790 



YACHTING. 



in is high, head-room being obtainable in quite 

 a small boat, and, since the submerged section 

 is great as compared with that exposed to the 

 sun, a comfortable temperature is generally as- 

 sured. The arrangement of sky-lights, too, 

 renders ventilation easy. 



Such being the merits and demerits of the 

 extreme types, it seems evident that each has 

 its virtues and each its faults. One seeks to 

 overcome resistance by skimming over the 

 water, and the other by cutting through it. 

 One seeks stability by spreading out upon the 

 surface, the other by reaching down below if. 

 Neither plan is altogether commendable, and 

 anything that reduces the yacht to a mere 

 sailing or racing machine, whether it be as a 

 " plank on edge " or as a " skimming-dish," is 

 to be discouraged. In the illustration the two 



FIG. 2. PUBITAN. 



crack yachts of the season are drawn with 

 their submerged sections and relative degrees 

 of stability in a whole-sail breeze, as shown 

 by the angle of inclination. It must not be 

 assumed from the foregoing that deep boats 

 have not from the earliest times been well 

 known on the American coast. The " pink- 

 starn " of the downcast fisherman, the " buck- 

 eye " of Chesapeake Bay, and the New York 

 pilot-boats, as well as many of our yachts, are, 

 and always have been, deep, seaworthy craft. 

 Many moderately deep and able boats are 

 fitted with center-boards, and are fearlessly 

 used by fishermen throughout the winter along 

 the North Atlantic coast, while the regular 

 oyster- trade between New York and Norfolk, 

 Va., is carried on throughout the season by 

 center-board smacks drawing only about three 

 feet of water. Not a winter passes that these 

 little shallow- draught coasters are not caught 

 out in severe gales, which frequently drive them 



far out to sea. Attention is called to these 

 facts because they are studiously ignored by 

 the more strenuous advocates of keel-boats, 

 and certainly prove conclusively that such craft 

 are not intrinsically unseaworthy. The terms 

 ' k sloop " and " cutter," as at present used, are 

 misleading, since many persons do not under- 

 stand the essential difference of rig ; and, more- 

 over, many boats that are called sloops are, so 

 far as sails and spars are concerned, hardly to 

 be distinguished from regular cutters. Prima- 

 rily the difference was briefly as follows : Both 

 were '' single-stickers," but the sloop had her 

 mast stepped well forward. Her lower mast 

 was long, and her topmast short. Her top- 

 sail was small, and her jibs ran on fixed stays. 

 leading from the mast to the bowsprit and 

 jib-boom. The cutter stepped her short main- 

 mast almost amidships, and carried a very long 

 topmast and a large "overhanging" top-sail. 

 Forward, instead of jib and flying-jib, she set 

 a large stay-sail, the after-leech of which con- 



FIQ. 3. GENESTA. 



siderably overlapped the luff of the main. Her 

 jibs were " set flying," as it is termed that is, 

 the sail, when wanted for service, is hooked to 

 the halyard, outhaul, and sheets, and when 

 taken in is stowed below decks instead of be- 

 ing "bobbed" at the foot of the stay. This 

 renders it a very easy matter, instead of reef- 

 ing, to set larger or smaller sails. On cut- 

 ters the foot of the main-sail is not laced to the 

 boom. All these features, however, have been 

 more or less adopted by vessels that are still 

 known as sloops merely because they are fitted 

 with center-boards. 



The development of the cutter has been al- 

 together English, and she has been brought to 

 her present perfection as a sailing-craft only 

 after years of study and costly experiment. 

 The first extreme cutter that made her appear- 

 ance in American waters was the Scotch 

 " Madge," a ten-tonner, which came over on the 

 deck of a steamer, with a brilliant record, to 



