Oct. 12, ipoi.j 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
seen, in trying to induce Sycamore to break out his 
spinnaker, and he came very near being successful. 
It the trick had worked, Columbia would have at once 
been luffed to the position of vantage. 
On that^ leeward leg to the finish line Columbia pulled 
through Shamrock's lee, or rather, went by her when 
they were side by side, for Shamrock would have had no 
windward position unless she were dead astern of Colum- 
bia. The breeze had lightened very much when Colum- 
bia pulled through, and it was claimed by Shamrock 
supporters that Columbia was favored by this. She 
should not have been. They were sailing side by side, 
and there were no favors in puflfs that one received over 
the o'ther. Shamrock's much greater sail plan, and espe- 
cially her lofty clubtopsail, much larger than Colum- 
bia's, should have been to her advantage, and there was 
no question as to stability when both were sailing dead 
before the wind on even keels. That Shamrock did not 
pull out ahead of Columbia seems- to me to be an indi- 
cation that in those many curves of her underbody there 
was too much wetted surface. There were too many 
entrances to the water, and too many places where she 
left it. 
The second race of the series was the most decisive of 
all. Conditions of wind and water were absolutely in 
Shamrock's favor all through, or, rather, were such as 
had been considered would be in Shamrock's favor. Both 
were handled equally well, with the exception that Barr 
took the better position at the start, although he did not 
cross the line first. Throughout the race there was not 
one single fluke that favored either boat. It was the one 
race that Shamrock's admirers iiad been asking for. It 
was. said that she would do best in any breeze over 8 or 
9 knots. Everything that was wanted was there, and 
Columbia beat her on her merits on every point of sail- 
ing.. This was the greatest race that Columbia has ever 
sailed, and her greatest victory. 
On the third race, I think we can consider ourselves 
somewhat luckj% but it was a race never to be forgotten. 
As they were about abreast at the start of a leg dead 
• before the wind, it can hardly be said that there was 
much advantage, except that Columbia was ahead, a 
matter of a few feet. When Shamrock had pulled 
by Columbia, and Columbia afterward held her, and 
finally gained, a few helpful puffs from astern can be put 
down as the result. It is true that Columbia was not 
; near enough to break Shamrock's wind, but she was near 
' enoitgh to hold sonie of it back. It did no good to take 
in the spinnaker on Shamrock so early, and it did no 
good to afterward send up a baby jibtopsail and not 
break it out. Columbia's little mishap, of having her 
spinnaker catch in her balloon jibtopsail hooks, lost her ^ 
some time, and also lost her good headway with which 
to tack around the leeward mark. Both tacked wider of 
this mark than was good. 
The windward leg was the memorable one of the series. 
Columbia commenced to ha.ul Shamrock after she hadS 
settled on the starboard tack inshore. This was seen on 
Shamrock, and she came across to get the windward| 
position. This was where a serious error of judgment 
was made on Shamrock, which counted in Columbia's 
pot of luck. When Shamrock crossed Columbia's bow 
they were very close. This was made certain from the; 
short space of time afterward that Columbia crossed 
Shamrock's wake. With Coluntbia gaining and running 
toward the better breeze inshore it would have been pol- 
icy on the part of Shamrock to have tacked on her 
weather bow, and thus be in a position to blanket her. 
This was "Ot done. Shamrock headed out and was 
headed bj^ the breeze, while Columbia was helped, and 
also ran into a stronger one. When Shamrock had 
seen the mistake, , and tacked after Columbia, she lost 
grottnd in both footing and in pointing, and when they 
tacked offshore again, Columbia was a mile to windward.' 
There is no doubt that she would have caught Shamrock 
had both kept the original tack inshore, but this big lead' 
can be considered an unintended gift to her. 
With Columbia running into the stronger breeze in- 
shore it was thought by some that she should stay on 
the starboard tack, and get it all, and not tack out after 
Shamrock, especially when it surely seemed that the 
breeze was lighter offshore; but I think that Barr was 
right in going out after Shamrock. If the challenger had 
received a fluke out there, Barr would have been severely 
criticised for not taking the course he did. On that long 
port tack Shamrock did some great sailing and Sycamore 
lost no opportunity of poking her up farther toward the 
wind, She gained on Columbia, and when they tacked 
inshore again, she had the best of the argument, or ap- 
peared to. 
Then came a piece of sailing that has never been seen 
in a yacht race before. Barr wanted to get inshore, 
where he knew there was a stronger breeze. In doing 
this, and trying to coax Shamrock in after him, he 
adopted a series of short tacks, the starboard tack^ in- 
shore, being held longer than the port tack. Columbia 
was always kept with her nose the farther inshore of the 
two, and the result was, that wken they got in where the 
breeze was, she got it first. But there was little differ- 
ence between them, for in the port tacks that Columbia 
made to try and cross Shamrock, and in which she fell 
short, she tacked close enough to backwind the chal- 
lenger. Shamrock left the Columbia in there to come 
out for the finish line, and it is said that she did wrong 
i- ('oing so, but that is open to question. It was hard 
t( if Columbia had not turned the tables, and if she 
' ' I done so. Sycamore would have been justified in try- 
■ to get away, as Barr was in getting away from him. 
There were two objects in getting inshore, and a good 
ri-a-on for Barr standing on after Shamrock had left 
h vn. As the breeze was offshore, the farther in Colum- 
bia went the better breeze she would ts':e out. and if 
the breeze should strengthen she would get it first and 
would take it out with her. This is what happened. It 
looked for a time as though it were all over with Colum- 
bia, but she was far to windward and took out a better 
breeze. This was a piece of luck for the defender, but 
its possibilities were nicely calculated by her skipper. 
She was almost able to cross Shamrock's bow when the 
challenger tacked for the line, but failing in this, she did 
almost as well in throwing Shamrock backwind and 
stopping her up. Fine judgment was shown in luffing 
Columbia, and giving all the backwind possible to Sham- 
rock. The object now, was to get across the line as 
qtiickly as possible. It was Columbia's lay to stop Sham- 
rock as much as she could, even though she did not go 
as fast as she might otherwise have gone. 
It was the greatest finish that has ever been seeii in 
American waters, and Columbia did the greatest ' piece 
of sailing in the last hour of the windward leg that has 
ever been witnessed. It was Barr and Columbia that 
won the race. He had a worthy rival in Sycamore in 
all the races. It must be said in all fairness that Barr 
has gained the greater honors, although it must also be 
said that Shamrock was handled on the whole better than 
any other challenger. The result stamps Barr as being 
the cleverest racing skipper in the yachting world to-day. 
John B. Killeen. 
Captain Charles Barr. 
From the London Yachting World. 
While there seems really less chance of our champion 
being beaten in America this time than ever there was,_ 
should it be our fate to have again to accept defeat, the 
knowledge that one of the chief agencies in administer- 
ing the blow was "raised" by ourselves, is bone of our 
bone and flesh of our flesh — namely, Charles Barr, skip- 
per of Columbia — should tend to soften the bitterness of 
the experience. If it ever comes that writers of the 
Smiles kind should draw on the lives of our yachtsmen 
for illustrations for their pages, that of Charles Barr 
could not fail to be one of the first to be laid under con- 
tribution, for few men in any \p!k of life have been ani- 
mated by more honest aspirations, more determination 
to conqiter all obstacles lying between him and his goal, 
or more tireless tenacity cf purpose; moreover, fewer still 
have reached the very top of their profession from such 
lowly and unlikely beginnings. A native of Gourock, 
Barr, in earlv youth, had such knowledge — no more, no 
less — of small boats as all boys have whose privilege it is 
to be reared on the coast. When he was apprenticed, 
however— in Greenock — to the grocery trade, it seemed 
as if all he would ever have to do with the sea and ships 
would be to have a look at them, from the beach at holi- 
day times. By a lucky accident his brother John drifted 
into yachting,'and straightway became one of the leading 
British racing skippers. This success on the part of his 
brother at once fired the imagination of the young shop- 
man, and soon the counter of a yacht had more attrac- 
tions for him than that of the grocer's shop. From the 
very first young B^rr became so keenly enamored of the 
sea that a summer with his brother on the highly stic- 
cessful racing lo-tonner Ulcrin so impressed him with 
the possibilities of his new calling, that instead of going 
back for the winter to his comfortable shop, he engaged 
to go flounder trawling on the middle reaches of the 
Clyde in an 8-ton smack — the wettest, coldest, dirtiest 
work to which a man can doom himself — so that he might 
the quicker and the better perfect himself in the difficult 
art of sailing a cutter-rigged vessel. 
Young Barr had not been long on board the .smack 
when it became abundantly apparent that Fate for once 
wasn't blind when she beguiled this man to the sea. With 
the exception of himself, the men in the smack were 
comparatively elderly men, and one bitterly cold winter 
morning the little boat was caught in a shrieking nor'- 
easterly gale off Portincross, the fishing hamlet on the 
Ayrshire coast, three or four miles south of Fairlie, that 
produced the Hogarths. Millport was the natural harbor 
to make for, but after many gallant attempts to sail the 
smack there, it became painfully apparent that there was 
as much likelihood of her flying to it as sailing to it. By 
this time the older men had become enfeebled and dis- 
heartened, Avhen Barr. who had been working splendidly 
all along, quietly took the tiller and assumed command 
in general. Having seen how hopeless it was attempting 
to beat the boat to a place of" safety, he boldly put her 
before the wind and started to run her to Ardrossan. 
The boat was ordy half-decked, and he had an awful time 
of it to prevent her from pooping the bigger of the seas. 
Off the entrance to Ardrossan Harbor, in spite of all his 
skill, she so nearly foundered that he abandoned the idea 
of trying to make this port, and he headed her for Troon, 
a harbor lying in a deep ocean bay a few miles further 
south. Ever the weather was becoming wil-ler and the 
outlook more desperate. So well did he know, too, that 
if he missed this harbor it was all up with them that he 
set himself to rush her in at all hazards. He did, hap- 
pily, catch the harbor safely with her, but, as is often 
the' case in desperate and deadly ventures, neither he nor 
his mates co-vild ever tell'very coherently exactly how it 
was done. The owner of the smack, a fine old Clyde 
fisherman called John Campbell, never wearied of telling, 
however, that "there was nae doot whate'er they would 
a' hae been drcon't but for young Charlie's pluck an' 
skill." 
The wild baptism of that winter -day seemed to make 
Barr absolutely indifferent to facing the perils of not only 
the seas around our own shores, but of the Atlantic as 
well in small boats, and soon after he saved John Camp- 
bell's smack and her company he forir.ed one of the crew 
who took the last of the noted Clyde plank-on-edge 20- 
tonners (Clara) to .America. The passage was a most 
tedious affair, occupying, as it did, between thirty and 
forty days. When a .skioper was required to take the 
Fairiie 40-footer Minerva (the hardest nut the Atuericans 
were ever set to crack in the way of a racing yacht) to 
America. Barr was forthcoming, and he took the tiny 
craft across the Atlantic pretty much as he woifld have 
raced her in the landlocked waters of the Clyde: aye. 
even to giving her the spinnaker whenever the wind was 
favorable. The Minerva made the passage from Fairlie 
to Boston in hventv-eight days. As she ran two-thirds 
of the distance in eleven days there can be no doubt 
that if she had not got held up for a time in an a\vful 
storm (which she swam through like a duck), fifty miles 
off Cape Cod. she would have made a passage of some- 
thing like the miraculous order. Orie gloomy afternoon 
a hiTge ship came out of the haze with no sort of warn- 
ing whatever, and almost sailed over her. On ariother 
evcRing — one of the witching sort — the warm Celtic im- 
agination of the old Loch Ranza navigating officer, Cap- 
tain Kerr, was set a-working. Barr and his comrades — 
who were below trying to snatch a bite of food while 
Kerr sailed t^ie cutter—were startled by hearing KeiT 
saj'ing m a most dramatic sort of whisper : '^'Come abune 
at aince, lads— the sea serpent's alangside." Hurrying 
up, without a moment's delay, they did see, by the fast- 
failing light of the summer night, a long, whipcord-hke 
creature, wriggling in the wake of the cutter; moreover, 
keeping up with her easily, although she was steppmg it 
out quite smartly. Alas, for the fathoming of this one of 
old ocean's choicest mvsteries. it was found, on examina- 
tion, that the fabled monster that had visited the Minerva 
of Fairlie in mid-Atlantic was only her own spinnaker's 
brace, which had get adrift; but fascinating as this theme 
of Charles Barr's career is, I must really belay it for the 
present.. 
A Coftection* 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I notice in the account of the races between Columbia 
and Shamrock, given in your last issue, it is stated that 
because of her pole mast and of a recently adopted provi- 
sion in the rules, to apply in cases where there were no 
hounds in the old acceptation of the terra. Shamrock was 
measured in a way different from Columbia, with the 
effect of giving her an advantage to the extent of "300 sq. 
ft. of canvas untaxed." 
As this statement would convey inferentially a reflection 
on the club's methods, you will, I am sure, be willing to 
correct the tnistatement. In both vessels the spreader, 
which usually and normally rests upon the hounds, was 
situated above the gaff, and in the ordinary relation to 
the gaft' and topmast, and was the place measured to 
without, so far as I am aware, advantage or disadvantage 
to either contestant, and, in strict conformity with the 
rules as these stood at the date of challenge. 
John Hyslop, Measurer N. Y. Y. C. 
[The above letter received as we go to press this week 
from Mr. John Hyslop, the Measurer of the New York 
Y. C, was most welcome, as it clears up a point over 
which there had been some question. — Ed.] 
— ® — 
Rifle at Shell Moaad. 
San FR.'VHcrsco, Sept. 23. — There has been- a lull in rifle work at 
our ranges since the big Julj' schuetzen festival. However, yester- 
day there was a good turnout at Shell Moiait. The day was mostly 
devoted to bullseye shooting. Scores : 
Germania .Schuetzen Club, monthly bullseye shoot: Edward 
Goetze 43, William Morken 153, L. N. Ritzau 179, Gefken 258, A. 
Jungblut 537, Louis Bendel 541, D. B. Faktor 604, N. Ahrens 768, 
F. Brandt 782. . 
Norddeutscher Schuetzen Club, monthly medal shoot: First 
champion class — A. Mocker 439. Second champion class — Not won. 
First class — J. Gefken 405. Second class — Henry Huppert 371. 
Final, third class — O. von Borstel S12. Best first shot, A. Mocker, 
25; best last .shot, R. Stettin, 25. 
Golden Gate Rifle and Pistol CUib, handicap: M. F. Blasse 190. 
Gold medal^W. F. Blasse 197; D. B. Faktor 216. Silver medal— 
M. T. White 190; Williaan Ehrenpfort 195, 175, 174; A. Thode 176, 
181, "172; A. B. Dorrell 220. Revolver, handicap— Paul Becker 92, 
89; W. F. Blasse 71. 
San Francisco Schuetzen Verein, monthly bullseye shoot: A. 
Mocker 110, Louis\Haake 181, William Ehrenpfort 325, L. Bendel 
345, H. Huppert 357, T. Woebcke 436. J. De Wit 460, F. Koch 603, 
Herman Huber 622, D. B. Faktor 622, William Goetze 672, J. D. 
PItise 68), A. Schafer 689, H. Zecher 722, H. Lilkendey 777, F. 
Boeckmann 843, Otto Burmeister 881, Avtgust Pape 893, August 
Jungblut 944, N. Ahrens 1092. 
Red Men's Schuetzen Company, monthly bullseye shoot: Cant. 
Siebe medal, won by William Dressier, 128; second prize, D. 
Tamke, 548; third prize, Henry Bach, 790; fourth prize, J, A. 
Mohr and Herman Schult, 1005. 
Red Men's Schuetzen Company, monthily medal shoot: Cham- 
pion class, William Dressier, 41i; first class, Capt. Henry Grieb, 
3S4; second class, J. A. Mohr, 365; third class, Herman Schult, 308; 
fourth class, D. Tamke, 280; best first shot, William Dressier, 25; 
best last shot, Capt. Henry Grieb, 23. RoEEL. ■ 
Cincinnati Rifle Association. 
Cincinnati, O. — ^The following scores were made in regular com- 
petition by members of the Cincinnati Rifle Association, at Four- 
Mile House, Reading road, Sept. 15. Conditions: 20(5yds., off- 
hand, at the German ring target. Gindele was declared cham- 
pion for the day with the good score of 220. Weather, clear; 
thermometer, SO; wind, 2 to 8 o'clock: 
Honor Target. 
Gindele 220 214 209 208 199 25 17 20—62 
Nestler 218 210 209 207 201 17 20 20—57 
Strickmeier 217 216 213 202 201 22 25 20—67 
Speth 214 214 214 198 196 
Rruns 214 209 204 202 20O 21 21 25—67 
Payne 213 206 206 206 203 23 20 17—60 
jonscher 205 199 176 169 163 22 12 9—43 
Uckotter 200 190 1S8 188 ISO 19 15 19—53 
Roberts 194 194 161 19 19 19—57 
Lux .' 186 183 181 177 172 17 13 23—53 
Topf 184 183 174 175 170 16 22 17—55 
Trounstine 183 177 ... 
Strickmeier and Bruns tied for first place on the honor target, 
but the latter took first by having 25 on the end of his score. 
® : 
If you want your shoot to be announced iiere send a 
notice like the following: 
Fixtures. 
Oct. 8-11. — Davenport, Ta.— Forester Gun Club's tournament; live 
birds and targets. 
Oct. 9.— Clyde, O. — Clyde Gun Club's tournament. 
Oct. 9. — Randolph. Jf. Y.— First amateur tournament of the 
Randolph Gun Club. Fred L. Sanger, Sec'}'. 
Oct 9-10.— Exeter, N. H.— Target tournament of the Exetet Gun 
Club. A. S. Langlev, Capt. 
Oct 9-10.— Erie, Pa.— Tournament of the Erie City Rod and Gun 
Club ; jflOO added. A. N. Aitken, Sec'y. " 
Oct. 9-10.— Huntington. Ind.— Tournament of the Erie City Gun 
Club. A. N. Aitken, Sec'y. 
Oct. 9-11.— St. Thomas, Ont.— Tom Donley s fifth annual tourna- 
ment; live birds and targets. 
Oct. 12. — Wissinoming, Pa. — Grand opening target shoot of the 
Florists' Gun Club. Ooen to all. Guaranteed purses and added 
money. T. C. Br.own, Sec'y. 
Oct. 15-16.— Greenville, 0.— Regular annual tournament of the 
Greenville Shotgun Club. H. A. MrCaughery. Sec'v. 
Oct. 15-16.— Crawford sville, Ind.— Tournament of the Crawfords- 
ville Gun Club. 
Oct. 15-17. — Pella, la. — Garden City Gun Club s amateur tourna- 
ment. A. I. Nassaman, Sec'y. 
Oct. 16.— Mt. Sterling, 111.— Tournament of the Mt. Sterling 
Gun Club. J. Breidenbend, Sec'y. 
Oct. 16-18. — Baltimore, Aid. — Fall tournament of the Baltimore 
Shooting Association; two days targets; one day live birds. Added 
money. Open to all, ^ _ , 
