8^4 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[Oar. 31, 
value has been long established, and which is capable of still 
higher development under the modern ideas of form and 
construction. The proposal to bar this type from racing and 
to replace it with the fin type, such as Quissetta and Amorita, 
or possibly something more extreme, is far and away the 
most radical one that has ever been laid before the New York 
T. C. ; beside it the measurement and classification by both 
length and sail were mild and conservative in their day. And 
yet, where these latter evoked the fiercest opposition and 
were only pa,s8ed after successive trials, the proposal to limit 
the draft, to bar the moderate type, whether keel or center- 
board, and to discriminate in favor of the extreme fin-center- 
board type, has passed the New York Y. C. without a 
shadow of opposition. 
The exact results of a new rule can never be predicted 
short of a season's building under it, at least, and it may be 
that we are wrong in our surmise of what is likely to come in 
the present case; but it would seem certain that, looking as 
he must to speed first, the designer will take the full limit of 
draft. This same limit is, as in all classes, such a generous 
one that, having availed himself of it in full, the designer 
will still have a great length of lever, and will not be com- 
pelled, to any material extent, to add to the displacement in 
order to obtain power. In the smallest schooner class, for 
instance, such a useful boat as Loyal draws 7ft, 6in. on a 
waterline of 61ft. and a measurement of 65ft. The draft 
allowed for a new centerboard yacht of the same measure- 
ment is lift. The necessity for a minimum of wetted sur- 
face is likely to lead to a narrow fin; and it is likely that the 
lateral plane will be augmented by a centerboard working 
through the fin, as in Jubilee. It does not follow that the 
boats will be fin-keels in a structural sense, with a fin that 
may be detached at will, as in Niagara; but they will be 
essentially of the fin type, with all of its marked disadvan- 
tages. 
The matter has gone further in the schooners than in the 
single-stickers, as none of the latter are really up-to-date. 
Under the rule Quissetta stands as the ideal of to day, only 
to be beaten by something equally extreme. 
Not the least surprising thing in connection with the 
change of rule is the celerity with which it has been made. 
The same question has engaged the attention of British 
yachtsmen for at least four years. In 1892 a long and ex- 
haustive inquii'y was instituted as to the faults of the existing 
rating rule and its possible remedy. The services of all the 
British designers, of the members of the Y. R. A. Council 
and of yachting experts were enlisted, and much time and 
labor expended without result, the search for a satisfactory 
formula being for the time abandoned. Again in 1894 the 
same lengthy process was gone through with, this time with 
a positive result; though, as it has proved, an unsatisfactory 
one. 
In marked contrast to this is the action of the New York 
Y, C. The whole matter was taken up hardly a month ago, 
at the end of the racing season; in three weeks it was dis- 
cussed, a satisfactory solution of the knotty question was dis- 
covered, a meeting was held, and — Presto — the proposal is a 
law under which, It is hoped, many thousands of dollars will 
be expended in the construction of racing boats. The 
world's record for prompt action made by the club when it 
adopted the new deed of gift in 1887 still stands unbroken ; 
but a new record has been made in measurement legislation, 
and the club can no longer be stigmatized as slow, conserva- 
tive or non-progressive. 
The same limits of draft, extended in like proportion to 
the smaller classes, have been proposed in the Larchmont 
Y. C, and will be acted upon at a special meeting on Oct. 
38, with other amendments in harmony with those of the 
New York Y. C. As a matter of course these amendments 
will be carried in the younger club as they have been in the 
older. In both clubs, however, there is a serious o^nission, 
one important detail that goes hand in hand with the best of 
the proposed changes being entu-ely left out. This is the 
requirement for measurement with crew aboard in all 
classes. This is done by special agreement in the Defender 
class in racing for the America's Cup, it is done of necessity 
in the smaller classes, and it should be done in all classes as 
the best possible means of checking the evasion of waterline 
and the freak keel contour. When so many and stich radi- 
cal changes are in hand, we cannot understand why this 
point has been ignored, as it has been generally discussed by 
yachtsmen for the past year, and opinion is quite strongly 
in favor of it. 
The amendment made in the course of the meeting of the 
New York Y. C. leaves matters in a most undesirable con- 
dition, as nearly as we have been able to understand what 
was evidently a very hurried and faulty piece of legislation. 
All yachts built after the present date will be limited in draft ; 
but this limit does not apply to existing yachts. This may 
be interpreted to mean that the owner of an existing yacht 
has full liberty to rebuild her, adding as inuch as he pleases 
to the draft; in fact, making the yacht over entirely into 
something even more extreme than is possible in a nominally 
new yacht. This proviso may add materially to the value of 
existing yachts if made of steel, as this construction can be 
readily rebuilt in any form without that addition of weight 
which resvdts with wood construction. 
NIAGARA'S TANKS. 
The statement of Sir George Archibald Leach, K.C.B., 
which we publislied on Oct. 10, also appears in all of our 
English exchanges. The Tachtsrmn in its issue of Oct. 8 
devotes its leading editorial to the Niagara matter, in partic- 
ular to this same statement, and places the meeting of the 
committee and the visit to Niagara in the absence of her 
owner in a very different light. While we have no means 
of knowing the exact facts, The Tachtsman speaks as though 
it were certain of its position in making a positive contradic- 
tion of the quasi- ofli'cial statement of a member of the special 
committee. The editorial is as follows: 
Mr. Howard Gould's letter to the council of the Yacht 
Racing Association has not, of course, been officially an- 
swered yet. But Sir George Leach has broken the silence 
that the Meld would seem faia to maintain in the meantime 
by comments which appear in another column. Sir George 
Leach is reported to have said: "I was on the committee 
steamer at Tilbury with other members of the council when 
Mr. Dixon Kemp suggested that, as it was the first time that 
a sufficient number of members of the sailing committee fs^'c] 
to form a quorum had come together, it was advisable that a 
rneeting should be held to consider matters awaiting action." 
Sir George Leach, however, by the above utterance conveys 
an impression (which no doubt existed in his mind at the 
time, and may exist still) that it was a purely fortuitous cir- 
cumstance that the necessary quorum of the council had met 
on the club steamer on that particularly inauspicious day. 
It must surprise him, then, to know that a meeting of the 
council was specially convened for that day, and that the 
club steamer was' the rendezvous — the business being 
to consider the- report on Niagara's tanks. Nay, more, 
the council meeting was made no secret aboard the club 
steamer, and whispers went roimd highly derogatory to the 
honor of Mr. Gould. Can Sir George Leach honestly blame 
Mr. Howard Gould for writing his letter to the council in 
view of these facts and in view of the facts mentioned in 
that letter? We know enough of Sir George Leach to at 
once acquit him of any suppressio mri; but then, how are 
we to understand the fact that he was not so well informed 
in regard to the business of the council of the Y. R. A. on 
May 22 as many other people — "outsiders" — on board the 
R. T. Y. C. club steamer, who, as the event proved, derived 
their information from authentic sources? Are we to sup- 
pose that Sir George was purposely kept in the dark as to 
the convention of the council on that day? If so, we feel 
sure that he will require to know the reason of such a curi- 
ous procedure. One can hardly doubt, after reading his 
reply to Mr. Gould's letter, that Sir George Leach was one of 
the councillors who boarded Niagara for the purpose of ex- 
amining the tanks. Yet he must have come away with 
somewhat hazy ideas as to their nature and dimensions, if we 
are to believe the interviewer to whom he has delivered his 
soul on this sul^ject. '"They are 4ft. long, about 1ft. wide 
at the top and ift. deep, doubtless sloping at the bottom." 
Yet each of them, in Sir George's opinion, is capable of con- 
taining 7cwt. of water. The word "doubtless" is specially 
significant when used by one who may fairly be expected to 
state nothing but what he knows to be absolutely accurate. 
Was Ml-. Manning another of the visiting triutnvirate and "a 
leading member of the Yacht Racing Association," the third? 
There is another view which the patriotic portion of the 
British press has not yet taken of Mr. Gould's letter, viz., 
that he is certainly justified in saying that he was entitled to 
some explanation of the conduct' of the council. Here we 
may mention for the benefit of the Daily Graphic and other 
daily papers that on May 22 the club steamer arrived at 
Gravesend Pier just abreast of the first-class yachts. 
Niagara did not finish until twenty-four minutes later. A 
considerable time then elapsed before Niagara could take up 
her berth in Tilbury Dock, and after she had done so, and 
Mr. Gould had had time to prepare for his journey to 
London., another thirty minutes were allowed to elapse 
before the special investigating committee thought fit to 
board the yacht. One would think that the object before 
the committee would have been more thoroughly achieved 
had they boarded her just after she had crossed the finishing 
line. They had twenty-four minutes to prepare for such a 
maneuver (which would have avoided much unpleasantness). 
Did "tea and shrimps" prove more attractive than Mr. 
Gould's society ? 
Now with regard to the duty of official measurers. We 
all know that anything suspicious must be reported by 
them to the secretary of the Y. R. A, But the word "sus- 
picious" does not embrace everything that even an official 
measurer finds to be new or unusual. Surely in order that 
a man should be worthy of such an appointment it is essen- 
tial that he must (1) be possessed of an ordinary knowledge 
of yacht racing; (2) be prepared to use extraordinary care in 
the examin.ation of anything new or unusual which he may 
see on any yacht before reporting the same to the council; 
and (8) being debarred by the rules from measuring yachts 
designed or built by himself, he should be more than usu- 
ally careful in his examination and measurement of any 
vessels which are to race against his own creations before 
reporting anything suspicion^. It would be absurd to say 
that Mr. Payne is not sufficiently skilled to see at a glance 
that the connecting pipe of Niagara's two tanks was abso- 
lutely useless for the purpose of shifting ballast, for that 
must have been patent to everyone who saw the arrange- 
ment (and this seems to have been grudgingly admitted by 
the special committee of investigation). We should be glad 
to known in what way Mr. Payne considered these tanks 
worthy of suspicion, and therefore of report. But it is quite 
unfair, as our remarks above amply show, to fasten the 
whole blame of this incident on Mr. Payne — he is really the 
scapegoat of more blameworthy persons. 
In the face of the above detailed statement it would Seem 
that an explanation is in order from Sir George Leach, if the 
facts ai'e as represented by T?ie TacJiisman. Sir George 
Leach's ignorance of the current business of a body with 
which he was most closely connected is even more extensive 
than his ignorance of such simple technical matters as the 
weight of water and the construction of tanks in the bilge of 
such a boat as Niagara. Up to the time of writing the Field 
has refrained from commenting on Mr. Gould's letter, but 
as the meeting of the council is now over the matter will 
doubtless be discussed at length by it. 
In its issue of Oct. 15 the Yachtsman continues the subject 
as follows: 
At the peril of being considered by the JDailp Graphic as 
being without the pale of "reasonable men," we venture to 
once more correct that journal which, we must in fairness 
say, has all through last season supplied its readers with 
thoroughly good, if brief, reports of the chief yacht racing 
events day by day. The D. G. has seemed of late, however, 
to hold a brief for the Y. R. A, Council, and its well-known 
pluck has seldom been so conspicuous as now, when it 
defends the Council in the case of Niagara's water tanks. 
The following is one of its leading articles in the issue of 
13th inst. : 
It is naturally much harder to kill a phantom grievance 
than a real one, and we can hardly hope that the spirit of 
discord, which escaped from the Niagara's tanks in "London 
River" last May, and has since spread itself across the Atlan- 
tic, will be completely and finally laid by the letter which 
the Council of the Yacht Racing Association yesterday ad- 
dressed to Mr. Howard Gould. The letter should, however, 
set at rest in the minds of all reasonable men in this country 
any lingering doubts as to the straightforwardness and courtesy 
of the manner in which the Council acted upon the report of 
their official measurer. The Yachtsman, never very friendly 
disposed to the Y. R. A., recalls this week "for the benefit or" 
the Daily Graptiic" the fact that the committee appointed to 
investigate the question did not board the Niagara for an 
hour or so after she had crossed the finishing line, and seems 
to suggest that they purposely waited until Mr, Gould had 
had time to leave his vessel. We do not doubt the word of 
Sir George Leach that the committee boarded the yacht at 
the earliest possible moment, and in view of what has since 
happened, we regard it as a matter for congratulation that 
that moment did not arrive until Mr. Gould had left for 
London. If the committee had gone on board the instant 
the Niagara crossed the line, Mr. Gould might conceivably 
have had some reason to regard their haste as implying strong 
doubt of his honesty, and as an attempt to catch him, so to 
speak, in fiagr ante delicto, As it is, his complaint was un- 
reasonable, and — after the exceptional favor granted to him 
last year — ungracious. The fact is that a good many Ameri- 
can yachtsmen have yet to learn that if they lace over here 
they must submit to the same conditions as the princes, peers 
and commoners of Europe. 
Our leading article last week did not (nor was it intended 
to) convey any doubt as to the veracity of Sir George Leach. 
It stated plain facts which cannot be denied by any member 
of the Y. R. A. Council. But we fail to see how, after read- 
ing it, the editor of the Daily Graphic can still think that the 
committee boarded the yacht "at the earliest possible mo- 
ment." We deny most emphatically that the earliest oppor- 
tunity was seized, and last week we showed clearly that 
such was not the case. It was common talk under the guise 
of secrecy, aboard the club steamer before the meeting of the 
Council, that Niagara was to be boarded immediately on the 
conclusion of her race, in order, as one councillor remarked 
at the time, that there should be no repetition of "the De- 
fender business." That was the object in view at the time. 
Why then was so much valuable time wasted by this dutiful 
triumvirate? 
What the "exceptional favor" was that "was granted" to 
Mr. Howard Gould last year we do not know. Probably 
the Graphic refers to the Vigilant's visit the year before last. 
If so, we may point out that Mr. George Gould is the owner 
of the Vigilant. It is hardly to the credit of the Council 
that the best defense for its conduct in the matter of Niaga- 
ra's tanks is that it failed in its duty two years ago! Tne 
Dunraven pamphlet was not published at that time, to be sure, 
and the Earl was not then a vice-president of the Y. R. A. 
— merely a candidate for the America Cup. 
The Field of Oct. 17 has very httle to say: 
We published on June 6 last Mr. Howard Gould's state- 
ment of his opinion of the action of the committee of the Y. 
R. A. in inspecting the water tanks of his yacht Niagara. 
His letter to the press a fortnight ago threw no fresh light on 
the matter and omitted altogether to state that the subject of 
the tanks had been common gossip, both in 1895 and this 
year. It now appears from the letter the Council of the Y. 
R. A. has addressed to Mr. Gould through his adopted chan- 
nel of the press, that the official measurer made a special 
visit to the yacht to inspect the tanks, and reported the 
result of his visit to the Council. This visit must have, in 
the ordinary course of events, come to the knowledge of Mr. 
Howard Gould, as it suggested there was a possibility of the 
tanks being used for the purpose of shifting water ballast. 
The Y. R. A. committee did not, however, act hastily on 
the report, but determined to inspect the tanks themselves. 
This they did on May 22, and according to Mr. Howard 
Gould's published statement the committee expressly stated 
that in their opinion the tanks had not been used for the pur- 
pose of shifting water ballast. The committee suggested 
th'at the tanks should be disconnected, so as to remove all 
cause of suspicion as to their use. Mr. Howard Gould con- 
sented to do this, and, in fact, wrote to the Council stating 
that the tanks had been disconnected at Southampton. It 
should be mentioned that the late Baron von Zedtlitz, when 
he heard of the objection to the water tanks under the sofas, 
immediately had his removed from the Isolde, not being con- 
tent with a simple disconnection. 
Massachusetts T. R. A. 
A MKETiNG- of the Massachusetts Y. R. A. was held on 
Oct. 15, at which some very important changes were made in 
the rules, as follows : 
The measurement for classification and time allowance 
shall be a yacht's length on the waterline. 
The waterline length shall be taken from point of immer- 
sion forward to point of immersion aft. In cases where any 
portion of the rudder or rudder post projects above the water 
such portion shall not be included in the waterline length. 
The waterline shall be determined by putting the boat in 
proper trim in still water, as directed by the measurer, witn 
the maximum weights of crew and ballast which the owner 
may elect to carrj"^ in any race. The weight of crew shall 
be averaged at ISOlbs. per man, and placed amidship at the 
point of the greatest beam on waterline, or in such position 
as to put the yacht in proper trim. 
AH racing spars, sails, rigging and racing truck, and at 
least one anchor and cable, and such other articles as are 
needed for ordinary sailing, shall be on board and placed 
where they are usually stowed when not in actual use, and 
centerboard up. 
Existing yachts may race in their 1895-96 classes, if 
forced above the limit of their classes by this rule of meas- 
urement, provided they were properly in their former 
classes. 
After season of 1897 the measurement of all existing 
yachts shall be assumed to be the maximum limit of their 
classes. 
So far as the waterliae is concerned these changes are all 
beneficial; the former plan of measuring Sin. above the 
actual waterhne is abandoned, and in place of it the water- 
line itself is measured, and that with the crew aboard; no 
attempt being made to tax overhangs. All this is in the right 
direction, but we cannot say as much for the selection of 
waterline alone as the sole factor in both measurement and 
classification; the experiment of unlimited sail has been tried 
too olten in the past, with the uniform result of the produc- 
tion of a bad type, to warrant any further trials, It may be 
that local conditions as they exist to-day about Boston will 
prove a sufficient limit to the abuse of power. With a large 
number of races at different points about Massachusetts Bay, 
there is certain to be encountered more or less' hard weather 
both in the races and in the necessary passages across the bay 
that will favor the moderate boat; but we look to see the 
development of a type that fortunately is about extinct in 
New York, and is rapidly dying in the West. The change 
of measurement calls for a_ new classification, which will 
probably be made at a future meeting. The Association has 
fared well during the year, receiving general and well- 
deserved support from all the clubs about Boston. 
