Mat 30 1896.] 
FOKES1 AND STREAM. 
448 
The following, from the Marine Journal of May 23, shows a very 
decided change from the bold assertions of American superiority 
made a couple of weeks back; instead of the whole ship, it is now 
claimed that at least Americans can build better capstans: 
We are very well satisfied that the statisticians of the Boston Herald 
and similar papers are not conspicuously accurate as to details when 
editorializing in regard to the respective growth and comparative 
merits of BritislTand American shipping. When th^se papers talk, 
for instance, of th« "undisputed primacy of Great Britain in the ship- 
building industry," they ignore such facts as that American capstan 
makers are regularly exporting their products to England to fill 
orders for the equipment of British vessels. This is due, in the mitter 
of capstans, to the facts that they are superior articles to those of 
British manufacture and that they can be produced here in quantities 
by means of improved machinery quite cheaply enough to compete 
with cheaper British labor. 
But even where labor Is the principal factor in the production of 
such machinery, it has been demonstrated that American products 
outrank British where excellence is desired, for one of the eminent 
windlass manufacturing concerns of this country is now sending to 
England windlasses also for the' equipment of some of the higher 
classed and better equipped vessels in course of construction there. 
These windlasses are notably the product of skilled hand labor, each 
one having to be made separately, so that both British and American 
manufacturers stand upon an equal ground, and the American is 
acknowledged the palm for superiority. The same would be true of 
ships under similar circumstances. 
We have no fault to find with the above statements, which, we be 
lieve, are correct, the American capstans and windlasses being widely 
used abroad through their superiority. Accepting them as true, they 
prove two things: First, that improvement is the result not necessar- 
ily of a protective tariff, but of demand and competition; and sec 
ondly, that in America the progress in mechanical work has been far 
greater than in the designing of hulls. 
The evolution of the American yacht capstan and windlass is in 
itself interesting. There was a time when any collection of old junk 
was considered good enough to span the heel of the clumsy balk of 
square timber that served as the bowsprit of a yacht. With the intro- 
duction of the cutters and the lessons taught by them In neat and 
shipshape fittings and iron work came a demand for a strong, com- 
pact and shipshape capstan, which was met by the importation of 
some excellent makes of English and Scotch capstans. The secondary 
result of this demand for a superior article was the production of the 
American yacht capstan, still better than the pattern from which the 
idea was taken. The protective duty really does not figure in the 
case; it has remained at the same figure for years; of itself it failed to 
produce any improvement; even now it increases the cost of the im- 
ported but little or nothing over that of the home article, but the lat- 
ter holds the field simply through its merits. 
1 
measure is beyond question, but we doubt very much whether it wi V 
serve to prevent such interference as has been seen at the important 
races of the last few years. 
. That it is but a small step from the sublime to the ridiculous is 
well shown by the following extract from the Marine Journal of May 
23, following so closely on its panegyrics over protection to American 
interests and American labor: 
Those of us who have an interest in the passage of the Payne yacht 
bill, which will exclude foreign-built yachts owned by Americana 
from coming here free of port charges, can point with pride to the 
Sovereign when complete as an American production, equal if not 
superior to anything afloat that bears a foreign stamp, Our contem- 
porary, the Forest and Stream, will of course add, "very true, but 
the Sovereign was designed by a foreigner." Irue, he was foreign 
born; but this gentleman has taken out his naturalization papers, 
sworn his allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, married an American 
girl, acquired an American homp, and we do not know of a better 
American in principle and all else but birth than J. Beavor Webb, the 
designer of the Sovereign. Foreigners of this stripe always have 
been and always will be welcome in the United States. 
In complete harmony with the views we have always held, we con- 
sider that this country is fortunate in having one man who knows how 
to design a steam yacht, no matter what his nationality may be. It 
was so in I860, when the famous Monitor, in which Americans take 
such pride, was designed after his own original ideas, condemned as 
they were by the naval experts of the day, by John Ericsson, a Swede; 
it was so as long ago as 1812, when the Scotch shipbuilder, Henry Eck- 
ford, went from New York to the lakes and hurried together a fleet of 
gunboats for defense against Great Britain. We welcome all talent 
and believe that the country is the richer for it; but we cannot see 
how such ideas are otherwise than at variance with the protective 
iheories so fully set forth by the Marine Journal. We were present 
at the launch of the Sovereign, and among the large crowd of ship- 
wrights, general mechanics and men intimately connected with ship- 
building and shipping, one could not have swung a cat by the tail 
without bitting half a dozen subjects or ex-subjects of Her Majesty, 
the Queen of England and Empress of India. Whether they had been 
in the country ten days or ten years, whether they had, if naturalized, 
taken out their papers regularly and lawfully or merely been rushed 
through the political naturalization machine, does not concern 
us from a technical standpoint. The great fact is that they 
were doing good work, as evidenced in the fine vessel then 
set afloat. How they managed, however, to turn out a 
thoroughly American production is something that we cannot under- 
stand, Mr. Webb received his training as a designer abroad, where he 
practiced his profession for years; a very large number of the others 
concerned with the production of the yacht learned to handle a pencil, 
a drawing pen, a "shifting spanner," a spud wrench or a caulking 
chisel, as the case may be, in Scotch and Irish shipyards. What pro- 
gress has been made thus far in shipbuilding in America is largely 
through this skill, acquired abroad and imported here. Without it, 
In the present state of the shipbuilding industry, the point now 
reached would be still a dozen years distant. No one is more thor- 
oughly cognizant of this fact than the employer who advocates such 
measures as the Payne bill to restrict competition, but at the same 
time welcomes the skilled European mechanic and aids him to get 
safely into the American shipyard in spite of the contract labor law. 
The whole business is a mass of inconsistencies, absurdities and 
grave wrongs; some of the staunchest advocates of the Payne bill are 
subjects of Queen Victoria who have been in this country one, five or 
even a dozen years, but are in no sense Americans. The Payne bill 
itself is absurd, unfair and one-sided to a degree. If the theories of 
protection to American interests, and especially to the American 
workman, are right and fair, then the whole system of laws relating 
to foreign vessels and materials and to foreign skilled labor, profes- 
sional or otherwise, is in need of reconstruction. 
"She do move;" now it is the pilots of New York, men who have 
been devoted to one ancient type of vessel, faulty in the extreme and 
showing a total lack of those qualities that once made the American 
pilot boat famous in foreign waters. Having at last decided to 
replace the old sailing craft by a steam vessel, they have shown a 
spirit of enterprise that might well be emulated by the prospective 
owners of very much larger craft. Instead of going to some out-of- 
the-way place for a wooden box designed by local talent, they have 
placed an order with Mr. A. Gary Smith for a steel vessel of 140ft. 
Lw.l., 28ft. beam and 14ft. draft. That the result will be a success can 
hardly be doubted from Mr. Smith's work of late in other similar 
lines outside his original work of yacht designing. 
The Yachtsman welcomes the Payne bill as designed to prevent the 
collection of duties on foreign yachts in such cases as that of Spruce 
last year. There is nothing whatever of this nature about the bill, its 
object is to keep out all foreign yachts, if possible. 
YACHT DESIGNING.— IX. 
BY W. P. STEPHENS. 
CContinued from page k%U.y 
IN actual practice the term metacenter is employed 
somewhat loosely, and the leading authorities are by no 
means as exact and definite in regard to it as is desirable. 
The "metacenter" obtained by the ordinary calculation, 
from the breadths of the waterline, is the shifting meta- 
center for a very small angle of heel; and in the average 
vessel the various verticals through the C. B. for all in- 
clinations from the upright position to an angle of 10 or 
even 15° fall practically in one point. Speaking with 
strict accuracy, according to Bouguer's original definition, 
this point is really a number of shifting metacenters, and 
not necessarily the limiting point of the C. G. ; but it is 
the more convenient and useful in the calculation of sta- 
bility. The term metacentric height or height of meta- 
center is also used both to express the height of the meta- 
center above the C. G.. the distance M. G, in Fig. 8, and 
the height above the C. B , or the distance M. B. This 
distance, which is one of the elements obtained by calcu- 
lation from the lines of the yacht through the displace- 
ment sheet or other means, is related solely to the form 
of the vessel, without regard to position of the C. G. as 
J • f 
i 
& 
FIG. 8. 
A C— Vertical axis, no' mal position. A* C 1 — Vertical axis, inclined 
position, 15°. W L— Waterline, normal position. W 1 L 1 — Waterline, 
in-lined position. B— Center of buoyancy, normal position. B 1 — 
Center of buoyancy, inclined position. G— Center of gravity. M— 
Metacenter. G Z— Righting lever. 
determined by the nature, quantity and location of the 
ballast, and is of comparatively little value. The height of 
the metacenter with relation to the center of gravity of 
the vessel under certain given conditions is a different 
thing, and of vastly greater importance. In the 
case of a yacht it is only necessary to know that 
she will not capsize under a certain limited range 
of conditions, but in the case of a merchant 
steamer or war ship the range of possible conditions is 
increased infinitely. The merchant steamer may be in 
launching trim, without her engines and boilers; she may 
be in sailing trim, with masts, rigging and sails, but with 
a clean hold and empty bunkers; she may be in ballast and 
with bunkers on one side partly filled, with more or less 
water in her ballast tanks, or she may be carrying a heavy 
cargo, with bunkers either full or nearly empty. The 
warship, in the same manner, is subject to great variations 
in amount of coal and stores carried ; there is a great 
weight of ammunition, which may vary from time to 
time, and changes of armament are also made. All of 
these alterations of weight act to lower or raise the C. G., 
possibly to a dangerous degree, and a full knowledge of 
the stability of the vessel under all possible conditions and 
8 
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JCAIC ro/i o r l rv c <. ' r*s T ION 
The bill introduced by Senator Hill, to regulate the attendant fleet 
at yacht and boat races and similar gatherings by conferring special 
powers on the U. S. Revenue cutters, has received the signature of 
the President and becomaalaw. .That it is a necessary and useful 
ma. 9. curves of stability. 
S-Sloop. C— Cutter. 
contingencies is essential to her safety. This knowledge 
is obtained from the various calculations in which the 
metacenter figures. The value of these calculations begins 
not with the ship ready for launching or in actual ser- 
vice, but with the inception of the design, as it is of the 
utmost importance that there shall be no possible doubt as 
to the safety of the proposed vessel under all conditions 
likely to occur in the service for which she is designed. 
The amateur or novice in yacht designing has much to 
learn before he need concern himself with metacentric 
height or curves of stability; but as he is certain to meet 
with mention of them in the course of his reading, it is 
just as well that he should have at least a general idea of 
them. 
It has been shown in Fig. 8 how the righting power of 
a vessel is dependent on the length of the lever G Z, the 
horizontal distance between the two verticals through 
the C. G. and C. B. As the yacht first heels, this distance 
increases; after a time it reaches its maximum, and then 
begins to decrease. What is called a curve of stability 
is constructed from these different levers for successive 
intervals of heel. The lengths of the arm G Z for angles 
of 10, 20, etc., up to 90', or even further, are calculated, 
and a horizontal line is drawn and divided to any conven- 
ient scale to represent the degrees of inclination as in Fig. 
9. On the left end of this line a vertical is drawn and 
divided to some scale, other verticals being drawn 
through each point of the horizontal line. The length of 
the arm corresponding to an inclination of 10° is now laid 
off on the first vertical from the end, that for 20° on the 
second, etc. A curve is then drawn through the spots as 
plotted. The scale on the vertical line is usually made to 
represent foot tons, or the righting moment, the length of 
the lever in feet multiplied by the force, the buoyancy, in 
tons. Fig. 9 shows approximately the curves of stability 
for two very different types of yachts, the wide and shoal 
sloop and the narrow and deep cutter. In the former the 
C. B. shifts rapidly with a small angle of heel, making a 
long righting lever at a very small angle, but the maxi- 
mum is soon reached at 30° inclination or even less. Any 
further heeling tends to bring the C. G. more nearly over 
the C. B., and when it is directly over, the righting lever 
becomes a heeling lever and the yacht capsizes. This 
point at which the righting lever becomes 0 and capsiz- 
ing begins marks the range of stability, mentioned in a 
previous chapter. 
The curve of stability of the cutter, C, has a Very dif- 
ferent character; at the outset the arm is very short, and 
it increases slowly as the yacht heels. Instead of a 
hard hump at about 30° and a quick inclination to the 
vanishing point, as the yacht reaches an angle of about 
40° the C. B. moves out faster and faster, and the curve 
becomes quite fiat; the maximum length of lever ia 
reached somewhere about 50°, and after that, as the yacht 
approaches her beam ends and the full effect of the heavy 
lead keel is felt, the lever shortens very slowly, there may 
be no vanishing point at all, the heavy keel still tending 
to right the yacht when the mast is pointing downward, 
the angle now being 180°, and the range of stability is 
infinite. 
The methods of constructing a curve of stability vary 
according to the type of vessel and the snecial purpose in 
view; in a sailing yacht the ballast and C. G. are assumed 
to be fixed at all times, but in steam craft, especially cargo 
and war ships, the curves are constructed to accord with 
varying positions of the C G., depending on the loading. 
FIG. 10. 
M— Longitudinal metacenter. 
Not only are they of value to the naval architect in secur- 
ing certain qualities in the vessel, but they now serve a 
direct and equally useful end in the hands of the captain 
as showing the stability of the vessel under the varying 
conditions of actual service. 
Thus far we have dealt only with the transverse meta- 
center, the more important, owing to its intimate relation 
to the stability; but there is also the longitudinal meta- 
center, the initial point of longitudinal motion, Fig. 10. 
The various points and their relations, the C. G.,C. B. and the 
metacenter, correspond to those of the transverse inclina- 
tion, but in this case the vessel is inclined through a much 
smaller range, the bow being depressed and the stern ele- 
vated, or the reverse. The height of the longitudinal 
metacenter is verymuch greater than that of the trans- 
verse. The position of the longitudinal metacenter exer- 
cises a strong influence on the motion of the yacht in dis- 
turbed water. It is also of material use in calculations of 
changes of fore and aft trim. When the word metacen- 
ter is used alone, it invariably refers to the transverse 
metacenter; the longitudinal metacenter is always spoken 
of as such in full. 
The position of the C. G., one of the essential elements 
of stability calculations, may be ascertained in two ways: 
first, by calculation, the moment of every part of the ves- 
sel (that is, its weight multiplied by the distance of its 
center of gravity from some assumed point) being calcu- 
lated, and the sum of these moments being divided by 
the displacement. Considering the almost innumerable 
details that make up a vessel, such a task would seem 
very difficult; but in the hands of skilled men, two work- 
ing to check each other or to compare their independent 
labors, quite accurate results are possible. Such calcula- 
tions are the only ones possible in the case of a new de- 
sign. After a vessel is completed, the position of her C. 
G. may be found by experiment, a known weight being 
placed on one gunwale and the inclination measured, 
the weight then being shifted to the other gunwale. By 
suitable calculations from the measurements thus ob- 
tained, the position of the C. G. may be readily obtained. 
Dorchester Y. C. Open Sweepstakes. 
DORCHESTER — BOSTON HARBOR. 
Saturday, May 16. 
The first race of rhe Dorchester Y. C , an open sweepstakes, was 
sailed on May 16 over a 7-mile course, the times being: 
Length. Elapsed. Corrected. 
Penguin, J. E. Robinson 14.06 1 19 14 0 46 21 
Elsa, H. M. Crane 14.11 1 24 35 0 51 20 
Tantrum, F. D. Perkins 14.11 1 25 06 0 51 51 
Princess, Gay & Ware 14.06 1 26 55 0 53 02 
Velma, Dr. T. Hallett 14.05 1 35 i5 1 01 21 
Katydid Disabled 
Transit Withdrew. 
The club celebrated the opening of the season at its house d urine 
the day and evening. 
