Baltimore to Bangor and Back 
A Leisurely Cruise on a Small Yacht from 
the Chesapeake Northeastward 
By E. P 
T HIS title is, to be sure, rather alliterative 
than precise, for we sailed a little beyond 
Bangor and we came back only as far 
as our home port, New Haven. But it will 
serve to outline a three months’ summer cruise. 
The craft that carried us is a small schooner 
yacht of Crowninshield design and Gloucester 
build, 35 feet waterline, 50 feet over all, nearly 
8 feet draft. She is snugly rigged, with a main 
boom that hardly goes over the taffrail and with¬ 
out topmasts. For light sails she carries a bal¬ 
loon jib and a fisherman’s staysail, both ex¬ 
tremely useful in long runs. She is strongly 
built and rigged, an excellent sea boat, easily 
handled in any weather by two men; in short, 
she is a cruiser, pure and simple. I have always 
been an admirer of the Gloucester fishing 
schooner and I was greatly pleased to come 
upon a yacht which, in build and design and 
in appearance, too, is a kind of refined fisher¬ 
man, a yacht and yet with the plain evidence 
in her looks of her descent from hardworking 
ancestors that had seen service on the banks. 
Two or three times, as we were lying at anchor 
with our swordfish stand conspicuous on the 
bowsprit, we had the amusing experience of 
hearing discussions of the question whether she 
was a yacht or a fisherman, carried on in that 
far-reaching tone of voice which characterizes 
conversation in a motor boat. 
I am not sure that this uncertainty about our 
appearance and character was as agreeable to 
all the company as it was to me, but on the other 
hand our vanity was highly gratified when, on 
three occasions, we were saluted by the name 
of another yacht, the very prettiest little 
schooner, we think, now afloat. Such flattering 
resemblances bring with them their peculiar 
temptations, and we may come to grief in try¬ 
ing to live up to the company we keep. Indeed, 
the plans which we are making for smoother 
paint next summer and for neater rigging seem 
to show that we are not untouched by social 
aspirations. But by keeping the swordfish stand 
on the bowsprit and by remembering the family 
tree in Mr. Crowninshield’s office, we hope to 
remind ourselves that our grandmother belonged 
to the working classes. 
She is what wou’d be called a two-man boat; 
that is, she does not need more than two men 
to handle her even in a crowded harbor or in 
MORRIS 
heavy weather, and I began the cruise with one 
man, counting myself the second. 
It would be impertinent for me to praise my 
companion and helper, but I cannot allude to 
him without saying that we are all under a debt 
of gratitude to him for unvarying courtesy, kind¬ 
ness and generosity. I have had some experi¬ 
ence in cruising, but for each thing that I know 
about handling a vessel he knows twenty. Nomi- 
THE YACHT. 
nally on the ship’s papers I was master, and I 
thought it fair to assume the responsibility for 
difficult decisions, as I should have taken the 
responsibility for disaster, but he was more truly 
skipper than I was, and I shall call him by that 
name. In one respect we were almost equal; 
there is a motor in the 12-foot tender and 
neither of us knew or cared much about an 
engine. The result was that the machine ran— 
at times. It was like a telephone, an intolerable 
nuisance, and an indispensable convenience. Tt 
was in the hands of some eight doctors, each of 
whom had his own diagnosis, expressed with 
unconcealed contempt of the physician who had 
preceded him in the treatment of the case. But 
the engine towed us into harbor three times 
when it was distinctly convenient to get in and 
served us admirably after we had added to our 
crew a competent engineer, in the person of the 
skipper’s son. I suppose that one cannot get, 
the best out of even so inanimate a thing as an 
engine without paying the price of a personal 
interest in it. My affections were wholly given 
to the schooner and to sails, and the engine felt 
it and would not work for me. Next season 1 
shall make an effort to overcome my repugnance 
and learn to pat it and rub it down. If I can 
conceal my sordid desire to get work out of 
it, I believe it will run. 
The yacht was at Baltimore when I bought 
her, and the summer’s plan included a start from 
there and a cruise down the Chesapeake. The 
skipper and I took possession on June 3 and 
spent two weeks in cleaning and painting and 
rigging. This was short time, and it was made 
still shorter by rainy weather, which hindered 
us on the outside work. On the other hand the 
location of the Baltimore Yacht Club at Curtis 
Bay is very beautiful. The low-lying shores, the 
variety of foliage, the appearance of perpetual 
high water which results front the slight fall of 
the tide made a most agreeable picture. The 
former owner of the yacht, in addition to many 
other kindnesses, had put me up at the club, and 
we experienced the warmth of Maryland hos¬ 
pitality. The steward served us with crab soup 
—a most delectable compound—and with straw¬ 
berries grown on the place. “Charlie” supplied 
unlimited information, and the club launch was 
always pleasantly at our disposal. With these 
agreeable adjuncts to some pretty hard work we 
got the boat into fair condition and were ready 
to sail when my family joined me on the 16th 
of June. 
Y/e spent the next fortnight in a leisurely- 
cruise down Chesapeake Bay. This was new to 
all of us, but we were supplied with charts and 
had no special difficulties in navigation. A cer¬ 
tain amount of special care, however, is neces- 
sary, for the shoal points run off to great dis¬ 
tances, and one is constantly surprised to find 
that the light or buoy he is looking for lies so 
far off the land. It happened, too, that the air 
was at this time full of smoke. We could hardlv 
see more than five miles and were often confused 
in judging distances. 
The thunder squalls for which Chesapeake Bay 
has a reputation did not trouble us greatly. 
There were some sharp ones at night, but none 
of any weight while we were under way. The 
breeze was usually rather lighter than we are 
accustomed to on the New England coast, lighter 
even than the sound breezes, and it was pretty 
steadily from the southward, but we were not 
