[11a y 15, 1884. 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



318 



^ 



TOPSHAM. Me., March 9.— Riverside Club's regular shoot for silver 

 badge, clay-pigeons, 10 singles. 18yds. rise, use of both barrels, second 

 barrel }4 bird, 5 pairs, 15yds. rise, 2 traps. Figure 2 denotes second 

 barrel *. 



AQGoud 1111001110 11 10 11 11 11—16 



M C Hall 1111111221 11 00 01 10 01—14 



AS Alexander 0111111111 11 00 11 11 01—16 



CLYork 1020210021 11 10 10 00 11— 10^ 



GHStrout 0001101000 11 10 10 10 01—9 



Ties on 16: A. Q. Goud, 011111-5; A. 8. Alexander, 101011-4. 



SIZE OF SHOT FOR THE OLA YS.— Will some sportsman be good 

 enough to give his opinion as to the best size shot to use for clay- 

 pigeons, I have tried all sizes and cannot come to a decision. — 

 Amateur. 



"WELLINGTON, Mass., May 10.— The Maiden Gun Olub had a lively 

 time this afternoon at the traps at Wellington, with the following 

 result: 



Cup Match. 



J Buffum. . ..111111110 1—9 Crosby 010101110 0—5 



H Field 11110 11111-9 Scott 101101010-5 



A F Adams. .1 10 1110 11 0—6 Short 10 110 10 1—5 



Badge Match. 



H Field 111101001 1—7 010111111 1—8—15 



J Buffum 110111101 1—8 110100101 1—6—14 



Lewis 11010111 1—7 011100111 1—7—14 



Brown 101101100 1—6 1111110 11 0—8—14 



First taken by Field and second by Brown. 



WALNUT HILL.— The Massachusetts Riflo Association will hold a 

 practice and sweepstake shoot at clay pigeons and glass balls, on 

 Wednesdays, as follows: May 7 and 21. June 4 and 18. July 2, 16 and 

 30, Aug. 13'and 27, Sept, 10 and 24, Oct. 8 and 22, Nov. 5 and 19, Dec 3, 

 17 and 31, Rifle shooting every Saturday. 



SCHENEVUS, May 10.— Conditions: Combination traps, 18yds. 

 rise, 3d notch: 



D Chamberlain 01101111011101011111—15 



P Rickard 0101101000000011 1 110— 9 



I Roberts 01000001110101110010— 9 



J Wilson 001 00101 101 11 1001110— 11 



A Parsons 10100010001010000001— 6 



Owing: to the inclemency of the weather but few were present.— 

 E. E. B 



ALGONQUIN GUN OLUB, New York, May 12— On Thursday last 

 the Algonquins enjoyed a visit from their old friends, ohe Washing- 

 ton Heights Gun Club who, together with some members of the 

 Knickerbocker Gun Club, made up a team that came very near beat- 

 ing the more or less noble red men at the traps. The teams agreed 

 upon were twelve members of the visiting clubs against an equal 

 number of the home club. Twenty puff balls to each shooter, thrown 

 from a screened rotary trap. At the close the score, stood 215 hits 

 out of 240 balls shot at by the Algonquins, to 211 hits for the visiting 

 clubs. Sweepstakes in clay-pigeons closed the afternoon's sport, 

 which seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed by all concerned. The clubs 

 cheered each other until the throats of the different members were 

 as "dry as lime kilns," and then— J. E. M. L. 



fxchting. 



KNICKERBOCKER Y. C. 



rpHIS club has shown its progressive spirit in deciding at the meet- 

 _L ing last week to adopt the Seawanhaka sail area rule in place of 

 length measurement, ana in limiting crews for all boats to one band 

 per three feet of length. Thus a 27ft. saudbagger is now allowed only 

 nine hands and a helmsman, thereby abolishing the tomfoolery of 

 sailing open boats with unlimited crews and giving the boat some 

 chance instead of reducing a yacht match to a trial of foolhardiness 

 and gymnastics. In course of time we hope to see the club go one 

 step further and prohibit all shifting of ballast with crews reduced to 

 one hand for every five feet of length. Many new members and 

 yachts have been added. Among these we note the Amazon, Mr. 

 Franklin Beams, a sloop, which has at limes given evidence of con- 

 siderable speed, even under a meagre racing outfit. This year she is 

 to appear with kites of all kinds in the sail room, and lead ballast, so 

 we may expect to see her figure well at the finish. First match will 

 be sent away at 11 A. M. May 30, for which nearly forty entries have 

 been made. Steamer Perseus leaves East 120th street, Harlem, at 

 9:45, and Port Morris dock at 10:30. Club now numbers 160 members 

 and 76 yachts. Club house at Morris Beach has been extended and 

 renovated. 



THE COLLAPSE AT NICE. 



IN further illustration of the defeat of Dauntless and Gitana by the 

 English yacht Florinda, we offer this week a sketch of the suc- 

 cessful yawl and cross sections of the three competitors, drawn to 

 scale. The Dauntless being considerably larger than the others, did 

 not find the wind of sufficient strength in proportion, and was left 

 hull down early in the race. But making all due allowance for size, 

 there can be only one conclusion to the fiasco, that Dauntless is an ex- 

 cessively slow vessel in light winds, and too slow and unwieldy in 

 stays to be ranked as a competitor in company of first-class racers. 

 Yet at home Dauntless has the reputation of being something of a 

 wonder, and columns have been filled in other papers chanting her 

 fame. A truthful estimate of that schooner and the whole class of 



her kind in our waters has never been made. The public has been 

 misled from the start, deriving the impression that our large schoon- 

 ers were really fast vessels, from the pointless trials between the huge 

 Sappho and Cambria.and the old-fashioned Livonia.a bluffish schooner 

 ranking only a poor average with other English old timers across the 

 water. Yet we have seen that same unpretentious old Livonia hold 

 her own with our crack Columbia in one of the international matches, 

 and which Livonia would actually have won but for the misunder- 

 standing about turning the outer mark. 



Of late we have all been falling down upon our knees in adoration 

 of the new Montauk as a wonderfully fast schooner. Yet her reputa- 

 tion rests upon nothing more solid than contests with such mediocre 

 productions as Tidal Wave and other ordinary vessels, much in the 

 same class with the Dauntless, to say nothing of sundry small schoon- 

 ers differing too much in size to afford a fair chance for comparison. 

 And even in company of our home vessels Montauk is not at all a 

 brilliant performer in light winds, though quicker in working than 

 the Dauntless. It is of course exceedingly unpatriotic to tell unpleas- 

 ant truths, but we take it to be our businesss. Had any one predicted 

 that Florinda would run and turn away from Gitana at will and make 

 the Dauntless appear ridiculous over a thirty-two mile course in "our 

 smooth water" and "our mild weather" such as was found in the 

 recent Nice International, he would^bave raised a howl of patriotic 

 indignation about his poor head and been accused of being a rabid 

 "Anglophobist" and a traitor in the camp. Yet the very worst has 

 happened. 



When we now venture the prediction that in face of Wendur, 



Latona, Florinda or Miranda, our choice Montauk would utterly col- 

 lapse in a bout to windward, and that the pretentions of our schooners 

 would be found as mythical here at home as they have been shown 

 to be at Nice. We. expect just the kind of self-complacent indifference 

 to such a prediction, which the faulty interpretation of the Cambria 

 and Livonia races has served to propagate. We have been under- 

 estimating our foe all along. The modern English schooner or yawl 

 is quite a different affair from old time arks like Livonia, If we 

 choose to overlook the progress made abroad since the general intro- 

 duction of outside ballast, the awakening from our self-sufficiency 

 will be very abrupt and very disagreeable. The truth is, we have not 

 progressed one iota in our schooners since the days of the America, 

 while our cousins abroad have passed through various "revolutions,^ 

 which made our defeat at Nice a foregone conclusion and point to a 

 collapse of our remaining pretentions as a probability in the •new*' 

 future. 



The test between Florinda and Gitana was fair and critical. Both 

 have like displacement and ballast within a few tons. Florinda 

 carries 54 tons on 150 tons displacement and Gitana about 60 on 165 

 tons. The latter has likewise about 7ft. extra length to her benefit. 

 The only radical difference is depicted in the cross sections, Florinda 

 being the narrower and deeper of the two, with a longer sweep to 

 the bilge and less floor. Gitana furthermore received a concession 

 of 15 per cent, of her tonnage for diff ereuce in rig, while on this side 

 of the Atlantic the yawl is quite generally ridiculed as a sort of craay 

 piece of British nonsense. Not one in a thousand in this country but 

 who would have rigged Florinda as a schooner in preference and 

 laughed at the notion of expecting better results from a silly English 

 custom, the choice of which is decried as "snobbery" throughout the 

 truly patriotic circles. Let us hope that even the blindest patriot 

 will catch a gleam of light from the slaughter of our schooners 

 within sight of the attending crowds along the Promenade des 

 Anglais. The lesson to be drawn from the Nice regatta is simple 

 enough and has two chapters. 



First, "patriotism" does not win races. Second, the old faith that 

 beam to carry sail and floor to "slide over the water" in some impos- 

 sible manner, or floor "for to stand up on," are the essentials to 

 speed, is arrant humbug, empty words devoid of meaning, refuted a 

 thousand times over in experience, and once more again in the disap- 

 pointment at Nice. Finally, in view of the much smaller sail of Flor- 

 inda, that beam contributes more potently to resistance than depth 

 and displacement in a narrower form. Florinda's lower sail area is 

 5,250 sq. ft. in racing condition, though we learn that her spars were 

 docked for cruising in the Mediterranean, with a sail area not over 

 4,500 sq. ft. The rig of Gitana, whether cruising or not, we cannot 

 positively say, was large enough to attract general attention and was 

 commented upon in the London Field. It could scarcely have con- 

 tained less than 6,000 sq. ft. 



TAPERING DOWN. 



THE old mean length rule is gradually tapering down to hard pan. 

 From mean length to one-third overhang, to one-quarter over- 

 hang, and now comes the New England Y R. A. and announces in 

 Rule 4, that for the measurement of length, only one-fifth the over- 

 hang aft shall be included. Where length is still to remain the stan- 

 dard, one-fifth the after overhang is somewhere near to common 

 equity. The stupidity of taxing Oft. counter as equal to 3ft. of middle 

 body, or even 2ft. orl^ft., is so patent to everyone with a grain of 

 mechanical conceptions in his make up, that the example of the New 

 England Y. R. A. is sure to be followed quickly by other clubs stilt 

 adhering to measurement by "simple length." 



YACHTING AT BELLEVILLE, ONTARIO, 



THE annual meeting of the Bay of Quinte Y. C, which was held 

 yesterday evening, was of a character to show that the season 

 will be quite lively in these waters. The olub is in a good position 

 financially, without a dollar of outstanding debts, and a balance in 

 the treasury. The principal officers elected were: Commodore, W 

 H. Biggar; Vice-Commodore, R. M, Roy; Captain, S. R. Balkwill; 

 Secretary, R. S. Bell; Treasurer, Wm. Pike; Measurers, Geo. N. 

 Leavens and Wm. S. Drenary. All were re-elections except the com- 

 modore, captain and the second measurer. The secretary now 

 enters upon his tenth year of service, having filled that honorary 

 position ever since the establishment of the club. 



The new commodore is a man of the right stamp. An enthusiastic 

 yachtsman, one of our ablest young barristers, energetic and 

 wealthy, his administration will beyond doubt be successful. He 

 made a very neat speech on assuming the chair, and intimated that 

 he will present a valuable prize for competition. 



As the by-laws of the Lake Yacht Racing Association have not as 

 yet come to hand, the formal union of the club with the association 

 could not be made, but a committee was appointed with power t 

 act in the matter, and the commodore, ex-commodore Clarke an 



