht. The cutter has a
sail set from her stem to her masthead; the sloop has not. This sail
is called a forestay-sail, and its presence marks the cutter-rig.
The term “cutter,” however, is usually applied to the long, narrow,
deep-keeled vessel, and has in common parlance grown to mean a boat
of that type. It is in that sense that it is generally understood.
It is worthy of notice that nearly all yachters who cruise about in
summer, and especially those who are fond of speedy boats, use either
sloops or cutters; and it is remarkable to see how much comfort can
be found in boats of these types, even when quite small....
[Illustration: A SHARPIE.]
The average yachting man, if he be of that stuff of which good seamen
are made, soon finds his chief delight in being master of his own
vessel. He likes to feel that it is his skill, his prowess, his
intellect, that rule the ship in which he sails; and finding this
complete mastery of the vessel to be impossible aboard a big boat,
he longs for one which he can handle alone. This independent and
sportsmanlike instinct of the American yachter has culminated in a
liking for certain classes of very small boats,—“single-handers” they
are called,—and this liking has given impetus to the building of some
little vessels which are really marvels in their way. Simplicity
and handiness of rig have been considered in their construction,
and this has led in many cases to the adoption of what is known as
the yawl style, a rig which for safety and convenience has never
been surpassed by any other. The yawl is really a schooner with very
small mainsail. For small cruising-yachts it is an excellent rig,
and preferable to the cat rig. Cat-yawls are also in use; they are
merely yawls without jibs. With such rigs as these a yachter can go
alone upon the water without fear of trouble and with no need of
assistance. Naturally, with men of moderate means who love the water,
these small single-handers have become very popular. Some of them are
not over sixteen feet long, yet the solitary skipper-crew-and-cook,
all in one, of such a boat finds in his yacht comfortable
sleeping-quarters, cook-stove, dinner-table, and all necessary
“fixings.” The ingenuity displayed in fitting out the cabins of these
little boats is quite remarkable.
[Illustration: A BUCKEYE.]
Of the many nondescript rigs which are applied to small yachts,
two are in common use. One of these is the sharpie, a simple
leg-o’-mutton rig used with flat-bottomed boats. Large sharpies
have been built with fine cabin accommodations, and such boats are
particularly adapted to the shoal waters of the South. They are fast
sailers, but owing to their long, narrow bodies and light draft, are
not always trustworthy. They are cheaper to build than boats of other
designs....
Buckeyes are favored only in the South. Originally the buckeye was
a log hollowed out and shaped into a boat, and was used by the
negroes. To-day, however, buckeyes are built upon carefully drawn
plans, and many of them are excellent vessels. They are common on
the coast waters south of the Delaware Bay, and are used chiefly for
hunting-boats, their cheapness, handiness, and roominess rendering
them useful to the sportsman. A true buckeye is a double-ender,
but some large ones have been built with an overhang stern, which
destroys the ideal and creates a new kind of craft.
[Illustration: OLD-STYLE PIROGUE WITH LEEBOARD.]
A few years ago the sailing public was surprised by the appearance
upon the waters of a spider-like contrivance which its friends said
was a “catamaran.” This new claimant for yachting favor was like
the raft of the South Sea Islanders only in name; in fact, it was
not a catamaran at all, but a new device for racing over the water
by means of sails. Wonderful feats were predicted for the future of
the catamaran, and it certainly did accomplish something; but after
a long and fair trial (for the yachter, no matter how bigoted he
may be, will always try a new boat) it was discarded as a useless,
dangerous, and decidedly unsatisfactory kind of craft....
Leaving the discussion of the odds and ends of yacht styles, we
come, by natural progress, to a type which is destined to greater
popularity as time goes on, and yachters learn the ways of the sea
and the best methods of dealing with them. Although the schooner
is generally deemed a big yacht, it is nevertheless a fact that
small schooners are desirable boats to have, and that the number of
schooners of small tonnage is increasing. There is no denying the
advantage of the schooner’s rig over that of the sloop. A schooner
of forty feet is handier, safer, and less expensive to run than a
forty-foot sloop. The rig of the schooner is peculiarly adapted
to all weathers, and a small crew can handle such a vessel with
ease, when to manage a sloop of equal size would require the best
efforts of “all hands and the cook.” The reason for this is that the
schooner’s sails can be attended to one at a time, which is not the
case with the big-mainsail sloop.
[Illustration:
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY WALTER BLACKBURN.
YACHTS WAITING FOR A BREEZE.]
It is the small yachter [Mr. Pangborn declares in conclusion] who
gives to the sport its wide popularity, and makes yachting so
universally loved by men who are fond of aquatic pleasuring. The
small yachter is everywhere upon the waters. From the coast of Maine,
from the shores of the harbor of the Golden Gate, from the beaches
of the Atlantic seaboard, and from the borders of the inland lakes,
he can be seen, all summer long, sailing about in his little vessel,
and enjoying in all its fullness the excitement and delight of this
most noble and health-giving sport. With a pluck and energy that
mark the true lover of the sea, and a tact and skill that bespeak
the real sailor, he handles his little craft, in fair weather and in
foul, in a manner that leaves no room for doubt as to its fitness for
the work which he is doing; for, whether he sail alone, or with the
help of his friends, or that of a hired man to run his boat, he is
always the master of his vessel,—which is seldom the case with the
proprietor of the big boat,—and is in reality a “yachtsman” under
all circumstances, at all times, and in all weathers. He must be
cool-headed and calm in times of peril, affable and courteous on all
social occasions, and generous and prompt to respond to all calls
upon his courage—in brief, a gentleman.
[Illustration: THE “ADLER” PLUNGING TOWARD THE REEF AT SAMOA.]