FOREST AND STREAM. 
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which injured the existing type of Wag, some of the later 
boats averaging over ^40, an excessive price for what 
was practically a 13ft. punt. A start will be made with 
four boats, and more builders are certain to follow. One 
boat is for Greystones, County Wicklow, where there 
are signs that a Wag class will be formed in the future. 
In the opinion of very many there is a danger in the multi- 
plicity of small one-design classes in close proximity, inas- 
much as they interfere with each other to a serious ex- 
tent, and regatta committees are often put in a quandary 
to please all. A club which would affiliate itself with 
the Wag Club would have the advantages of its experience, 
rules, design, etc., and yet have as much sailing as it' 
wished at home. 
Linton Hope and His Small 
Yachts. 
_ The one person who more than any other is respon- 
sible for the modern unballasted skimming dish that has 
been so popular for the past half-dozen years is Mr. 
Linton Hope, the English designer. His first racing 
boat of any note, built after a varied experience as an 
amateur designer and builder, and a good deal of prac- 
tical sailing, was the noted Sorceress, the best of the 
one-rater class on the Thames in 1894; literally of saucer 
shape, wide, shoal and without ballast, with the deep, nar- 
row centerplate introduced by Mr. Hope as a distinguish- 
ing feature. The fastest boats of the class at that time 
were either fin-keels or heavily ballasted centerboards, 
and from them Sorceress won fourteen prizes in fifteen 
starts. In 1895 Mr. Hope brought out Lotus, a similar 
skimmer in the half-rating class, for- whose lines, as 
here given, we are indebted to him. During the season 
Lotus, sailed by Mr. Hope himself, started thirty-two 
times and won twenty-four first and five other prizes. 
Her measurements, as designed and raced in the old half- 
rating class of the Y. R. A. were: L.W.L., 15ft. 3in. ; 
draft, 6in. ; displacement, Boolbs. ; sail area, 197 sq. ft. 
The design shows a waterline of exactly isft., uniform 
with the American is-footers, whose lines we have already 
published, all measurements, as below, being figured from 
this line : 
Length — 
Over all 22ft. 5 m. 
L.W.L 15ft. 
Overhang — 
Bow 3ft. 7y4in. 
Stern 3ft. g^in. 
Beam — 
Extreme Sft. 7 in. 
L.W.L 4ft. 51/^in. ■ 
Draft- 
Hull 5^in. 
With board 5ft. 5 in. 
Freeboard — 
Bow ift. 6 in. 
Least 8.>4in. 
Stern lO^in. 
C.B. from stem at L.W.L 9.28ft. 
C.L.R. from stem at L.W.L. 9.80ft. 
Mast from stem at L.W.L 4ft. 7 in. 
In 1894 Mr. Hope started to build yachts, as a business, 
as manager of the Thomas Yacht Building Company, mak- 
ing a specialty of the skimming dish type, and of extreme 
light construction, as after the success of Sorceress in that 
year, and of Lotus in 1895, he turned out the half-rater 
Kismet in 1896, and won forty first, four second and one 
third in forty-five starts. The following article by him 
on the subject of light construction was published in the 
Yachting Monthly Magazine: 
One of Mr. Hope's successful boats, designed at the 
same time as Lotus, and of the same general model, is 
the o.8-rater Tiger Cat. She won in her first season, 1-895, 
18 firsts, 6 secorids and i third; in 1896, 8 firsts. 2 
seconds and 3 thirds; in 1897, 9 firsts, 8 seconds arid 2 
thirds; in 1898, 9 firsts. 5 seconds and i third; and last 
year 11 firsts, 8 seconds and 2 thirds. This makes the 
remarkable record of 93 prizes for 117 starts. 
What is equally remarkable is that she is sound and 
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holds her lines after five years of racing, though of ex- 
treme light construction, with but 3-i6in. planking. 
x\lthough the days of the egg-shell skimmer are past 
in this country, owing to the new minimum displace- 
ment rule adopted by the Yacht Racing Association this 
year, it may still interest some of those who enjoyed the 
wild excitement of sailing these boats to know how 
their extreme lightness was obtained. 
Prior to 1896. none of the small raters had been built 
of less than %in. planking, except a few of ribband 
carvel construction, which may have been a trifle under 
that thickness. 
With Kismet, I think I can fairly claim to have intro- 
duced a totally different method of building, which 1 
will call a close-timbered carvel, combined with girder 
framing. 
This construction not only enabled a boat to be built 
nearly 15 per cent, lighter than ribband carvel, but was 
also far stronger and much more elastic than the old 
methods. 
A reference to Figs. 1 and 2 will show at a glance how 
this was done. In Fig. a the four timbers shown exactly 
equal in weight the two shown in Fig. 2 in the ribband 
carvel method, and by their closeness they distribute 
their strength far more evenly over the plank; of course 
they are not so rigid as the two larger ones, but the 
large weak space A is avoided. The weight of the rib- 
bands is saved, but against this must be put the weight 
of the bilge stringer, and the three lines of girder work; 
these, however, do not amount to so much as the rib- 
bands, and of course give far greater strength, thus 
allowing a lighter planking to be used. 
One of the great defects of ribband carvel work was 
that owing to the weak space A between the timbers the 
planking was very apt to '"blow" or buckle, and the boat 
often went completely out of shape, after only a few 
months' racing. 
The sizes used in the lightest ribband carvel boats up 
to that time had never, so far as 1 know, been less than 
planking, 9^in, by y^in. bent timbers, spaced 6in. 
apart, and ribbands 5^in. by Min., with the usual floor 
timbers and other framing. 
In building Kismet I tried as much as possible to 
equalize the strength all over the boat, so as to do away 
with the usual disparity between the weakest and the 
strongest places, which was quite unavoidable in the old 
methods. ' 
This was effected by the use of a numbfer of light ma- 
hogany lattice girders, and it will easily be seen that it 
was quite impossible for a boat to be built on this prin- 
ciple, to alter her shape in the least so long as her 
lattice work rem.ained in its place. 
In several of the Herreshoff boats, which had been 
imported from America, a certain amount of strutting 
and ties had been used, and also to a smaller extent in- 
some of our English craft, but in Kismet I had a con- 
tinuous line of lattice girder from stem to stern along 
the center line of the boat. 
A glance at the sections of keel, gunwales (or inwales) 
and bilge stringers will show all useless weight had been 
cut away, and triangular sections used as much as pos- 
sible. The gunwales, of i^-iin. by %in. American elm, 
were placed with their greatest width in a horizontal 
direction instead of vertically as usual, and the deck 
beams rested on a small rising underneath, and were 
also fastened through the gunwales. The keel was Sin. 
by lin. amidships, tapered both in width and in depth, 
fore and aft, to about one-quarter its mid-sectional area. 
The fore end was bent up to form the stem and no rab- 
bet was used; the planks meeting at the center line of the 
keel as far as the turn of the stem, when a small , false 
stem was worked over them to cover the end^; ;Thpugh 
most of them finished at the deck (so as to avoid curved 
edges to the planks as much as possible), both to save 
wood and to get the grain running straight' along the 
plank, instead of the usual short grain at the: ends, -which 
is unavoidable when they are cut with a lot of "sny" (or 
curve) in them. 
The planking was only 3-i6in. cedar, and the timbers 
were %in. by 5.32in., spaced 2in. apart. 
A bilge stringer of mahogany, i%m. by i}4m., was 
worked over the ends of the floor timbers. These floors 
were oak, 2in. deep and }iin. thick at the bottom, 
tapered to %in. on the top. Besides the three lines 
of lattice work, there were diagonal mahogany straps 
3-i6in. by 1%'m. wide, from gunwale to gunwale, on the 
face of the bent timbers and under the bilge stringer; 
similar to those used in iron ships. The deck beams 
and floor bearers for the watertight cockpit were all 
}iin. by ij^in. mahogany, and were supported by the 
fore and aft lines of strutting and lattice work. Both 
the deck and the floor of the cockpit were bare %.in. 
spruce, clear of knots, with J^in. by ^in. ribbands under 
the seams. The deck was covered with varnished union 
silk, and the cockpit floor with very thin linoleum var- 
nished. 
Most of the lattice work was of ^in. by %m. ma- 
hogany, but here and there a stouter strut was used 
%yhere there was any special strain, but of course the 
lies and parts of the lattice work which were in tension 
would have been lighter of piano wire, but I was afraid 
of it snapping with some sudden jar, when the greater 
elasticity of the wood would merely "give" a little, with- 
out breaking. 
The center case was ^in. cedar, rabbeted }im. into 
the top of the keel, and had two metal knees on floor 
timbers to take the center-plate bolt through holes in 
them. It was connected at each end with the main line 
of lattice work, and the ends of the bearers of the cock- 
pit floor were dovetailed %in. into the top of the case, 
tying the whole boat together amidships. 
The rudder tube was very light solid drawn brass ij^in. 
diameter and flanged over deck and keel; and there were 
J4in. Bull's metal eye bolts each side of the mast, and 
another for the jib tack forward, all three having 
shoulders on the deck, and being clinched on counter- 
sunk plates under the keel. All fastenings were as light 
as possible, mostly i8-gauge round copper pins. 
The weight of the hull when planked, and with all the 
lattice work and deck beams, etc., etc., in place and ready 
for the deck, was 23olbs., When completely rigged and 
ready for sea, with a isolb. metal plate and all gear on 
board, she weighed about 4Solbs. 
Her total displacement with crew was Boolbs. She 
vi^as 25ft. over all, 15.3ft. wateriine, 5.6ft. beam, and drew 
6in. with plate housed. 
The spars were of course bamboo, and as light as pos- 
sible, with no gear, except whdt was absolutely re- 
quired; she had one solid steel piano wire shroud a side, 
j/iin. in diameter,^ shackeled direct into the shroud plate 
without any rigging screw or lanyard, and no runners 
of any sort. Standing topping lifts with spans to catch 
the lug when lowered, and the roller jib shackled direct 
to the masthead. 
In spite of the extreme lightness of gear and boat, she 
only had three accidents: One was a hole in her counter 
caused by a floating log; another was a blow on her keel 
while on rail which split it just at the seam of the gar- 
boards under the mast and caused her only leak, and the 
third was, breaking the gooseneck in the main b'ooin in a 
hard blow off Ryde, when only three out of ten ^sgtarters 
were able to finish. 'sf " 
She sailed 45 races, many of them in very bad-^^ather, 
and made about 400 miles of passages to and from races, 
some of 50 miles in open water; and at the end of the 
season, after repairing the slight accidents mentioned 
above, she was as good as the day she was launched, 
being quite unstrained and not iq the least out of shap«. 
