forest And stream. 
136 
arrived at an intelligent understanding of the existing 
conditions, the prospect of the future, and the possible 
remedy. All has gone well until the time came for 
action, when, at the critical moment, some one owner 
of a racing yacht, or ex-racer probably, after neglecting 
to attend any previous meetings, is present with his 
friends to vote down a proposal which he cannot or 
will not comprehend. Such cases as this — and they are 
discouraging enough— will be recalled by all who have 
honestly labored for the improvement of measurement 
rules. 
The old Thames tonnage rule is a typical instance of 
the cause of failure of the formula type; its theory of 
using the three main hull dimensions as a measure of 
"size" was good in its way, but the practical applica- 
tion was faulty, the assumption that the depth of every 
yacht was equal to half of her beam being false in the 
most extreme degree. The facts of the case were, so 
plain and simple that they could not be overlooked or 
denied; while beam was taxed heavily, depth was prac- 
tically free, the ratio being worse each year, the rule 
was wrong in theory and bad in practice, and for years 
worked actively to produce a poor type of yacht and to 
destroy yachting in all its branches. In spite of all 
mis, it was not until 1886 that British yachtsmen, after 
suffering under its bondage for nearly half a century, 
consented to the abolition of the tonnage rule. It is 
safe to say that while a rule based only on the three 
dimensions would be useless to-day, had depth been 
given a real and approximately true value at the outset, 
many of the evils of the tonnage rule would have been 
avoided. 
The Seawanhaka rule was at the date of its adoption 
far ahead of the times; the immediate question with its 
sponsors was not whether the formula was as good as 
could be made, but whether yachtsmen could be in- 
duced to accept anything as good as it really was. The 
New York Y. C. refused to adopt it as originally pro- 
posed, and altered the constants so as to encourage 
excessive sail plans, only .adopting the Seawanhaka con- 
stants in 1889. It is quite possible that those then in- 
terested in the work, a very able and progressive com- 
mittee, might have formulated a better rule; but it could 
not have been adopted and their Avork would have gone 
for nothing. The same is true of other rules of the type, 
they have been compromises, unsatisfactory in most 
cases to their sponsors, who at the final moment were 
confronted with the unpleasant alternatives of marring 
their work by concessions to ignorance, prejudice and 
selfishness (vested interests) or of seeing it rejected en- 
tirely. 
The conditions to-day are very different from those 
existing even three years ago, much less at more remote 
times. There are to-day no vested interests, because 
there is no yacht racing; yachtsmen who have refused 
for years to recognize the evil tendencies of faulty and 
inadequate legislation have been at last compelled to 
face the inevitable results, to accept them and to reason 
as to their causes and the remedy. It seems to us that 
the situation is more hopeful than ever in the past. The 
specific statement has been made by the yachting public 
that it desires a rule which will encourage a useable type 
of yacht and riot a racing machine; the means to this 
end have been generally discussed, the defects of the rule 
which made the fin-keel possible are far better under- 
stood than ever before, and in every way there is an 
opportunity such as has never existed for the presenta- 
tion and general adoption of a formula which includes all 
the vital factors of measurement. Under these con- 
ditions we at least are well content to continue to work 
in the old line, rather than to start entirely anew in a 
totallv different direction. 
Now to take up the other side, the restricted classes; 
their success has been due perhaps less to the intrinsic 
merits of the plan than to the fact that, from causes which 
should have been avoided, as pointed out above, the other 
method has failed. If the Seawanhaka rule had been 
amended in time, in 1891, by the addition of such a factor 
as would have prevented the reduction of area of midship 
section, or a similar course had been taken in England, 
there would have been no restricted classes. From the 
very nature of the case, the restricted type of rule has 
been tried under totally different conditions from those 
affecting the ordinary formula. In establishing a re- 
stricted class there are, of course, no vested interests^to 
stand in the way of all wholesome regulations; and in 
order to join in such work a yachtsman must have 
reached a point where he no longer looks upon absolute 
speed as the sole end of yachting, and where he has 
given some thought to existing evils as exemplified in 
the racing machines that he has abandoned, and to the 
proper and practicable means of avoiding them in the 
wholesome boat which he proposes to build. Starting 
under such favorable conditions as these, the result 
naturally should be far more satisfactory than in the 
case of a formula altered and patched at the last mo- 
ment in order to secure its adoption as a compromise. 
If the old type of rule could be tested under the same 
conditions as are an essential to the existence of the 
restricted class idea, the result would be far different 
from the experiences of the past. 
While much has been done by the restricted classes, it 
must not be assumed that they have been a universal or 
unqualified success. One of the most conspicuous in- 
stances in this country is the Boston knockabout class, 
starting on the best possible basis of a clearly defined 
type of yacht, already in existence and general use; the 
aim of the founders of the class being to protect it 
from degeneration into a racing machine. What the 
knockabout was in 1894 is shown by the definition then 
adopted as a part of the restrictive rule governing the 
class, "a seaworthy keel boat (not to include fin-keels), 
decked or half-decked, of fair accommodations, simply 
rigged, without bowsprit, and with only mainsail and 
one headsail." What the knockabout had become in 
1897 is known to many of our readers, an extreme fin- 
keel racing machine, of elaborate and costly construction 
'and useless except for racing; and this, in spite of re- 
strictions that were devised in good faith by competent 
men, and were quite as stringent as could possibly be 
adopted at the time. The fin-keel has dominated the 
class/ the lateral plane has been cut away with un- 
' sparing hand in spite of the restriction as to the rud- 
der Hung on a sternpost, and the type has departed en- 
tirely from its original purpose, however well it may ful- 
fill a different one. There is nothing in the experi- 
ment of the knockabout class to warrant the belief that 
any better results could be expected in a general ap- 
plication of the same system to all classes of yachts. 
Though in presenting these views we offer them 
merely as our individual opinions, they probably repre- 
sent fairly well the ideas of those yachtsmen who favor 
the present type of formula, and in thfe way as an answer 
to the first part of Sextant's criticism. 
As to the justification of the proposed formula, and 
a proof of its probable value, it may be said that the 
result of a practical test of fifteen years is to show 
that the values of L.W.L. and S.A., in the Seawanhaka 
formula are as nearly correct as they can well be when 
applied to a wide range of sizes; and, on the other 
hand, that the rule is faulty in the lack of some factor 
or factors related to the bulk of the body of the boat. 
Many proposals of amendment in this direction, by 
means of displacement or some equivalent factor as a 
divisor, and in other ways, have been made; but in 
nearly all of these the leading idea has been to place a 
premium upon absolutely large displacement, giving 
internal room. The plan presented by Mr. Hyslop and 
favored by the committee is, we believe, more scientific 
and at the same time promises better practical results 
than any other thus far advanced on either side of the 
Atlantic. Mr. Hyslop was the first to point out a fact 
that will be promptly appreciated by all interested, that 
the speed of the modern racing machine, both of the fin 
and the skimming dish types, is due to the free use 
of an element which is quite as justly an object for taxa- 
tion as the other elements of speed — the lever by 
which stability is obtained. This lever may be either 
vertical, as in the fin on which the bulb is carried, or 
horizontal, as in the beam of the skimming dish on 
which the crew does its hiking; or a combination of both. 
When one or both levers are used in combination with 
a fairly full section they, in a general way, produce a 
desirable type of yacht and represent work honestly done 
in her propulsion at a given speed. When, however, 
either or both is associated with an abnormally small 
area of midship section, in the modern canoe or flat-iron 
type of hull, the yacht is necessarily a racing machine, 
with no accommodation, and obtaining her speed, as 
assumed with the same L.W.L. and sail area as the first 
boat, without performing the same useful work. If 
this proposition be true, it is only lair that the lever 
should appear in the formula with the L.W.L. and S.A. 
There are numerous other factors which could be em- 
ployed, and there may be some which would be still bet- 
ter, but of all that has thus far come before us Mr. 
Hyslop's diagnosis of the case seems the most searching, 
scientific and accurate, and his general proposal of a 
remedy the most promising. As to the details, the 
summation of the beam and depth, and the comparison 
with the area of midship section reduced to a linear 
factor, they were suggested by him as a part of his 
original investigation, and as far as can be predicted 
short of actual test in use they are about right. The 
constant may be placed at any point, according to the 
type of yacht desired; the suggested figure is derived 
from a study of existing yachts, as in the table on page 
58 in the Forest and Stream of July 16, the average of 
well-known yachts of wholesome type. 
It is hardly fair to say that yachtsmen are asked to 
adopt the rule on faith, it has been widely advertised 
for some time past, and no action will be taken until 
the fall; the reasons for it are set forth in the report, and 
any yachtsman of ordinary intelligence can apply it to 
different types of yachts and satisfy himself of its prob- 
able operation. The only final test of any rule is the 
actual designing, building and racing of yachts; short 
of this a good deal must be taken on faith; but in the 
present case we submit that everything possible has 
been done to present the proposal clearly to all yachts- 
men, and to induce them to criticise it freely. What 
the Seawanhaka C. Y. C. and its race committee and 
special committee desire above all else is a general and 
careful study of the subject by yachtsmen in order that 
some positive progress may be made in the fall. As mat- 
ters are now, we doubt whether anything is to be gained 
by a further discussion of Sextant's point, the type of 
rule; there is much more to be done by a concentration of 
all efforts on the line of work which yachtsmen always 
have followed, and still seem inclined to adhere to, the 
production of a satisfactory formula composed of variable 
factors. 
We cannot agree with Sextant that the designer has 
no more freedom under the Seawanhaka rule than under 
the knockabout and similar rules; he has an infinitely 
wider choice both of general type and of specific dimen- 
sions, a fact that hardly seems to require proof. So far 
as the liberty of the designer to drive his tandem or 
triplet deliberately through the spirit and letter of a 
rule, it must be curtailed in his own interest, if not in 
the interests of yacht owners and the sport at large, or 
he will be left indefinitely .where he is now, with no 
clients; "possibly forced to resort to the designing of 
bicycles or golf sticks. The object of a rule in this re- 
spect, as we understand it, is to place before all designers 
equal opportunities for the employment of the factors of 
speed, leaving as much liberty as possible to each in the 
combining of these factors. The liberty which allows a 
designer to put a fin-keel in a class of wholesome and 
full-bodied boats hurts him in the end, though its im- 
mediate effects are more disastrous to others. 
In the last paragraph of his letter Sextant points out 
that the assumptions of values for the different factors 
in the proposed formulas are not founded upon any 
known laws of the resistance of partially submerged 
bodies moving in water. This is quite true, it may 
also be said that they are in no way related to the 
binomial theorem or the Dingley bill; but it does not 
follow that the result must be a failure in practice. We 
are constrained to admit that there is in practice, as every 
yacht designer knows, a broad line between scientific 
naval architecture and the successful designing of rac- 
ing vachts. The former alone, however perfect its 
theories never has and probably never will produce suc- 
cessful yachts; in fact the efforts of eminent naval archi- 
tects in the field of yacht designing, as in the case of 
J Scott Russell, have been conspicuous as failures rather 
than in any other way. While the science of naval archi- 
tecture is the foundation of yacht designing, and a 
thorough knowledge of its truths is indispensable to the 
successful designer, he must in the end rely on practice, 
experience and largely on empirical methods. This is 
peculiarly the case in the matter of measurement rules. 
The investigations of naval architects, interesting and 
useful as they are in many ways, have really lent little 
aid to the actual making and amending of formulas and 
restrictions; and the best work yet accomplished has 
been largely empirical; the result of experience, obser- 
vation and sound common sense rather than of elaborate 
computations of abstract theoretical values. In this re- 
spect the present proposal is on a par with many others, 
as not claiming in any way a high scientific origin. 
The values are deduced from actual practice as embodied 
in the moderate type of wholesome yacht which it is de- 
sired to encourage, and the extremes of racing machine 
and slow cruiser, which it is desired to discourage. The 
new factors employed are all simple and easily handled, 
but it is believed that they will prove effective for the 
immediate future, and at the same time be capable of 
readjustment to meet developments of design that can- 
not now be predicted. 
It would be necessary to continue to an indefinite 
length in-order to argue fully all the points made by Sex- 
tant, and our space will only allow us in conclusion to 
touch briefly on a few specific statements. He says, "In 
other words, designers have been free to make a single 
type of racing machine, and nothing else." That this 
has been the ultimate result of every rule is simply be- 
cause, as already pointed out, the rules, as compromises, 
have been faulty in the first place, and vested interests 
have opposed all attempts to remedy promptly the weak 
points of the rules as they have developed. There is at 
the present time good reason to hope that the yachting 
public is willing to adopt a better formula (one including 
more factors of advantage), and that it is at last awake 
to the necessity, after securing a good rule, of con- 
stantly studying its operation and practical results, and 
possibly of amending it in time to stop undesirable de- 
velopments. If this course is followed, the rule will not 
result in the production of a single type of racing 
machine. 
Another objection is that the committee has not rec- 
ommended the summary barring of all types of yacht 
save the one which it is desired to encourage. As far 
as we have been able to gauge the opinions of yachts- 
men of all classes, there is no desire whatever for the 
establishment of a series of sta'ndard designs, one for 
each class, to which they shall be compelled to build, all 
other types being barred. This is practically what Sex- 
tant's plan, as we understand it, calls for, whether in the 
shape of actual one-design classes, or of restricted classes 
only; provided the restrictions are real and not nominal. 
The expectations are that the proposed formula will 
produce a general type of yacht-possessing a reasonable 
amount of accommodation, and a freedom from some 
undesirable details which detract from general excellence 
in a greater degree than they add to speed; and at the 
same time that designers will be allowed considerable 
liberty of choice as to keel and centerboard types and 
general dimensions and details; as much so as was the 
case in the days of the 40ft. and 30ft. classes, the center- 
boards and keels being built about in equal numbers, and 
racing on as perfect equality as could be expected. As 
yachtsmen, even those elected to the high honors of 
measurement committees, are but human, it is quite: 
within the bounds of possibility that the present attempt: 
may prove as great a failure as any that has precededl 
it, but while those at present interested in the work: 
can claim nothing in either ability or honesty of purpose- 
over others who have failed, they at least have a far- 
broader field of view through the recent developments 
of yacht designing, and the general discussion of both 
design and measurement, and they are working under 
far more favorable conditions. 
The question of light construction and its regulation 
is in itself so great in extent and so important that 
to deal with it adequately would require at least as much 
time and labor as the committee has been able to expend 
on the entire subject of amending the formula. To have 
dealt exhaustively with this part of the subject was. 
simply out of the question under the circumstances, but 
the committee has pointed out a method of relating the 
subject of light construction to the formula that is new 
and original, and most promising in theory. When it 
comes to the actual practice, the same serious difficulties 
are met with as in other schemes for regulating con- 
struction. 
The proportions of Glencairn I. and II. are instanced 
by Sextant as proving that the values assigned to L.W.L. 
and S.A. in the present Seawanhaka rule are incorrect. 
We cannot admit for a moment that the results in the 
small open classes, in which live ballast is the con- 
trolling factor of design, are to be considered as in any 
way conclusive as to the merits of a formula for decked 
yachts of such size as to afford cruising accommoda- 
tions. These little machines are entirely apart from the 
yacht class, and it is quite possible that a totally differ- 
ent rule may be needed for them; though even then it 
is hardly likely that they can be squeezed within the 
meaning of the term "wholesome." The general opinion 
of yachtsmen seems to be that in the yacht classes, from 
30ft. upward, the present values of L.W.L. and S.A. 
under the Seawanhaka rule are as nearly correct as <n 
be had to cover a range of sizes from 30 to 115ft. V, e 
have heard no demand for a heavier tax on sail, and to 
propose such at the present time would probably awake 
a lively opposition. We have for many years labored for 
heavier restrictions to curtail the immense sail plan/ 
seen at times on successful yachts; but at the present 
time we see no need to increase the direct tax on sail In 
the formula. The indirect penalties, which must be con- 
sidered in connection with any rule; the proposed in- 
clusion of the sail carrying levers in the formula, the 
existing crew limits, the general prohibition of club top- 
sails not taxed in the rule, all act to one end, of pro- 
ducing a compact and easily handled sail plan. Much 
more can be done by the careful regulation of these con- 
tributory factors, for instance, by keeping the crew 
limit in each class down to the number required to 
handle the boat and sails in a seamanlike manner, than 
