346 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 29, 1908. 
white foam that swept aft as the hull passed 
through it. 
The mate had called the old man up. as it 
was evident the ship intended to pass close 
under our stern, and together they hoisted the flags 
that, in the signal code, made out the W-s 
number. 
It was a perfect day; the sun shone clear over 
the entire ocean with a hard blue sky overhead, 
dotted with piles of fluffy vapor and an oc¬ 
casional strip of mackerel sky that resembled 
the wake of a paddle-wheel steamer. 
It was something unusual for ships to pass 
as close as we were with this “Lime Juicer, as 
English ships are called, and we could almost 
distinguish the features of her people as they 
paused in their work to hang over the rail and 
look at us. Forward the red shirts of some of 
the sailors hanging over the rail by the fore 
rigging thrust themselves upon the eye, and then 
the white apron on the cook, as he stood half 
in and half out of his galley looking at us, 
claimed attention. 
Aft on the poop stood two figures, evidently 
the skipper and mate, eying us through a long 
telescope, and near them at the wheel stood 
the helmsman, dividing his time between watch¬ 
ing the ship’s course and us. She did not 
appear to be going very fast, and yet as she 
drew away to leeward, it seemed but a few 
minutes before she was miles away, sinking her 
hull below the long flat swells. It was not 
an everyday occurrence to speak a ship, and it 
made me feel a little as if we still belonged to 
that far-distant earth, where the busy city of 
New York and all my friends belonged. It 
made me feel as if the solid earth still existed 
and had not sunk into oblivion when we left it. 
The Lipton Cup in Gravesend Bay. 
The sloop Bensonhurst has been awarded the 
Lipton cup after a summer’s racing in which 
she demonstrated her ability to win the greatest 
number of races, so that squabble, as well as the 
King’s cup, have both ended. But the moral 
begot by these two events should by no means 
pass unnoticed and unconsidered by all yachts¬ 
men who have the interest of the sport at heart. 
In the King’s cup event the fastest boats did 
not comply with the conditions governing tne 
race, and as a result they were disqualified one 
by one until the Capsicum was reached. She 
was found to have complied with them and was 
given the cup. 
In the Lipton cup event the seven yachts 
sailed the series, and then it was found six of 
them were disqualified by not measuring in ac¬ 
cordance to the conditions governing the race. 
What would the committee have done had the 
six measured in and the seventh been the only 
one to not comply? They would have disquali¬ 
fied her at once; but because the majority were 
at fault, the committee decided the best interests 
of yachting would be promoted by awarding the 
prize to a yacht known by themselves to have 
violated the conditions governing the race and 
disregarded the rights of the one boat that did 
comply with them. Here we have two different 
decisions to a similar problem. 
One committee lives up to its rules, the other, 
because six out of seven yachts fail to comply, 
discard their own conditions under which the 
boats were built and render an arbitrary de¬ 
cision. Which will promote the best interests 
in yachting we will leave to the yachtsmen at 
large to decide. 
Canoeing. 
Fragments from the ’88 Meet. 
Continued from page 306. 
The fleet that started in that great race of 
1888, was, with the exception of two or three 
canoes, entered by men who did not believe that 
race winning was the all and end-all of canoe¬ 
ing, and several crafts, whose owners had con¬ 
fidence enough in them to bring them to the 
meet for the second time, made up of new boats, 
designed, built and equipped to sail races and 
do nothing else. With the exception of the old 
boats, which need not be considered as racers, 
for they were hopelessly distanced, there was not 
perhaps more than six canoes in the fleet strong 
enough to be beached on anything less smooth 
than a plank skidway; and with two exceptions 
the position of the centerboard was such that 
■there was hardly room in them for both crew 
and centerboard. But perhaps the worst feature 
of the fleet was the almost universal use of a 
battened leg-of-mutton rig, that could neither be 
reefed nor lowered from within the canoe. Of 
course such a rig is very effective as long as 
there is not too much wind, but as soon as it 
breezes up the position of the canoeist with the 
standing rig is very much like that of Br’er 
Rabbit when he had that famous dispute with 
the “tar baby.” Br’er Rabbit, it will be remem¬ 
bered, got fore paws, hind paws and head so 
firmly fastened to that deceitful tar baby that 
all he could do was to beg to be thrown into 
the briar patch. The canoeist with a standing 
rig, particularly when his jigger is as big as his 
mainsail, is in even a worse position than Br’er 
Rabbit as soon as the weight of the wind in 
his sails is heavier than that of his body, as he 
cannot have resource to a briar patch. He can¬ 
not keep way on his craft without risking a cap¬ 
size; he cannot lie to, as his jigger is too big; 
and if he lets his sheets go and his canvas shake 
he loses control of his craft and is in danger 
e C-pAV/S 
of being rolled over in the trough of the sea. 
It is bad enough that crafts called canoes should 
be built of material so light that they will stand 
no more than a racing shell, and with the space, 
that should be at the disposal of her crew filled 
up by a centerboard; but it is far worse to rig 
her so that she is the plaything of every gust. 
The time was when the racing fleet was made 
up -of canoes like the Lassie, Vesper, Notus, 
Guenn, Mac, which are as capable and comfort¬ 
able cruisers as they are fast and successful 
racers. These boats are converted into racers 
by being stripped of their purely cruising ac¬ 
coutrements, having their bottoms and boards 
polished up and their small cruising rigs replaced 
by large hoisting rigs. They are in all things— 
model, constructive strength, fittings and rig— 
canoes; but their successors are fit for racing 
only, nothing more. The bright spot in the. canoe 
horizon is that the standing rig machine men did 
not, in the races, do so very much better than 
the lowering rig canoe men as. to prove that the 
machine could go faster than the canoe. 
The winner of the record, the great unclassi¬ 
fied race, of the trophy race, the paddling-sailing 
race, and the special sailing race for the Spring- t 
field cup was Eclipse, a very fine modeled and 
well built craft. She carried a standing rig in 
everything but the combined race, and her board 
came further aft than it should for comfort, but 
in every other respect she was a craft that de¬ 
served all the honors she got. Eclipse, the win¬ 
ner of the trophy sailing race and the record, 
and Narka, the winner of the paddling trophy 
race, were both built by the same builder, Cap¬ 
tain Ruggles, of Rochester, and were carvel built, 
caulked crafts; miniature yachts in build as well 
as in character. A few years ago all American 
canoes were clinker built, but the success of 
Pecowsic in 1885 brought the merits of the 
smooth skin so prominently before the eyes of 
American canoeists that even the lap-streak 
system, which is a modified clinker, has been 
abandoned. In this respect the Americans only 
arrived in 1885 at the point which the Canadian 
canoe attained in 1865, and as yet they have not 
developed a single method of construction that 
can compare with the ordinary rib and batten 
of the Canadian canoe builders; .that is, unless 
the caulked- canoe proves to be as strong and 
lasting as she is fast. One thing is certain about 
these carvel-built, caulked canoes; they can be 
so built as tq be marvelously light. Ruggles, 
Mr. Barney, of Pecowsic fame’s new canoe, only 
weighed seventy-five pounds, and Narka, in which 
the paddling trophy was won, weighed only fifty- 
five pounds. 
The canoe which pressed Eclipse the closest, 
and which would have beaten her in the trophy 
race, if it had not been for a fluke and an acci¬ 
dent, was Fly, which is as far as a model and 
rig are concerned, the type of what an all round 
canoe should be. Notus, which pressed the win¬ 
ner close in the unlimited sail area race, has a 
beautiful lowering rig, and can be easily con¬ 
verted from a comfortable cruiser into a fast 
racer, and Romona, although a machine, as far 
as sail and fittings go, was a big and capable 
boat. 
[to be continued.] 
A. C. A. Membership. 
NEW MEMBERS PROPOSED. 
Atlantic Division—Constantine C. Clifft, 178 
N. nth street, Newark, N. J., by George V. 
Strahan. 
Northern Division—George L. Johnston, 
William Hale and Walter F. Halliday, all of 
Gananoque, Ont., Can., and all by C. V. 
Ketchum. 
NEW MEMBERS ELECTED. 
Atlantic Division—5451. Thomas V. Gaffney, 
533 W. 148th street, New York city. 
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ton, Mass. 
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sitting on the main royal yard looking for land to please the mate. 
