March 21, 1903.]! 
233 
prepared my reports carefully. Whenever it was possible 
I obtained the figures from the judges or the referee. At 
other times the official scorer was asked for correct 
figures. Sometimes he gave them to me, but at others he 
declined, referring me to the press room, where they were 
posted. The press reports were not always correct, as 
shown by the scores of the last afternoon, when the press 
report stated that the contest for bass flies was "won by 
H. W. Hawes, with a cast of 94 feet 4 inches." As a mat- 
ter of fact, R. C. Leonard won the event the last after- 
noon, which was for single-handed bait-casting, with a 
score of 128 feet yV^ inches. Had I taken the press room 
figures, which I did not do, I would have fallen into the 
same error that the daily press did next morning, when it 
ignored Mr. Leonard's high record and printed as Satur- 
day afternoon's score the score made Friday night. 
Perry D. Frazer. 
— ^ — 
The Cruise of Tainui. 
BY L. E. MARSHj TORONTO. 
Winner of First Prize in "Forest and Stream" Croising 
Competition, 
This is the plain tale of a seventeen days' cruise on 
Lake Ontario, a trip as chockful of excitement as a mule 
is of kick. We got everything on that voyage, from the 
tail end of a cloudburst, black squalls, and good old 
sou'easters to gentle zephyrs and Paddy's hurricanes — 
plenty of the latter particular brand. Even the Skipper 
with all his years of experience could not predict what 
we would get an hour hence. In fact he gave up after the 
first week out and settled down to make the best out of 
what Providence willed in the way of wind and weather. 
The entire summer on the Canadian shore of Lake On- 
tario had been peculiar. The weather man up in the 
Toronto observatory surrounded by all his delicate in- 
struments and the grizzled old fisherman on the beach 
were equally as wild in their weather prognostications. 
If either predicted a storm, a half a hurricane from the 
nor'west, it blew a dead clam. If either foretold a warm 
spell you wore your light coats. It was indeed a peculiar 
summer, the first in Ontario in which cyclones of 
however small proportions could be recorded. 
But to get back to the trip. The journey was made 
in the yacht Tainui of the National Yacht and Skiff 
Club of Toronto. We started the cruise on July 26, and 
it was Aug. 12 before Tainui was again fraternizing 
with her home mooring. 
TAINUI UNDER SAIL. 
Though Tainui is of the general build and is generally 
referred to as a Mackinac she is in reality a schooner. 
She is 24 feet 6 inches over all, her water-line is 23 feet 
6 inches, and her beam 8 feet. She is a chunky, full- 
bodied boat, sharp fore and aft, with flat floors amid- 
ships, and is very staunchly built. She is planked clinker 
fashion. Tainui draws 18 inches with her board up and 
5 feet with the plate down. The centerboard is of half 
inch steel and weighs about 30a pounds. An iron shoe 
split for the centerboard extends from stem to stern 
outside the keel. This weighs 400 pounds. She carries 
but little inside ballast for a craft of her class, some 600 
pounds. Tainui's foremast, which is 30 feet long, is right 
up into the eyes of her, while the mainmast, 28 feet long, 
is stepped just aft of her cabin trunk. Her jib was car- 
ried out iipon a nine-foot horn. Upon her foremast 
Tainui spread 198 square feet of canvas, while her main- 
sail contained 12 square feet more. The jib accounted 
for 106 square feet of her total spread of 514 square feet. 
Both spars were well braced. The foremast had a pair of 
quarter-inch shrouds and a forestay of similar thickness, 
while the mainmast boasted of a double set of shrouds 
of the same diameter. All the shrouds were set up with 
deadeyes and lanyards. To steady her spars, when we 
were pounding into a heavy sea, or driving before a 
stiflf breeze, we had what we called "jumper stays." 
These were of half inch manila. One was spliced to the 
foremast just over the shroud eyes, the other to the 
mainmast in the same position. When caHed into use 
the fore jumper stay was carried aft to the mainmast, 
just below the goose-neck band, and hauled taut, while 
the main jumper stay was carried forward and made 
fast under the goose-neck band on the foremast. This 
braced her masts up wonderfully and to their use we 
credit the fact that we returned from the trip with the 
same pair of sticks in her as we departed with from the 
harbor. 
go niuph for tiie pwft; now for the crew, There were 
four of us. The Skipper was Rear Commodore Comme- 
ford, of the National Club. He is the owner of Tainui, 
and though only 25 years of age, has been sailing in craft 
of his own for ten years. The man dignified with the title 
of Mate, is the historian of this cruise, L. E. Marsh. 
T learned the game under the skipper's tuition and have 
been sailing for four years. Charles Culham, the only 
other member of the crew who knew a peak halyard from 
the bobstay plate eye, is 19 years of age, and has been 
blistering his hands, rousing in sheets, for a matter of 
three years. He was the only man on the cruise who 
could not swim like an otter, but it did not matter how 
wildly she was plunging about, Culham sprinted around 
the deck as lively as the best of us. The last, but not 
TAINUI IN WINTER QUARTERS. 
least, physically speaking at any rate, was the "lobster" 
of the crew, Fred. Clark, of Orangeville, aged 22 years. 
Clark knew more about a lacrosse stick and the mysteries 
of the Canadian national game than he did about the 
foresail reefing gear, but he was an apt pupil, and being 
naturally handy with his hands and feet soon became a 
fair to middling sailor. Lie got his sea legs the first day 
out, and after that was as much at home on her when 
she was rolling about as were those who had been sailing 
on the little schooner all season. 
Now for the trip ! 
To be brief we went around Lake Ontario, cutting off 
a bit at both ends. In all we covered 514 miles and 
called at 31 ports. 
We left Toronto at 2.30 P. M., Saturday, July 26. The 
club had a cruising race to Port Credit, 12 miles west, 
and, though we were bound for the Thousand Islands at 
the eastern end of the lake, we decided to take in the 
race. It blew half a gale from the east when the start- 
ing gun was fired. Tainui jumped away in fifth place in 
a fleet of eight skiffs, half raters and mackinacs. Run- 
ning free, with their boards hauled up, the flat-bottoraed, 
scow-like skiffs skated along at a lively gait. With our 
sails wing and wing we held on. Half way the wind 
shifted off shore and we closed down and headed up. 
We were sixth when the wind shifted, but before the 
other boats took advantage of the shift, we were a quar- 
ter mile to weather and in an excellent position. Then 
rain squalls came. Down we went to the rail and away 
we plunged with the wind abeam. We were going well 
and had pulled up with the leaders when the wind shifted 
back astern and we "wung" out our canvas again. Then 
another squall struck us. Out of a race, prudence would 
have caused us to round up and dowse our foresail, but 
a race is a race. We carried on every stitch. Two miles 
from the piers there was a crash from aloft and we were 
left like a gull winged by a hunter. Our foregaff had 
carried away at the jaws and only the lower half of the 
foresail was working. 
"Take her in," roared the Skipper, but everything 
fouled in that abominable gaff and we did not get that 
tangle straightened out for ten minutes. 
"Bind a dinghy oar across the break and do it quick," 
cried the man at the helm. We fell all over ourselves in 
the hurry, but managed to make the repair in respectable 
time. We chased the foresail aloft again and squared 
away for the harbor, now a scant half mile away. The 
squalls still dropped thick and fast, but, though we car- 
ried on through them all, the best we could do was 
fourth, only two hundred yards astern of the first boat. 
Just as the six-foot seas hurled us into the narrow 
were upon the piles. I went at the gaflp lashings with a 
knife, while the other three tried to hold her off. Just 
as it seemed as if nothing would save her from staving 
a hole in herself I got the oar free and sprang into the 
dinghy. A sea threw me prostrate, but I stuck to the oar, 
and in a moment was towing for dear life. For an in- 
stant I failed to move her ; then she forged ahead an 
inch. I tugged on the blades with renewed energy. 
Inch by inch, foot by foot she came and we reached the 
shelter of the weather pier. Then the work was easy. 
As soon as we anchored we stripped the gaff and hustled 
off with it to the shipyard. Fortunately we had a sur- 
plus on the gaff and to make repairs all we had to do was 
to move the jaws back a foot. 
The rain came down in torrents just after we made 
the harbor, but cleared away in an hour, and the wind, 
true to the old saying anent wind before rain, dropped 
dead. 
About nine o'clock a bit of a breeze sprang up off shore 
and we hove the anchor aboard and put out. Half an 
hour later we were sorry. The breeze was fickle and we 
doddled along with the booms slatting dismally across 
the decks from the dead roll from the east. About mid- 
night we all turned in except the Skipper. 
"Lou ! Lou ! get up quick, we're going to get a bad 
one," was the cry which awoke me at two o'clock. It 
also awakened Clark and Culham. I tumbled up in double 
quick time and so did the rest of the crew. Half 
awakened, we all reached the cabin door at once and 
each not seeing the other dove at the opening. The re- 
sult was a jam and bumped heads. We untangled and 
struggled out into the cold. It did look dirty, but we 
concluded to carry our muslin and try and make Long 
Branch pier before it broke. The threatened storm did 
not break before we reached the pier, but we got another 
scare before we reached our point. The storm of the 
afternoon had amounted almost to a cloudburst in the 
neighborhood of Toby Creek and had torn down trees, 
washed away boat houses and wrecked skiffs. In the 
darkness we ran into a floating tree and the Skipper for 
an instant thought we were ashore. When we reached 
Long Branch we tied up with one anchor on the pier 
and the other out over the stern. It rained hard before 
we succeeded in making snug for the night, but it was 
bright and clear when we awoke at daybreak. A plunge 
overboard chased away the cobwebs, and soon all was 
activity. We split up into two watches. One watch 
cleaned ship, while the other wrestled with the break- 
fast problem. After breakfast we whistled for wind, for 
a couple of hours, and finally, at nine o'clock, set sail in 
a zephyr from the southeast. Llalf an hour later the crew 
to a man was in swimming while the wind chased the 
mast hoops up and down the spars. An hour later we 
got some more of it from the southeast and starting the 
little schooner's sheets a trifle, headed on a compass 
course for Port Dalhousie across the lake. It was a shifty 
bit of wind. Now we could lay 'Charlotte and the next 
thing we were heading for Hamilton, still on the same 
tack. Every time we came about to take the wind over 
the other quarter the breeze shifted back to its original 
quarter. The zephyr tantalized us all morning, but 
gained strength in the early afternoon, and we raised, the 
southern shore about two o'clock. We were just between 
Port Dalhousie and the mouth of the Niagara. The 
da3'- was brilliant and we were skylarking to and fro, 
but the Skipper was fidgetty. When he wasn't shifting 
his seat he was shifting his sheets. 
"I don't like this," he exclaimed suddenly. Something 
in his tone checked the skjdarkers. 
"What's wrong," chorused his trio of fellow voyagers. 
"I don't know," he replied. "But I feel as if we were 
going to get it this afternoon." 
"Let her come; anything's better than drifting," ex- 
claimed Culham as he hunted up a biscuit. It did look 
a little threatening in the west. 
Plalf an hour later we got all that was coming' to us, 
and also what was coming to a few score other fellows, 
as the Skipper remarked, after the fun was over. The 
wind shifted around to the westward like a flash and 
then dropped dead. But we were not without wind for 
five minutes. It ca.me moderate for a while and we were 
happy, for the Tainui was bowling along at-- a 'five-knot 
clip. Suddenly on the horizon appeared a long line of 
white. ■ f - 
"Here she comes! Get that foresail in. Quickly," 
shouted Commeford. 
BE-LLEVtLLt Ot^tRONTO 
NEWCASTLE 
WHITBT 
LAK.e ■ BRIGHTON 
PORT • ^ ^.^am^tf"^^' I"":.-* 
LONG BR».r(C 
CHART OF COURSE TAKEN BY TAINUL 
channel we found another craft blockading our en- 
trance. We rounded up as best we could in the 40-foot 
gap and dropped our canvas, but found we were drift- 
ing down upon the leeward pier, a collection of broken 
and rotted spiles. 
"Get the dinghy," shouted Commeford. We dumped 
the dinghy off the cabin top, where we had carried it 
during the race, but discovered that she was useless, one 
oar still being lashed to the broken gaff. 
"The hooks," roared the man in command. Down 
wept the mphoVf hnt before the flukes §ettle4 home we 
_ Clark and I ran forward. Before we got the topping 
lifts up the squall was upon us. The sail came down 
with a. run and while the Skipper kept her sailing we 
furled it. 
The first squall was a hot one, but we weathered it 
safely. We had just settled down to sail her again, and 
were debating the advisability of hoisting away the fore- 
sail, when the sky suddenly darkened, and a black squall, 
of the genuine old brew, struck us. • Culham started the 
jib sheet, and I raced forward to dowse it." I went out 
upon the born to wnsnap the canvas from the forestay. 
