Dec. 20, 1888.) 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



447 



YAWL "SYLVIA"' SAIL PLAN. 



direct and on to Duluth without the necessity for doubling on her 

 track and making the long and sometimes rough circuit of the 

 point. Apparently it does not pay dividends, for it is falling 

 into decay and tilling up, and if not taken in hand hy the Govern- 

 ment of the State will soon lapse into disuse and ruin. It is 

 about two miles long and cut through earth, sand and hard pan, 

 and is bordered by a row of rotton piles on either hand to prevent 

 the steamboat wash from bringing down the slopes. 



The breeze was ahead, the c:mal deep, oars we had none, there 

 was no towpatb, and the principal topic of discussion among the 

 crew of the Sylvia that bright J une morning was not whether the 

 canal was a financial success or whether it was bv this route the 

 Indians guided La Salle and Joliette, but tiow the Sylvia was to 

 get through. 



Stumped, did you say? Not a hit of it. A long, light, cotton 

 line was got out (intended for spinaker halliards), one end was at- 

 tached to the bitts and the other turned into a bowline, which was 

 thrown over taw skipper's shoulders, and with bare feet and the 

 trusty crew at the helm, away he went scrambling over the rotten 

 woodwork, stubbing his toes on protruding spikes, and jumping 

 from pile to pile in a way which did credit to his energy, but 

 which was decidedly trying to his dignity and rough on his cu- 

 taneous covering. A mile up and hair the distance covered, we 

 stopped at the life-saving station to rest and inspect the coats and 

 apparatus. We spent a half hour verv pleasantly in this occupa- 

 tion, and approved of Uncle Sam's life guardians much more 

 highly than of his light keepers. Then we turned to our boat 

 again and to the problem, of getting ahead. The skipper had 

 done his third and more, and he thought now to change places with 

 the crew, and st eer and dabble bis abraded skin in the water along- 

 side, while the crew panted and toiled and leaped awful chasms 

 and climbed piles and wrought-iron spikes, and he had his face 

 already set and a smile at full-cock ready to go off the iirst time 

 the crew stubbed his toe and swore. But" the latter had lived too 

 long for him; he is good-natured, but as I said before, stout and 

 more addicted to Bass's ale and repose than violent exercise. 



Yawi. "Sylvia" Midship Section. 



His face is round and jovial and innocent looking, but way down 

 somewhere in his hold there Is stowed away guile enough' to run 

 Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee" and "Truthful James" a match 

 for him besides. Absorbed in the study of a rocket apparatus, 

 the skipper had not noticed him draw one of the coast guardians 

 aside, nor heard the clink of a trade dollar, and when he look his 

 seat at the tiller and laid his linger on the trigger of the above- 

 mentioned smile, it was the coastguardsman who took the bow- 

 line of the cotton line, and the crew who, with his ISolbs. avoirdu- 

 pois, careened the ship to port as he leaped lightly hut firmly 

 upon the fore deck and proceeded to pay out the line. Perfidious 

 wretch! But soft, we will get even with him yet. 



The end of the canal reached, a fine breeze was found blowing 

 on Portage Lake. A short beat, with some pretty severe knock- 

 downs (for the hills on either side were high), and we came to 

 an abrupt turn, and with the wind well aft and the main boom 

 awayvout to port we tore down upon the twin towns of Houghton 

 and Hancock m a way which evidently astonished the small boys 

 bathing along the shore, whose naked bodies stood white and sta- 

 tuesque on the beach and wharves as thev watched us pass, and 

 the solitary locomotive at the railway station gave a dismal veil 

 as we rounded to; but whether ft was through fright lest'we 

 should carry away the drawbridge we were both bearing down 

 upon, or as a mere matter of business, we could not ascertain 



I am writing for your yachting columns, and for yachtsmen 

 finished, and m embryo, so I will not stop to give you a uM/riotion 

 of the sleepy little town of Houghton, the most anomalous little 

 American town 1 e ver saw; nor an account of our trip to the great 

 copper mines under the guidance of the most hospitable and open- 

 handed host I ever met; nor, as we were on shore and the ship's 

 discipline in abeyance, will I keep tally of the amount of lager 

 beer absorbed by the crew and steward; suffice it to sav that we 

 enjoyed ourselves, and saw many things, including the crew's best 

 girl (at the time, he is married to another now), and returned well 

 satisfied to the hotel at Hancoe k. The skipper preferred his bunk 

 outhe boat to any shore beds, but gave the rest of his company 

 shore leave, and retired to sleep the sleep of the just, until awak- 

 ened late next day by a hail from the parcel-laden steward. 



Preparations were at once made for departure; we laid along- 

 side the drawbridge to reeve the gafftopsail and spinaker hal- 

 liards, and then dipping our ensign to our genial host of the dav 

 before, started to beat out the narrow channel to the lighthouse. 

 A big Ward line steamer ranged up alongside, going in the same 

 direction, the passengers leaned over the rail to admire the pretty 

 boat, and we ran up the stars and strips in their honor, but in- 



stead of being gratified the captain gruffly shouted from his lofty 

 perch hy the wheelhouse, "Take the other down," alluding to the 

 blood-red ensign at the peak. We did not "take the other down." 



Arrived at the bend we got a start and bowled over to the canal 

 mouth in very good shape. Then we sailed, drifted and poled to 

 the mouth, eating a leisurely lunch the while; and about 3 P. M. 

 the open Jake was before us, ruffled by a fine breeze, which would 

 be on our quarter when we got out. The "white horses" were 

 chasing one another down the lake and the Sylvia danced gaily 

 along with her planksheer to, and in a few minutes we were con- 

 strained to take in jib and mizen and reef bowsprit, but set them 

 again shortly afterward. A mile or two out We ran into a dense 

 tog, and the wind immediately slackened. About dark we judged 

 we must be in the track of steamboats and set our foghorn going, 

 and sure enough we soon heard, and for an hour or more after- 

 ward, the booming of steam whistles around us. The steward and 

 crew applied their mouths to the horn even nnjre frequently than 

 they had the day before, and it was singular to observe that the 

 effect of the foghorn in making their faces red and their heads 



reported to one another exactly the same thing, "a light, steady 

 air abeam and a drenching, dripping fog," we began to think we 

 should bump on the "Rock of Ages" or on the north shore beyond 

 it before we saw either, but as day broke the erew suddenly cried 

 out from the cockpit, "Why! I can see the whole bloomin' island," 

 and sure enough, we had run out of the fog as suddenly as we ran 

 intoit,and isle Royale lay stretched infront of us, and apparently 

 close aboard. 



The Skipper pulled off his dripping overcoat (the light breeze 

 almost simultaneously dropped) and turned in for a nap, not 

 awaking until-a sharp list nearly threw him on the cabin floor a 

 couple of hours afterward. A puff from the shore had struck the 

 yacht, followed by another and another; but with a ton and a half 

 of lead and iron under the cabin floor we feared them not, and the 

 crew and steward humored her back and forth and gradually 

 drew her ahead, until we lay becalmed over the extreme point of 

 the island. Oh I the panorama of limpid water, wooded height 

 and gravelly beach which stretched itself out beside us. The 

 water was so clear that we could see the boulders, 20 and 30ft. 

 under our keel, and the air so pure that it wasa pleastueto inhale 

 it. See that white speck away in the bay yonder? That is a fish- 

 ing boat, and uuder the impulse of oar and an occasional catspaw 

 she soon gets out to where we lie becalmed. "Going out to lift 

 your nets?" "Yes." "Good luck this season?" "Not bad." And 

 sbe gets beyond earshot, 



"Hello, boys! see that blue line out there? Get your spinaker 

 boom out, Look alive now." And scarcely is the spinaker set 

 wnen the breeze is upon us, light at first, but gradually freshening 

 to half a gale; and away wc go, with the the gafftopsail pulling at 

 its sheet like a cart horse, the spinaker boom bent into an arc of 

 a circle, and the rising sea roaring on either bow and astern as if 

 angry that it cannot leap over the narrow taffrail. 



The sixteen miloB to Jarvis Island is covered in a little over two 

 hours and as we tear through the gap between it and Victoria 

 Island the surf is dashing hign on the jagged rocks, the ensign is 

 dipped and the genial manager and the. "boys" wave their hands 

 and their caps, and the steam whistle at the main toots cheer- 

 fully and encouraging. We can't stop; the breeze is too fair and 

 fresh for that and on we bowl in more sheltered water now past 

 Jarvis and Spar Islands, Mink and the Majestic Pie, into the 

 broad expanse of Thunder Bay. Another hour and we pass the 

 Welcomes and the white blur on the hillside ahead resolves it- 

 self into component white houses and churches. We fly past 

 the lighthouse and breakwater into the harbor, spinaker and 

 gafftopsail are taken in, and with a last lazy tired roll and heave 

 the Sylvia rounds up to her moorings in the inner basin and our 

 cruise is ended. 11 any one of your readers has made a trip half 

 as enjoyable, with companions or a boat half as genial and trusty, 

 I want him to get down his experiences as I have now done but in 

 better style and to all such I say— "Shake, old man." 



The Skipper. 



THE NEW MORGAN SCHOONER,— The new schooner for 

 Rear-Corn, E. D. Morgan, N. Y. Y. C, on which Mr. Burgess is 

 now at work, will be built of steel, with a centerboard beneath 

 the floor, as in Marguerite. Her dimensions are 137ft. over all, 

 lOBft. l.w.1., 24ft. Wn. beam, 12ft. lin. draft. The stem has an over- 

 hang of lift, and the stern 20ft, The outline of her keel and fore- 

 foot is similar to Volunteer. The design is described as follows 

 by (he Boston Glohe; "The midship section is the best which Mr. 

 Burgess has yet drawn. The topside shows a slight tumble home, 

 perhaps 2m. on a side. The line curves gently at the waterline, 

 and thence cuts rather boldly down, giving plenty of power close 

 to the surface of the water. The bilge, while powerful, shows no 

 hard spot, but turns neatly into the almost straight line which 

 makes up the grea ter portion of the new schooner's deadrise. 

 The garboards are quite widely separated to admit the great mass 

 of lead which will constitute the ballast, aud below the line of the 

 section curves quickly into the keel proper. The waterlines indi- 

 cate plenty of power, though the great length of the yacht gives 

 ease to the curves. Mr. Morgan's yacht will have a slightly hol- 

 low bow, and a powerful harpin. The run is clean, but not too 

 fine. Altogether the vessel gives one an impression of great 

 power gained at little sacrifice of ease." 



"THE YACHTSMAN'S SOUVENIR."-Mr. N. L. Stebbins, the 

 photographer, whose excellent work is familiar to all yachtsmen, 

 has just published a most beautiful volume under the title ot 

 "The Yachtsman's Souvenir." The book, which is an oblong 

 octavo, contains the portraits of nearly 250 American yachts of 

 all kinds and classes, from the largest steamers down to open cat- 

 boats. Each photo is about 4x2^ih., arranged four on a page. In 

 the front of the book is a list of tne yachts, with their dimensions 

 and the names of owners, designers aud builders. The plates are 

 printed from gelatine by the Litbotype Co., of Gardner, Mass. 

 While not equal in size or finish to the large and elegant volume 

 of reproductions of Mr. Stebhins's work published last year, the 

 new book will prove a most valuable supplement to the yacht 

 list, being in fact an illustrated yacht list, including all the lead- 

 ing yachts, down to the new vessels of last year. Apart from its 

 anisde value it will be found indispensable as a work of refer- 

 ence, and as a means of identifying the yachts met with in racing 

 or cruising. 



THE WHITE SQUALL'S 1887 CRUISE. 



THE summer of '86 was one of work and worry, and the canoe 

 hung idle in her slings. The spring of '87 opened in much 

 the same manner (ill one day, about; June 1, I received a letter 

 from Horace, asking if either Jim (a younger scion of my father's 

 family) or myself could join him about a month later on a ranoe 

 cruise on the St, John or some of its tributaries. I replied that 

 one Of us would go, and I hoped it would be the writer. Forthwith 

 I got down the canoe, scoured her well within and without, and 

 treated her to a fresh coat of paint, H. arrived July 7, and it took 

 tis all of the 8th with the best work we could put in to get ready. 

 In order to get the right trim we considered it necessary to carry 

 about OOlbs. of sand ballast in two tight canvas bags, and in lieu 

 ol watertight compartments we stowed a lot of large, square 

 tightly corked empty varnish cans under fore and aft and battened 



the right grip to hold her to windward. He very much desired a 

 trial wuh some other boat to put the theory to the test 



On the evening of the 8th we received word that two Boston 

 gentlemen, who owned places six miles down the lake, would 

 open the season at 1 P. M. thenext day with a friendly brush be- 

 tween their boats over a six-mile quadrilateral course and would 

 be pleased to have us join them. H. jumped at the offer, and 1 

 was nothing loth. The next morning we manufactured a spina- 

 ker and practiced setting it quickly. We experimented to get 

 the right trim, and a little before noon set out under paddle de- 

 termined to make the race no picnic, so far as we were concerned 

 But we were disappointed. The paint on one of the boats was 

 not dry enough to allow her to be launched, and the other boat 

 had gone away. So we went ashore and lounged until about G 

 o'clock, when we rendered able assistance in the destruction of 

 sundry viands, aud at sundown we hoisted sail and set out for 

 home with a light fair : wind. We set the spinaker, which we 

 had christened "Boston s Surprise." but which turned out no 

 surprise at all, and had what we will always remember as a lazv 

 easy run home. Wo had selected the lake right at our door- the 

 5 ashademoak, as our cruising ground, and though the wind was 

 fair we lay still all day Sunday. 



Monday opened with half a gale of N.E. wind (dead in our teeth) 

 i atlier had attached my services to assist to get a load of produce 

 ready to go to market by the morning boat, for though ail of us 

 are scratching for ourselves," and some are on the wrong side of 

 thirty when we are around the, home ranch and father savs to 

 one of the, boys, "Stay," he stayeth. At 13 o'clock the wind was 

 unabated and there was a cold, driving mist; but when I an- 

 nounced myself as at the disposal of my friend, he voted for an 

 immediate start. I will not attempt to describe the work of that 

 afternoon, as with the paddle we urged the canoe in the face of 

 the gale. Any person who would have patience to read a nai ra- 

 S*g h \ e ^is has either been there himself or will be sometime. 

 If the first he knows all about it; if the second he will know soon 

 enough. 



Before starting we took the precaution to set our reefed main- 

 sail ready for hoisting, and when we had paddled five miles we 

 set m for a two mile beat for Picket's ©ove, where we expected 

 to camp. We made nearly as much weather as under paddle 

 Picket s Cove is about a fourth of a mile wide at its mouth and 

 one mile long, terminating in two branches, each fed by a stream 

 which flows m one from the north and the other from the west 

 \\ e explored the northern branch to rapid waters, and dropped 

 down ahout tour hundred yards to the spot we selected for camp 

 If there is anything I dislike it is camping in a man's door yard 

 and the canoeist will readily understand why we strained a 

 point to reach this place, when I state that, save a farm on each 

 side ot the cove's mouth there is an unbroken wood all around it 

 At a. point where the creek bank was 10ft. high, under a spread- 

 ing beech tree with a little glade in front, we pitched our oiled 

 cotton tent, which H. had constructed hastilv out of a lot of his 

 father s hay caps. We had chosen a position parallel with the 

 creek, and inside and on the down-hill side of the A-shaped tent 

 we drove two crotches. Into the forks we placed a good stiff 

 pole, and then lay slats across, pressing one end into the soft 

 earth for the uphill side, and letting the other rest on the pole 

 On this we made our bed of fir boughs, and over all spread a 

 buffalo robe and we had "a good enough bed for the Joneses " 

 The high treshet of the previous spring had thrown up plenty of 

 dry spruce wood in 4ft. lengths, and we kept up a good lire until 

 late m the evening. Before retiring for the night we dried plent v 

 of kindlings and took them in the tent. When cooking supper 

 we undertook to make tea in a lard pail and quickly melted off 

 the ears. Y\ e then put some water in the frying-pan, and setting 

 the pail of tea m it placed it. on the fire, and the result was so 

 satisfactory that when in camp we have made tea on that principle 

 ever since. • v 



We awoke at daybreak to find that the mist had during the 

 night changed to a heavy rain, and that our arrangement for a 

 tent floor had served a better purpose than the mere levelin» ©f 

 the ground; for a stream of water had made a free course under 

 us. My youngest brother had been one of a picnic party that had 

 visited the head of Picket's Cove two weeks previous, and before 

 we lett home he had confided to us the location of a place where 

 we could get trout enough for breakfast. In his description he 

 used as a base line the place where the stream crossed an old road 

 We struck through the woods to the point indicated, but no pool 

 could we find. Going back, we missed our way in a labyrinth of 

 old lumber roads, and did some tall swimming around among the 

 wet bushes before we found camp. At once we set about drsiue 

 our clothes aud cooking breakfast, in the meantime passing sev- 

 eral resolutions that we would never again look for a secret trout 

 pool on tne word of any person, except he made his statement in 

 the lorm of a duly attested and witnessed affidavit. You can 

 faintly imagine our feelings when we afterward found that the 

 pool was on the western branch. 



At last everything was dried before the big loec fire and packed 

 in the canoe, and as before a fitful N.E. wind we dashed around 

 the bend of the creek through the gray mist of the vet cloudy 

 morning, and looked back at the thick column of smoke from the 

 camp-fire, now coursing across the glade in an undulating stream 

 that seemed to lose its free end in the woods in as compact a 

 mass as when it started, then quickly flinging it skyward and ap- 

 pearing to entangle it for a moment in the branches of the spread- 

 ing beech, we thought not of the quiet beauty of the spot of the 

 elfin hand that was reaching out from among the roots of the old 

 beech to "wave us a farewell with a blue gauze scarf," but upou 

 the one elment that thrust itself upon us during every moment of 

 our stay; and we gave it the very unpoetic name of ( Samp Mois- 

 ture. When we sighted the lake aud saw a sailboat a mile away 

 going in the same direction as our intended course, H. once more 

 bewailed our fate that we were not ten minutes earlier Two 

 miles from camp she rounded a bend of the river (for as it nar- 

 rows here to one-quarter of a mile it can no longer be called a 

 lake), known as the Narrow Piece, and again getting the wind 

 dead ahead, we started onour long beat. 1 steered and H, handled 

 the main sheet, as, in fact, we did during the entire cruise. 



H. and I differed then and do yet (though not quite so much as 

 then) on some points connected with Boats and sailiti'g. On the 

 Kennebeccasis, w here he spent his early life, Mr. Logan, a boat- 

 builder, is a lecognized authority. The favorite theory of thi« 

 gentleman is, that in windward work you should not sail as near 

 the wind as possible, but starting your sheet a little and keeping 

 off a point or two you will make up in increased sneed what You 

 loose in pointing. If I have a good boat I am what thev call a 

 "wind jammer." On July 1, 1886, 1 sailed with Mr. Logan in a 

 race where, with a brand new jib and mainsail boat, he beat a 

 catboat, owned by Mr. Fowler, of New York, in a five-mile beat 

 to windward and a run home; and with the nairovvest watchiug 

 I could not discover the slightest symptoms of his age of his own 

 theory. But it was no use to tell his disciples this; they raerelv 

 placed it to the credit, of prejudice. H. is a believer in the board" 

 a tolerator of the keel and was a firm believer in the Lnganian 

 theory. I am as near the converse as possible. 



On the morning of which I write we had not made two tacks to 

 windward before we saw a sail go up about two miles above' and 

 a little later the boat came down the wind with successive semi- 

 circular jets of water flying over the lee gunwale, which showed 

 that the occupants were serving a writ of ejectment on some of 

 the water that had rained in during the night, while on the 

 weather side sat four boys. I recognized her by her green trp- 

 Sidefi as the property of a genial steamboat man" who lived near 

 H., noting the number of passengers remarked carlessly: "I guess 

 there is a load on their way to celebrate the glorious twelfth " 

 "Now," said I, "I scarcely agree with you; that is the best sailing 

 boat in this region, and they are coming down here for no other 

 purpose than to inspect the strange craft and see what she is 

 made of." 'AH right," he replied, "they will find at least one 

 person glad to meet them; there is a double pleasure ja defeating 

 the best— a defeat by any less carries a double sting." 



The boat veered, crossod the river, jibed and went on the same 

 tack with us, about 60yds. to windward. Query; Did any one 



