





864 
FOREST AND STREAM. 


[Nov. 30, 1907 

she is heeling enough to need your weight as 
ballast, or down to leeward of the helm, where 
you can see the jib under the mainsail. The 
jib, in other words, is the weather vane to tell 
you how the boat is pointing in reference to 
the wind. 
The setting of the jib is of vital importance 
to a sloop. Just as the angle of a ship’s propeller 
blade pushing on 
the water determines her 
speed, so does a 
sailboat obtain her speed by 
the angle of her sails to the wind. Some people 
think when they hoist the sails up the mast or 
stay they have done all that is necessary of 
them and the boat should do the rest. This is 
not the case. The sails must be carefully peaked 
up to just the right angle to give it a good 
draft, or curve, so it will propel the boat ahead 
and then they must be sheeted right. Take a 
jib, for instance, hoist it up so it just slackens 
the stay. Don’t let it hang in bags between 
the reefs, it was a case of anchor or shift the 
dunnage, which was now discovered as the 
cause of all the trouble. So we took off the 
hatch covers and by the light of Janterns began 
«a wild two hours’ shifting of stuff from for- 
ward aft. Talk about your handling of cargo, 
it is play compared to the stevedoring we did 
that night, as with planks, joist, boxes and 
barrels on our backs, we trotted the length of 
her hold along the keelson: but when it was all 
shifted the schooner was down by the stern 
instead of by the head, we had the satisfaction 
of seeing her pay off and go on her course and 
stay there even when we rehoisted the main 
and spanker. One does not forget a lesson 
learned in that manner very goon. 
When I see a yacht attempting to race with 
her jib sheet trimmed way in so the after half 
of it is holding back as much as the forward 
half is pushing, and hurting the mainsail at the 
same time by its back wind, I feel like getting 
aboard and shifting the jib sheet out near the 
tail so the wind can flow out of the jib and do 
some good instead of harm. 
A sloop rigged with double headsails—that is, 
staysail and jib, and she may have a topsail and 
jib topsail—should have one man to watch the 
So 


shake, but just fine close sailing every time, sf 
got good speed on. She worked to windwail 
so that in less than an hour we were a quartF 
of a mile ahead and up to windward of the bet 
that was leading before. | 
lhey were content to sit still and split t} 
wind so fine their boats couldn’t get up a 
headway, each trying to sail closer than If 
neighbor. Surprise was credited with havitf 
struck a lucky streak of wind that none of tlt 
others felt. Maybe she did, but loose sails atl 
keeping the boat going in light airs is my belid 
no matter where she points, 




























“Only a boat on the river afloat, 
Only a squall from the west; 
Only a sheet fast to a cleat, | 
And you can imagine the rest.” | 

Huntington Yachtsmen. 
THE yachting room in the Chateau des Beau 































































































Sheet it so there is just a little more 
strain on the foot of the sail than there is on 
each hank. 
the leach. This is so the wind will escape off 
the after edge freely and not be held in the 
sail like in a bag. 
\ properly set jib will look like Fig. 1. from 
aft. An improperly set one like Pica lt be 
after edge of the jib curls Over, it stops the 
wind from flowing off it freely, and this stops 
the yacht far more than one would believe. 
Sometimes you see a yacht with her jib=sheet 
made fast in the middle of the deck. This pulls 
the after edge of the sail so far inboard it 
throws its backwind against the mainsail. 
\nother evil tendency of the jib is its in- 
c'ination to bag the jib stay away off to leeward. 
To prevent this yachts are rigged with tackles, 
called runner tackles, on a stay that comes from 
the head of the mast aft to the weather side 
about amidships. By setting up hard on these 
the mast kept from bending forward and 
slacking the jibstay. When the stay slacks off 
to leeward the jib losing its best driving 
part and is merely acting as a bag to pull her 
bow off sidewavs. If a boat steers hard, set up 
the jibstay so it pulls the masthead forward 
several inches and you will be surprised what a 
difference it will make in her steering. Moving 
some ballast aft is also a remedy for a hard 
steering boat or one that is inclined to heel all 
over as she sails. 
I remember one instance of the latter remedy 
well. We were coming out of the harbor of 
Port-au-Prince, Hayti, in a three-masted 
schooner, light, on our Way over to Cuba to 
load sugar. In unloading the cargo all the 
dunnage had been piled up in the fore peak, 
which no one noticed, put the schooner =i 
couple of inches down by the head. 
Schooners, particularly three-masted ones, are 
miserable craft to try and run dead before the 
w:nd, when it is almost a calm: and that night 


is 

1S 
the wind died out and we had to lower the 
spanker. Still she yawed about so we had to 
douse the mainsail, as the man at the wheel 
could not keep her on her course. Even then 
with only foresail and jibs set she luffed up until 
the wind was abeam, and to prevent going on 
trim of the sails to see that each one is pulling 
free 
its share and leave the man at the helm 
to watch his opponents in the race. The main- 
sail, too, while it looks like a simple enough 
sail to hoist, can be made to make a big differ- 
ence in a boat by the way it is hoisted. 
In cutters, with deep keels and narrow, flat- 
sided hulls, the sails are all cut quite flat and are 
hoisted so they stand like drum heads. Some 
have a wire luff rope in the mainsail, and I re- 
member on the Liris and Kathleen, both cut- 
ters, how the skippers would test the luff to see 
when it was hoisted right by hitting it with a 
windlass heaver, and if it didn’t sound as tight 
as a fiddle string, it was jigged up until it did; 
then it was peaked up so the sail was perfectly 
flat 
Now on a beamy sloop you don’t do this. 
The sails have more bag or fullness and the luff 


rls 
MUM 





is only hoisted hand taut, then the peak is the 
part that requires careful hoisting so the ful- 
ness of the sail shows its bag up close to the 
jaws of the gaff. In heavy weather the luff 
must be hoisted hard for the reason that. it 
keeps stretching down; but the idea is the same. 
A man that tries to outpoint a cutter with a 
sloop seldom beats her for this very reason; 
but the sloop has a way of getting there if kept 
a rap full. 
In very light weather slack up everything and 
coax the breeze into pushing on the sails by 
making them baggy and yielding. The boat 
that does this will fan along ahead of those who 
keep their sails drum tight. 
The old sloop Surprise one day was the last 
of a fleet off Glen Cove, on Long Island Sound. 
The southerly wind was dying out and the 
cutters kept everything flat as before. We 
slacked the halliards a couple of feet and I gave 
up pointing and laid the sloop’s head off a full 
point to leeward of the former course. The 
result verified my theory. She fanned along 
going to leeward of the fleet, so of course none 
of them tried to follow our move. 
The Surprise got headway on her and ran a 
long ways ahead of the fleet, and then, by a 
succession of luffs, not so anything would 
Arts, at Huntington, L. I., is being decorate 
in the most elaborate style to tickle the fancy « 
local as well as visiting yachtsmen to that boon 
ing yachting center. 
The extensive hall on the first terrace is d¢ 
signed for a purely yachting room, which sug 
gests the nautical from the oaken deck beam 
and carlines overhead, to the hard wood pan« 
work of the side walls, in which orthodox poi 
hole lights are cunningly fitted. 
In the several angles of the rom a bar capstar 
yacht windlass, sounding machine, complet 
ground tackle, ship’s wheel, etc., will find 
place, while the head of a steam yacht, carryin; 
the regulation search and colored side lights 
with a bridge equipped with binnacle, steerin; 
gear, etc., will contribute an additional elemen 
of salt water to the picture. 
On the panels of highly polished woodworl 
there will be shown everything possible to bi| 
made in rope and wire for use on shipboard 
from the simple knotting of a rope yarn to th¢ 
most complicated piece of wire splicing. All| 
these will be ticketed and named for the edifi-| 
cation of visiting yachtsmen, and when it is un- 
derstood that this interesting and instructive col- 
lection is being made in the rigging loft of the 
New York Nautical College under the personal 
supervision of Captain Howard Patterson, the 
president of that institution, the completeness of 
the work may be inferred. 
The frieze of the hall in question will consist 


of more than one hundred burgees, representing 
every yacht club in America, and many other 
marine details will add generously to the environ- 
ment of this yachting conceit. while the nearby 
lapping of the waters of Huntington Bay against 
the massive walls of the Casino will offer a musi- 
cal accompaniment in harmony with the sur- 
roundings. 


