244 BROADLAND SPORT 



The greatest water frolic of the Norwich folk during the 

 forties was held at Thorpe Gardens, where the county families 

 and all other the nobility and gentry, as the announcements de- 

 scribed them, would assemble and crowd with their families 

 towards Captain King's meadow to seek sport, music and 

 seclusion (!) for the moderate outlay of half-a-crown. But 

 these gatherings were held too far up stream to encourage 

 much sailing, and the sport was mostly confined to rowing 

 matches. 



In the fifties the cutters became more fashionable, and the 

 time allowance given by the lateen-rigged grew shorter and 

 shorter, until it was taken off altogether and both lateens 

 and cutters sailed on even terms. 



Prominent amongst the racing cutters may be mentioned 

 the Kestrel, belonging to Mr W. Butcher of Norwich, and 

 three boats from Aylesham (Dr Morton's Oberon, Mr 

 Smith's Daphne, and Mr Scott's Sphinx*) ; Mr Frances's 

 Venus of Beccles; Mr Blyth's Long Looked for Come at 

 Last of Great Yarmouth ; Mr T. M. Read's Belvidere of Nor- 

 wich, and Mr Tomlinson's Vindex of Great Yarmouth. 



From 1840 to 1860 the ideal model of a racing boat may 

 perhaps be characteristically described as " a cod's head bow 

 with a mackerel tail " ; the floor was flat, long and very much 

 hollowed out below the water-line. Dead wood and forefoot 

 were believed to hold boats up to windward, which theory did 

 not explode until the nineties. An observer would not fail to 

 notice that if one of these old models was taken, the dead wood 

 cut away and the hull elongated from the' water-line, the result 

 would very nearly approach an up-to-date racing model ; the 

 difference not being so great as one would imagine. 



With regard to rig, the so-called cutters were rigged as 

 sloops, having a long gaff' and an over-large mainsail and jib, 

 foresails not being practical. 



The lateens were rigged very differently. A short fore- 

 mast, stepped right in the eyes of the boat with a rake for'ard, 

 supported an enormous lateen foresail, the foreyard of which 



* Pronounced by local watermen Spinax (?). 



