


624 
The First Boat. 
WHEN a boy once gets the boating fever the 
only cure for it is to buy him a boat and go 
sailing, and if he be a true sailor he will dabble 
in boats until he takes the last ferry. I know 
of no other spoft that so completely takes con- 
trol of a boy as boating, whether it be rowboat- 
ing, sailboating or steamboating. But old Father 
Neptune is a careful old gentleman with his 
sons. He will play many a wet trick and soak 
his boys through and through with rain water 
and sea water until his favor seems eternally 
lost; yet in an hour his mood may change to 
that of the most lovable nature, blue sunny skies 
and smooth sea suddenly restoring all that love 
so recently apparently lost, and these kaleido- 
scopic changes so captivate the yachtsman that 
he never tires of his favorite sport. 
No theatre 
ot nature, 
plays that 
ever cumpared with the scene shifts 
and one is involuntarily an actor in 
Cashed charm over yacht- 
continual 

A PORT WASHINGTON CAT. 
ing. A novice at boat sailing is apt to look with 
contempt upon anything so cheap as a flat bot- 
tomed boat, but this enmity toward the flat boat 
wears off as one becomes better acquainted with 
them. Do not despise the cheap boat. Remem- 
ber it is what the boat can do, not what she 
looks like that really counts. Naturally you 
want to own a smart looking craft, but it is 
very humiliating to have an expensive yacht and 
see every kind of a cheap boat go sailing ahead 
of you. 
I remember 
currence. It was in the 
fleet of the Corinthian navy had assembled in 
Echo Bay at New Rochelle preparatory for a 
cruise on Long Island Sound. 
A more variegated fleet would be hard to col- 
lect in one harbor. There was the large beamy 
sloop Charles Welde, with a harum-scarum crew 
of about twenty, the pompous little cutter Roamer, 
instance of just such an oc- 
summer of 1890. The 
one 
with her diminutive Admiral and his crew of 
one Swede, the trim little twin cutters Beth and 
I. O., the cat Uno, along with some half dozen 
similar felines, the St. Lawrence sailing skiff 
Germania, and a pirogue-rigged, narrow, double- 
ended little affair called Unique that turned 
turtle the moment Jones got aboard and gave 
him an unexpected bath. 
Just before this fleet was ready to start east 
there came slowly gliding into the harbor from 
Long Island a yawl-rigged scow, square at both 
ends and almost flat on the bottom with the name 
Bouncer painted on the stern. She was greeted 
with cheers and cat calls of “Where did you 
get that barn door?” “Look at the packing box 
afloat!” “Which way are you heading, Tom!” 
etc., for Thomas Clapham, of Roslyn was sailing 
her. 
But when the starting gun was fired and the 
fleet started off for Black Rock, Bouncer went 
fully two feet to any other boat’s one. The last 
we saw of her was a speck of white on the east- 
ern horizon. That night there was a panic in 
the fleet. “Beat a cutter! Pooh, how could a 
miserable square scow beat a deep, sea-going 
cutter?” It was voted a freak—a trick of some 
ae against all reason—when that reason was 
FOREST AND STREAM. 

[Ocr. 19, 1907. 


However, Bouncer lost the. fleet and demon- 
strated the good qualities of a flat boat skim- 
ming over the water rather than plowing through 
it. She was toft. 16in. over all, 13ft. 6in. water- 
line, 7ft. beam, and only drew 6in. of water. 
She was the first boat I ever saw with a bottom 
about the curve of an ordinary boat’s deck. Row- 
boats and small duck boats have been built on 
this principle for ages, but the yachtsmen seemed 
to look with disgust upon anything so simple 
for a yacht. They looked for speed in all kinds 
of round bottoms or any shape that was expen- 
sive, just as though the expenditure of money 
would insure speed. 
In 1895, when this feeling was at its height, 
Mr. L. D. Huntington, of New Rochelle, built 
a narrow, shallow arc-bottomed boat for the 
class, then known as the half-rater class, called 
Question. Her dimensions were 24ft. over all, 
14ft. 4in. waterline, 5ft. beam, 3in. draft, and 
carried 225 square feet of sail. There were boats 
of every conceivable shape against her, but in 
the races, where it blew a good whole sail breeze 
or more, Question led not only her own class, 
but everything big or little going to windward. 
Poor little Question. To-day she is being 
pushed around by a gas engine, her sides have 
been built up about a foot higher, and a shanty- 
like house protects her owner as he sits inside 
and fishes through her centerboard well that 
was enlarged for the purpose. While such an 
end must be humiliating enough to the once 
proud little racer, it is not half so bad as the 
fate that befell most of her far more expensive 
opponents who have been broken up. 
Three years later I wanted a cheap, easy built 
sailboat to skim about the creeks at New 
Rochelle so I schemed out the Lark model, now 
so well known, having been built in all parts 
of the world. 
Lark was 16ft. long on deck, 6ft. wide and 
drew about 6in., except at her skeg and rudder 
which made her draw 15in. of water. She car- 
ried 200 square feet of sail. Although not in- 
tended for a racer Lark did very well and earned 
a reputation for speed. 
These examples teach us what experiment will 
also prove; that a perfectly flat surface laid on 


The Gouncer 
TYPES OF SMALL SAILBOATS, 

the water offers a great amount of resistance to 
forward motion. 
The water seems to form bubbles along the 
surface and each bubble tends to stick fast and 
increase the resistance, but if the bottom be 
slightly rounded it seems to let the air bubbles 
escape from under it and the friction is greatly} 
reduced. The rounder the bottom, as illustrated 
in the narrow rowing shells and fin keel yachts,| 
the less resistance the hull experiences due tc! 
the suction or surface friction of the water. : 
This principle is just as true in regard to the 
fore and aft sweep or curve of the bottom. The| 
nearer the curve down and up agrees with a 
certain wave speed, the easier she will go al] 
that speed. Each curve is suited to one speed] 
and hence there is one speed at which a boat} 
is doing her best; any speed more or less, and} 
there is a loss of efficiency. 
If the amateur yachtsman has served a boy- 
hood apprenticeship at model yacht sailing he 
will have a clear idea of how to manage his 
first real yacht. If he has not sailed models, let 
him go out with someone that is experienced at 
sailing and get them to let him steer while they 
advise him what to do. 
For the first boat, the boat to learn the art oj 
sailing in, a good beamy catboat with a smal 
sail is the best kind of a teacher. 
One sail is all any novice can keep track of) 
and it is time enough to add a jib when the use 
of the mainsail alone is properly understood. | 
The kind of a boat to delight a boy’s heart ist 
an 18 to 2o0ft. catboat. An open boat is usually* 
the first choice, and then the novice turns either| 
to a little cabin cruiser or takes up racing or| 
any shape boat, so long as it will sail like the| 
wind and come in at the finish of the races lead- 
ing her competitors. 
Boats in different localities, having to sail in 
different kinds of water and being used fo1 
various purposes, differ greatly in their propor-, 
tions so as to better adapt them to their in- 
tended work. Hence the eastern catboats are 
built wide and high out of water to enable them 
to ride the seas they encounter, for their sailing| 
off Cape Cod, for instance, takes them clear outl 
on the ocean. 





























































































The "E.Z. Sloat ” 
Wilboa 

0.G-04""° 
