FOREIGN AND COLONIAL YACHTING
FRANCE
BY R. T. PRITCHETT
[Illustration: Frascati and pierhead at Havre.]
The year 1891 will be memorable in the history of French yachting as
the date of the beginning of a thorough organisation for the
encouragement of what in France is called 'navigation de plaisir,' a
term which will soon contract to our simpler word 'yachting.' The
French have long, however, had a taste for the sport. For half a
century at least Havre has been _en fête_ in the month of July with a
great deal of rowing and sailing, encouraged by crowds on the quays of
the port, whence they could enjoy the sport much more than if they
were afloat. All this is due to the energy and encouragement of the
Société des Régates au Havre, under the patronage of the Minister of
Marine and the City of Havre.
[Illustration: Havre Regatta Chart. Havre.]
In the year 1891 the regatta was first conducted in a business-like
manner. A yachting tribunal was instituted in Paris to make rules and
arrange the details of racing. The society, styled 'Union des Yachts
Français,' 45 Rue Boissy d'Anglas, Paris, was very heartily taken up
by all the best men in France, and absorbed the other clubs. The
President is Contre-Amiral Baron Lagé; Vice-Presidents, M. E.
Pérignon, Baron Arthur de Rothschild, Comte Alain de Guébriant, and M.
Henri Menier, with a Council of twenty-eight, and a tremendous
administration of commissions or committees for everything. The list
of members amounts to 520, and their yacht list comprises over 300
vessels of sorts and sizes.
[Illustration: Harbour at Havre.]
[Illustration: Nice Regatta Chart.]
After Havre, Nice ranks as a French yachting centre. The regatta is
always held about the 12th to 15th of March--a time of the year when
we are generally experiencing a kind of weather which totally removes
any idea of yachting from our minds. The Union des Yachts Français
patronise this _fête nautique_, which is sometimes assisted by English
yachts that are in the Mediterranean; for instance, Lord Dunraven's
'Valkyrie' has been amongst them, and Lieut. W. Henn's 'Galatea,' he
being a member of the Club Nautique, 8 Quai Masséna, Nice, a club
founded in 1883, with rather more than one hundred members. At the
present time several English gentlemen belong to it. Their 'Siège' is
No. 12 Rue St. François de Paula à Nice. These foreign yacht races do
not offer any inducements to our finer and larger craft, as few of the
competitors are over 20 tons. The City of Nice gives good prizes, as
under:--
_Above 20 tons_
Francs
1st Prize for yachts above 20 tons, }
'City of Nice' } 5,000 and gold medal
2nd Prize for yachts above 20 tons, }
'City of Nice' } 2,500 and silver medal
3rd Prize for yachts above 20 tons, }
'Société des Bains de Monaco' } 1,000 and silver medal
_Under 10 tons_
1st Prize for yachts under 10 tons, }
'Monte Carlo' } 1,500 and gold medal
2nd Prize for yachts under 10 tons, }
'Monte Carlo' } 750 and silver medal
3rd Prize for yachts under 10 tons, }
'Monte Carlo' } 400 and bronze medal
The courses are very short--about 11-1/2 miles in the triangle once
round; and in the race from Nice to the flagboat off Monaco the course
there and back is only about 19 miles. The whole arrangements are
carried out according to the rules and regulations of the U.Y.F.,
which have given great satisfaction at Nice as well as at Havre.
It was at Nice that the idea of a race for steam yachts was first
carried out. Two vessels entered, and only two; and as the 2nd prize
and medal was 120_l._, they both had something to try for. The two
were the 'Eros,' 850 tons, Baron A. Rothschild, and 'Francisca.' The
'Eros' won the first prize, 600_l._ and medal.
[Illustration: 'Valkyrie,' No. 1.
_53 tons_ (_Commendatore Florio, Nice Yacht Club_).]
GERMANY
His Majesty the Emperor William having bought the English yacht
'Thistle,' 170 tons, and Prince Henry of Prussia having built a new
40-rater, the 'Irene,' designed by G. L. Watson (as also a small
rater, the 'Niny,' from Arthur E. Payne), the idea of an Imperial
German Yacht Club naturally arose, and in 1891 one was established at
Kiel, a place admirably adapted for the purpose. The whole matter was
taken up so heartily along the coast that there are at the present
time more than 550 members belonging to the club. Of course the number
of yachts is not in proportion as yet, but this will gradually
develope, and in the meantime it is very pleasant to know that the
'Thistle' has become the mother of such a club.
SWEDEN
The Swedish Club, established 1832, is very strong, having five
yachting stations--Stockholm, Goteborg, Norrköping, Malmö, and
Ornskoldsirk--the members owning vessels of good tonnage, schooners,
screw steamers, cutters and yawls, numbering over 170.
CANADA
BY G. L. BLAKE
Yachting in Canada dates back as a pastime almost to the first days of
its colonisation. Halifax, Toronto, and Quebec can boast of yacht
clubs which were formed long before the seventies, one of the oldest,
if not the oldest, being the Royal Canadian Yacht Club at Toronto,
which was started as far back as the year 1852, and now has a fleet of
forty yachts and more. On Lake Ontario, a superb sheet of water some
200 miles long by 40 in breadth, with a depth in places of over 100
fathoms, and well adapted for either cruising or racing, the sport
has been cultivated as a science for many years, so much so in fact
that, in 1873, a leading authority on such matters wrote, 'Yachting is
fast becoming the national pastime of Canada.'
In 1872 there were yachting stations at Toronto, Coburg, Kingston,
Hamilton,--the club at Hamilton was made a Royal Club in
1888--Belleville, and other ports on the confines of the Lake, where
numerous regattas have been held each season; but, as the prosperity
of colonial yachting entirely depends on the state of trade, these
small communities have seen many ups and downs. During Lord Dufferin's
tenure of office as Governor of Canada a great impetus was given to
things maritime, and the author of 'Letters from High Latitudes,' who
owned and sailed a small 7-tonner at the time, lent a very able
helping hand to all that concerned yachting in Canadian waters. Yachts
of all descriptions are to be found there, from the small skimdish of
a 'sharpie,' with its enormous centreboard and cloud of canvas, to the
stately schooner of 200 tons and over. In 1872 there were only one or
two vessels of English design or build on Ontario (which is
practically the chief yachting centre), of which the best known was
the little 'Rivet,' 17 tons, that had been built at Glasgow and was
brought out in frame some years before. At the present time, however,
anyone visiting Ontario would see many old Scotch and English
favourites cruising about; more than one of our smartest 10- and
5-tonners are now registered on Canadian books, while most of our
principal yacht designers have representatives of their skill flying
racing flags and built to the Canadian tonnage rule.
As there is communication with the ocean by canal and river _viâ_
Montreal, Quebec and the St. Lawrence, besides through canal with New
York, yachts from outports are not infrequent visitors, and they take
part from time to time in the several local regattas. The lake, as
might be expected, is often troubled by severe squalls, which now and
then, if of long continuance, create a very heavy sea disturbance.
Luckily, this does not occur very often, though moderately greasy
weather sometimes has its advantages in giving tone and colour to the
enjoyments of open sea navigation.
Of the principal Canadian outports, Halifax and Quebec are the oldest
and most sporting. The Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Club, which was
established in 1875, and is stationed at Halifax, is one of the
leading clubs in the Dominion; that at Quebec dates back over twenty
years; and the St. Lawrence Club, at Montreal, with its fleet of
eighty yachts, some five years. At Halifax there used to be a very
sporting club, called the Royal Halifax Yacht Club, which would hold
precedence of the R.N.S.Y.C., as one of the oldest societies of the
kind in Canada, did it exist as such, but it is believed to have been
blended into the latter club and to have assumed its new name.
Canada is rich in all the necessaries that are called into play in
ship-and yacht-building, the woods she provides for the purpose being
some of the finest in the world. Nothing can come up to her timbers,
such as the spruce, yellow and red pine varieties, either for length,
evenness of grain, or freedom from knots, and it is to Canada that we
in England are so deeply indebted for most of the timber used in our
shipbuilding yards.
AUSTRALIA
In Australia yachting has had, and in some places still has, a hard
fight to assert itself against the exciting sport of horse-racing. The
oldest yachting community is that stationed at Sydney, New South
Wales, where the two leading clubs date back to the years 1863 and
1867, viz. the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, and the Prince Alfred
Yacht Club. Yacht-racing, however, was carried on long before those
years, and perhaps owing to the fine piece of water, some twelve
square miles in area, enclosed within Port Jackson Heads, which lends
itself to aquatic pursuits, yachting here has taken greater hold of
the inhabitants than at any other place in the Southern Ocean. No
finer boat sailers exist anywhere than at Sydney. There are a goodly
number of yachts connected with the Port, and no money or care has
been spared to keep the Sydney fleet up to date. Both Messrs. G. L.
Watson and W. Fife, jun., to say nothing of other well-known
designers, have from time to time given a helping hand towards
furthering this end. The classes, however, which give the most sport,
and which can draw together 5,000 or more onlookers during a racing
day, are those that include the open boats. These are altogether a
speciality of Sydney.
The limits of the three principal classes are--for the
First Class.--24 ft. length, with not less than 7 ft. beam, and 3 ft.
depth.
Second Class.--19 ft. length, with not less than 6.5 ft. beam, and 30
in. depth.
Third Class.--17 ft. length, with not less than 5 ft. beam, and 20 in.
depth.
These boats are all centreboarders. When in Australia the writer was
shown the 'Victor' as the finest example at that time of the large
class. She was 34 ft. long, had 8 ft. beam, and a depth of 3 ft. A
description of her was given in 'Hunt's Yachting Magazine' some years
ago. She was built of colonial cedar, and of 1/2-in. planking. Her
frames were of bent elm, the sternpost and knees of tea-tree, while
her keel was of tallow-wood. Her draught aft was 21 in., and forward 2
in., with the crew of sixteen men on board. She carried a racing
centreboard of 1/4-inch plating, 9 ft. long, and 6 ft. deep, with a
double drop, allowing the plate when lowered to hang with its length
horizontal to the keel. For ordinary occasions the racing centreboard
was unshipped, and a smaller one substituted in its place. No dead
ballast is allowed in these boats, and two air-tight or cork cushions
are carried under the thwarts, because no boat is permitted to start
for a race unless she possesses sufficient buoyancy to keep afloat
should she happen to turn turtle or capsize. The 'Victor' was fitted,
like all the boats of her class, with stringers running fore and aft,
about two feet from the gunwale, which allowed the crew to sit
double-banked, the outside contingent on the weather gunwale, with
their feet under the stringer, the inside on the stringer itself. When
shifting from the starboard to the port tack, or _vice versâ_, both
outside and inside men go over at the same time, the inside men
becoming outside, and the outside of the previous tack becoming
inside. The 'Mantura' and 'Craigielee' are also fine specimens of the
24-feet class. Photographs of these two boats under way are hung in
the billiard-room of the Royal Clyde Yacht Club House.
The wood these boats are planked with is fine, hard, durable stuff;
and lends itself, when finished off, to the formation of a beautifully
smooth surface, which readily takes a good polish. This colonial cedar
is used for deck-fittings, &c., and takes the place of mahogany with
us. New South Wales is certainly very bountiful to yacht-builders in
its supply of timber for all purposes connected with their trade,
though New Zealand has to supply the pine-wood for yachts' decks. For
floors three native woods are employed--honeysuckle, white mahogany,
and tea-tree--while iron bark, so well known for its value in the
building of whalers, is excellent for knees and suchlike. All these
woods offer strong, naturally grown shapes, and forks of the most
acute angles. Spotted gum is generally employed for bent timbers;
another wood is found in the tallow-tree, which is very suitable for
keels, owing to its hard yet oily nature.
From its position the harbour suffers from uncertain winds, but should
there be a clear sky and a hard north-easter there need be no fear
that the racing will not prove of the very best. The regatta course
forms an obtuse-angled triangle, and as a short stretch has to be
taken across the mouth of the harbour, it not infrequently happens
that a very uncomfortable sea has to be negotiated before the second
buoy can be rounded for the run home.
Hobson's Bay is a much larger tract of water, being close upon ninety
miles in circumference. It is not, however, navigable in all parts
owing to extensive shoals. These, though very much in the way of
navigation, help to form a kind of breakwater to the anchorages off
Sandridge and Williamstown, which are open to southerly and
south-westerly winds, and would accordingly, but for them, be often
swept by very heavy seas. The principal yacht club is the Royal Yacht
Club of Victoria, established at Melbourne; but there are numerous
small yacht and boat clubs scattered about the colony at various
towns, such as Sandhurst, Bendigo and Ballarat, where there are
lagoons or lakes varying in size from three to many miles in
circumference. The Albert Park Yacht Club, at Melbourne, is a good
type of one of these inland institutions. The yachts or boats employed
on the Albert and Ballarat lagoons range from 14 feet to 30 feet over
all, They have great beam, and because the depth of water is as a rule
shallow, have rarely over 4 feet to 5 feet draught. Good sport is
obtained out of them, and races are continually taking place.
At Geelong, which is a fine natural harbour about forty miles from
Melbourne, and off the open anchorages of St. Kilda and Brighton,
yachts are moored during the season, and at these places are to be
found any number of yachting enthusiasts.
The club course is a very good one for trying the respective merits of
competing yachts, and many an exciting race has been sailed over it.
Intercolonial regattas have been held, which have proved great
successes, and for these, owners of yachts of 40 tons and under think
nothing of working their way from port to port over an expanse of a
thousand miles or so of ocean. The yachts built in the colony are
framed and planked with the wood of the red gum-tree, which is, in
fact, the only wood the colony produces that is of any real value for
the yacht-builder's use. It takes the place of larch or pitch-pine
with us.
Both Adelaide, in South Australia, and Auckland, in New Zealand,
possess yacht clubs, and are the homes of many keen lovers of yacht
racing. The Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron, at the former
place, has been in existence for almost a quarter of a century. The
New Zealand yachtsmen can boast of possessing in their midst perhaps
the finest woods in the world, and nothing can beat the kauri pine for
decks, though in England and other countries it is generally known
only for the excellent masts and spars that can be got out of it. A
Scotch builder once reported that he found it very apt to twist and
warp; but most likely the wood had been cut badly, for that is not the
general opinion regarding it in the colonies, where it is almost
invariably employed for decks. New Zealand, however, has been treated
at length in the preceding chapter.
BOMBAY, ETC.
At Bombay, Malta and Hong Kong regular annual regattas are held,
besides numerous matches and races during the yachting seasons.
British built or designed yachts, to say nothing of those produced by
local talent, are to be met with in all three ports. At Malta and
Bombay very flourishing Royal Yacht Clubs exist.
[Illustration: Lateen yachts, Bombay Club, 1887.]
The yachts at Malta are principally cutter or Bermuda rigged vessels,
and range from 20-tonners downward. The Royal Bombay Yacht Club
possesses a house beautifully situated near the Apollo Bunda, or main
pier, and the yacht anchorage is within hail of the club lawn. About
two dozen or more yachts make use of it, among them being steamers and
vessels of every method of fore-and-aft rig. Two or three are British
built, and among these is the easily recognised little 3-tonner
'Senta,' so well known in Kingstown during the palmy racing days of
the 3-tonner class. One of the latest additions to the fleet is a
small Clyde-built yacht something under 5 tons, with the fashionable
fiddle-headed bow. This boat the writer saw under way. There were a
number of dhows, large enough to carry three or four such yachts
inboard, making up harbour with a fine sailing breeze just a point
abaft the beam, which placed them on one of their best points of
sailing. They appeared to be slipping through the smooth water at a
high speed, leaving it as clean as if it had never been disturbed, and
everything was in their favour for making a quick passage. The little
Clyde boat had been knocking about the harbour and was well astern of
the dhows, when she was hove round and made to stand on after them.
Favoured with the same wind, gradually she began to draw up to them,
and bit by bit overhauled and passed each one, leaving them in a
manner which made me doubt very much whether the rate of speed with
which dhows are so often credited can really be so great. The
dhow-rigged racing yachts make very good reckonings. They have
considerable draught forward, with a small draught aft, and the
foremast (the masts rake forward) has its step almost over where the
largest body and the greatest draught happens to be. These yachts,
like all vessels of a similar rig and build, are never tacked, but are
always gybed, and naturally in a triangular course they lose much time
when racing against cutters and schooners.
[Illustration: Royal Bombay Yacht Club.
1886. Sailing Course.]
The rules of the Yacht Racing Association, with the measurements,
regulations, and time allowances, have been adopted by most of, if not
all, the clubs mentioned in the Australias and elsewhere, and nothing
can equal the cordial reception accorded to all lovers of yachting
who visit their colonial cousins. It is only to be desired that, as
in rowing and cricket, so in yachting, a systematic and frequent
interchange of friendly contests may soon be inaugurated between them
and their mother-country which shall eventuate in a general
enlightenment all round on things pertaining to yachting.
BERMUDA
BY R. T. PRITCHETT
The Bermudian's hobby is going to windward, and to be really happy he
must have a semicircular fin or plate on his keel like that described
by Lord Pembroke. Bermuda has a Royal Yacht Club which gives prizes
and holds regattas at Hamilton. There is also a Dinghy Club, of which
the Princess Louise is Lady Patroness. Lord and Lady Brassey each
presented a Challenge Cup when they visited Hamilton in 1883 in the
'Sunbeam.' One class here deserves special notice.
'Fitted Races' are the chief joy of the true Bermudian. The owner
apparently gives up his boat to the fiendish devices of his 'pilot,'
as the nigger boatman is called, who gets the biggest mast, spars and
sails he can find, often a 50-foot mast in a 25-foot boat, and a 35-
or 40-foot boom topping up with a huge square-sail as big as a ship's
maintop-gallant-sail. He then collects all the other niggers he can
find, dresses them in striped jerseys and caps, puts them up to
windward, over a ton and a half of shifting ballast, serves out a lot
of rum all round, and off they go, generally with the head of the
mainsail lashed (no halliard) to the masthead, so that she must carry
her whole sail all through the race or swamp. The present writer's
experience is confined to many good dustings in that admirable craft
the 'Diamond,' with her very able skipper Burgess, coloured gentleman
(_bien culotté_), both of which were lent to Lady Brassey by Admiral
Sir Edmund Commerell. She was built of cedar, and her lines and
midship section are given in Dixon Kemp's 'Boat-sailing.'
[Illustration: Fitted races at Bermuda, 1863.]
_Dimensions of average Bermudian boat of 5 tons_
Length 25 ft.
Mast 44 ft.
Boom 33 ft.
Bowsprit 19 ft.
Spinnaker boom 25 ft.
General rule, greatest girth + length = height of mast and hoist.
Mr. Charles Ricardo, Secretary of Upper Thames Sailing Club, who
sailed with the owner of the 'Cara,' a 28-foot boarder, kindly
furnishes the following description of a Fitted Race.
The morning of the race it blew hard, and we sailed out to the leeward
mark-boat half under water, the 'Cara' having only about 14 in.
freeboard, and on board there were six hands, a big spinnaker boom,
and some two dozen so-called sandbags for shifting. These had been
apparently filled with mud, not sand, and as they rapidly got soaked,
we looked more like navvies fresh from a clay-pit than boat sailers.
There are many gradations of dirt and various degrees of saturation
from salt water, but this combination is unapproachable. We caught a
line from the mark-boat and shifted jib, owner going out on the
bowsprit for this function, and getting a couple of green seas well in
the small of his back--it didn't matter. We were well soaked already,
so more or less was quite immaterial to us. We were hanging on to the
stake-boat some time, waiting for the other craft to arrive, with
nothing particular to do but bale out and try to dodge the things
kicking about in the bottom of the boat. I had no shoes on, and there
was one baler. I thought I had put it into a locker three times, and
was watching the wretched thing edge out again and prepare to fall on
my toes, sharp edge down of course, when the owner sung out lustily,
'Boat bearing down to hang on!' She was a regular Bermudian with
'fitted' gear, enormous spars, and her big sail up, a crew of coloured
gentlemen crowded up to windward, and foaming through it like a
tugboat after a homeward-bounder. She had to gybe under our stern and
run lip alongside the mark-boat, and--Swish, over came the boom
again; swish, went the end of it into the water. She heeled over
tremendously, and did not seem to right, as she ought to have done. We
guessed at once what had happened: her ballast was to leeward--those
mud bags--it had not been shifted in time as she came round, and of
course kept her on her beam ends; she gradually settled down and sank
in about four minutes. The water was full of yelling niggers, who
mostly swam for us; there seemed to be some hundred of them--anyway
they yelled like it. They nearly swamped us scrambling in; finally we
got rid of them on to the mark-boat, and very glad we were, as a few
dozen damp niggers all asking at the same time for drinks are not much
fun in a small boat with a bit of a sea on. At the time it was not
enjoyable; still it is an episode in yachting experiences which grows
more pleasant to refer to as it looms astern and becomes ancient
history. When one starts for a day's sport, it is weak to allow a
trifling incident like this to mar the even tenor of its way, and at
Bermuda one dries so soon.
A great deal of dinghy racing is done at St. George's, and it will be
well to notice here the peculiarity of these boats and their gear. The
normal dimensions of the dinghy are as follows:--
Length 14 ft.
Beam 4 ft. 6 in.
Draught 2 ft.
Mast 25 ft. to 30 ft.
Boom 25 ft.
Bowsprit 15 ft.
Dinghies are fearfully and wonderfully made things, with their plate
on as in the big boats, the sails lashed up and set in. Five lunatics
come next in the prescription; these embark very gingerly
indeed--quite a bit of fancy work--while some one holds on to the mast
from the top of the wharf to prevent accident, and when they think
they are ready and balanced they are shoved off. Directly she feels
the wind over she goes, and four hands stretch out to windward as far
as possible, the fifth being busy baling, which is a most important
feature of dinghy sailing. A very exciting amusement it is. As long as
the boats can be kept right side up they do go a tremendous pace.
Waiting about before the race and gybing are the most exciting and
dangerous times, as three dinghies have been known to capsize in one
race before starting. Bathing costume is considered the correct thing,
and is well adapted to the climate; it is also desirable in this sport
to be able to swim, as there is no room in the boats for such
superfluities as life-belts. The 'Diamond' was a very fine boat, and
splendid in a wind; as the mainsail represents the usual mainsail and
jackyarder all in one, the whole sail-area forms the desirable
equilateral triangle a little aft to send her up to the wind.
[Illustration: Bermuda rig.]
The fitting of the boom is different from any other rig, as it passes
on one side beyond the mast; a tail block hauls the boom right aft,
and counteracted by the mainsheet gives a very flat sail indeed; great
results are obtained, all the advantages of a standing lug on a large
scale being secured, while the tension can be increased and the canvas
made flatter. Space cannot be afforded for her lines, midship section
and sail-plan, good as they are, still 'Diamond' is decidedly a good
cedar-built representative craft:--
Length on water-line 34 ft.
Beam 11 ft. 2.5 in.
Draught 6 ft. 6 in.
The extravagances of Bermudian water frolics have been given here as
very extreme instances of yachting enjoyments; still Bermuda is a
splendid place for sailing. You can leave the island on a Friday for
New York, arriving on Monday; leave New York on Tuesday, and in a week
more be back in the old country.
[Illustration: Dutch ice boat of present time.]