FOREST AND STREAM. 389 
BODY PLANS AND SECTIONS. 
with transom or counter stern, or indeed anything allowed to a 
"yacht." 
If such a course is to be permitted in the case of canoe yawls, and . 
the first-class sailing canoe is to be allowed to degenerate into a shallow 
saucer, with barely a tinge of canoe feature left to her, it is about time 
that the title "canoe" were returned to the savage, the North Ameri- 
can Indian, and to the Canadian hunter, never again to be used in 
connection with craft devoid of any canoe feature. 
The use of the first-class or sailiDg canoe may not be quite the same 
in all the clubs in England, but a very instructive lesson may be taken , 
by other clubs from the state of the case as existing in the senior club, 
the Royal Canoe Club, at the present moment. For several years past 
the club has gradually played up to racing, and to racing only, simply 
at the expense, or to the death, of every other quality. -This might 
be but of little harm where there is a large and substantial body of 
racing owners constantly augmenting, but the very reverse is the case 
in canoeing— a. steady decrease of entries, and, just apart from the 
whip up and freshener of the international race or defense of the chal- 
lenge cup, a stagnation in the building of canoes. 
As a matter of fact, the new rule of 1894 has not been tested, as but 
one canoe was built thereunder, but it may fairly be questioned 
whether there is any real prospect or probability of its being further 
tested in the coming season. The reasons for such doubts are ample ■ 
and sound, and they should be carefully considered by members who 
intend to attend the autumn meetings of the clubs, whereat the rules 
may be altered "for better or worse." 
The case may be viewed thus: The sailing canoe, if built and fitted 
up to date, will probably cost her owner, when it is brought to proper 
starting form, not a penny less than £40; and now assume the pro 
gramme of races to be the same in 1895 as it was in 1894— that is, four 
canoe races and three mixed (very mixed) races, all above lock on the 
river. The proposition set before the recruit or intending canoe 
owner is this: "I shall have four consecutive days' racing and three 
days of blanketing with canoe-yawls; that is my season, or one week 
out of twenty-four sailable weeks. The races all being in narrow and 
still waters, the canoe most suitable will be of the shallowest saucer 
type, and of matchbox construction as to substance; she must have 
the lightest of hollow spars, and be devoid of any cruising or comfort 
fitments. When the six or so races have been sailed, my canoe may 
as well be packed up and h< used, for she is not of a size to fit the sail- 
ng club races, and as to cruising, or even pleasure sailing, she is at 
least uncomfortable, if not actually dangerous. And then, if she be 
not successful in her races, who would give a brass farthing for her? 
The net result is that the intending canoe sailer turns his attention to 
the other classes, and he at once finds that, by taking a p rater, 
Y. R. A., and, though spoiling her appearance by hanging a rudder at 
the after end of her counter, he complies with the canoe-yawl defini- 
tion of the R. C. C, and fiDds that, because of the position of the 
rudder, his "boat" no longer has a ' counter stern," but has beoome a 
"canoe-yawl," and he can enter that club's seven yawl races. But in 
addition he finds it easy to sail, within the metropolitan waters, in 
thirty-five other matches of sailing clubs, and also at Bourne End 
week, say four races, making some forty six races for the season, 
and, over and above the racing, he still has a craft fit for pleasure 
sailing or cruising with a friend, and of reasonable selling value if 
fairly built and fitted. 
This prospect of ample sport is a powerful inducement to drop the 
canoe and go into the canoe-yawl ; but there is also a vanishing point 
of even that curve of racing stability, at any rate, in the case of a 
numerous body of men, and that is the inconvenience and expense of 
a J^-rater as compared with a small sailing canoe, and such men would 
glatily see a half-way boat class introduced. Their point of limit is, 
indeed, the utmost boundary of the general idea of the nature of a 
canoe, its portability, hence its expensive life. Two men can lift put 
of the water, and carry up and house, a sailing canoe, so she is seldom 
left afloat, needs no watching, and runs no risks of collision or break- 
ing adrift. Whereas a canoe yawl need* six or eight men and a truck, 
and, therefore, is usually left afloat at risk: and all her expenses may 
be roughly estimated at four times those of the canoes, to say nothing 
of the building cost 
In relation to an intermediate class, there are in existence— the 
growth of recent times— quite a large fleet cf semi-canoe yawls, strag- 
gling in dimensions and fitment to such an extent as to be 
utterly impossible of satisfactory codification into a class for 
racing, yet they are a useful and popular type of boat. Id takes time 
to form and fill a sound class; but once the class is defined, if it be not 
arbitrary in petty useless points, new or altered boats will soon con- 
form to the class, and racing will follow. We may here analogize that 
the good-natured Thames sailing barge gives ample and exciting sport 
when racing against its own kind, and is at all other times useful for 
other purposes, and is not expensive to build and sail. But if modern 
racing yacht form and construction were let io to the barge matches, 
the racing time would be faster, but the good, useful barge would 
clear out from such onesided competition, and the racing would fall. 
Such must be the case in canoe racing; the close at hand sailing clubs, 
with large programmes, will draw off all the canoe men with racing 
tastes who can afford the J^-rater. But, still, there wi 1 remain in the 
canoe class the one or two owners who are satisfied with a machine 
and six races for a whole season's sport, and these will effectively 
frighten away the cruising canoe and novices. 
' Apart from international competition, which this season, by the 
way, was a very hollow show, popular sport and keen racing within a 
club is chiefly a question of numbers of competitors, and number of 
competitors is dependent to a large extent on the general utility of 
the craft, beyond mere prize winning. The clear tendency of the im- 
mediate future to draw yawls into simple p raters, and the absence 
of siernsof progress in the canoe class, certainly suggests that the time 
has come and should not be allowed to slip by, when the popular old- 
time canoe sailing in useful craft should be rallied up by the establish- 
ment of a new class, intermediate between canoes and yawls. Watch- 
ing the tendency of the times, the lines upon which the new class 
should be built are evidently to embody as much of the comfort, 
safety and sailing power of the same canoe-yawl as can be confined in 
a "canoe," just the largest that two men can lift when she has been 
stripped of her gear. Both a maximum and minimum limitation of 
dimensions of hull would probably be necessary, the one to retain 
portability and moderate expense, the other to prevent the influx of 
machines of mere racing caliber. 
If the proposed canoe racing council should fail to agree on the 
already widely differing question of what ought to constitute a canoe- 
yawl, but should succeed in constructing an universal new and useful 
class of intermediate size, though it must be a compromise of various 
conflicting elements, such work would be the most useful in the inter- 
ests of true canoe sailing of any legislation within the past fifteen 
years. In order to give the class a nature distinct from yawls and 
from the racing canoes, we think that the most appropriate title 
would be that of "canoe-coble." Our east coast men, at any rate 
will probably share our opinion. Considering the size of the craft, the 
east coast coble is about the finest sea boat, easiest at rowing, driest 
at towing and safest ft beaching in a sea, of any open boat around 
our coasts The round or blunt-pointed stern coble is quite of canoe 
form and about as good a model as could be pic&ed, for all-round, 
cruising on varied natures of waters, 
