Wind
which may be considered as a fluid striking a sail must escape somehow, and naturally does escape in the easiest possible direction. In the case of a square-rigged vessel with the wind right aft, the wind may be said to escape in all directions; the only distinct effect produced, beyond propulsion, is the creation of a cushion of air, which is by some thought to interfere with the effect of the wind upon the canvas. is to mitigate this supposed diminution of force that holes are cut in square sails, to allow the spent wind to escape through the canvas.
It In the case of fore and aft rigged vessels, if the wind strikes the sail perpendicularly to its surface, it may also be assumed to escape equally in all directions. But under nearly all circumstances sails are trimmed at such an angle to the keel that the wind strikes them obliquely. The case of a cutter or other fore and aft vessel with the wind abaft the beam need not be considered, the effect is practically entirely propulsive, and in the line of the ship's keel: she makes no leeway.
We are dealing with vessels close-hauled, and in that case the wind, striking the sails obliquely from before the beam, flies of the sail abaft the beam, with the exception of a certain quantity which escapes round the luff, or leading edge of the sail. If the sail can be imagined in a vacuum, the wind would escape in this manner without interference; but, as a fact, the wind flowing from a sail meets a mass of atmosphere moving past the sail in a different direction, and is thereby deflected from its natural course. To enter into a discussion on the exact effect of this deflection would be beyond the scope of this article; it is sufficient to point out that this opposing force drives a vessel to windward.
Another assistance to a vessel turning to windward consists in this: one effect of wind upon a sail is to create a diminution of pressure at the back of the sail. The extent and scientific results of this diminution cannot be given, but the practical effect is to draw the vessel up to windward. Sailormen have by experience discovered that the luff of a mainsail should not be extravagantly taut: a slight slackness, they say, makes a "little draught in the sail." It does something of the kind, for it utilises some of the wind which would otherwise flow round the leading edge or luff of the sail. It is no doubt partly due to this cause that a London barge is able to turn to windward under a huge staysail, bulging out in an immense curve. The barge holds a good wind, and the sail keeps full. The bargee does not know why, and he would not sail his craft any better if he did.
Turning to windward is so important a matter in yachting, and especially in yacht-racing, that a diagram illustrating the above-mentioned theories may be useful.
These theories are, it must be admitted, somewhat obscure; and, as the effect of wind on sails, and of water on ships, have not been reduced to an exact science, they are no doubt open to criticism. Be that as it may, their application leads up to a very practical and interesting subject, namely, the angle at which a racing vessel will lie to the true wind and also to the apparent wind, and the latter needs more careful consideration than the former in calculating the angles for the leads of the head sheets. A smart racing yacht will work within 8 points (90°) of the true wind -that is to say, within 4 points (45°) on each tack; but in reality she sails within 1 or 2 points of the apparent wind, for owing to the speed of the vessel the wind is brought 2 or 2 points more ahead on each tack, and consequently the vessel's head breaks off 2 or 2 points. Were it not for this fact, boats would go to windward nearly as fast as to leeward, and, excepting in calms, steam would have little or no advantage over sail. It is the speed of the vessel which causes the difference between the true and apparent winds, and the faster a vessel is going, the flatter will her sheets need to be drawn in, and the worse wind she will appear to hold. In the case of ice boats, which travel with fearful velocity, the apparent wind is always nearly ahead, no matter in what direction the true wind is blowing, and the sails must be trimmed nearly in the fore and aft line of the boat. An Atlantic liner with anything like a moderate wind on the quarter, will also bring the apparent wind nearly ahead, and, if she sets a sail, the sheet will need to be hauled flat in. For the same reason the big cutters, when turning to windward, require to carry their main booms almost amidships in anything like smooth water. Under these circumstances it may seem strange that they get to windward as fast as they do. It is their great speed through the water, and the fact that they make little or no leeway which enables them to do so. It is not because they hold a higher wind than other vessels. A big cutter does not point so high as a I-rater, she requires a larger arc to work in, and if a boat is ever built capable of sailing 15 knots on a wind, she will not work within less than τo points; but her speed through the water and the total absence of leeway will get her to the weather mark far ahead of a slower antagonist sailing closer to the true wind.
A London barge turning up the river on a flood tide with a haystack half wav up the mast will hold a good wind, but she will move very slowly through the water. The bargee would probably say that his ship went better to windward loaded in that way than she would if light, and would add that the haystack did it, especially the leeside of the haystack. Very likely he is right and has arrived at perfectly accurate conclusions purely empirically.
It is the apparent wind which has to be considered in calculating the proper angles for the H Di A C M B K F E This diagram represents a ship closehauled on the starboard tack. A B is the direction of the keel; LM the plane of the sails, represented for the sake of illustration by a straight line; EC the direction of the true wind; FC the apparent direction of the wind on board, it being brought more ahead by the forward movement of the ship. Although the lateral resistance, particularly in a deepkeeled vessel, is enormous relatively to the fore and aft resistance, still, it is not sufficiently great to prevent a certain amount of leeway. Let CD represent the line of progression made good, the lee-way is the angle A CD. Now let CH represent the resultant effective force of the wind, made up of its action on sails, masts, rigging, hull, &c.; and let CK be the resultant of the resistance of the water to the lateral and fore and aft moveinent of the vessel. The angle F C H must be greater than a right angle, and the flatter the sails can be set, the less the angle need be, or, in other words, the closer the ship will sail to the wind. Also, the angle KCD must be greater than a right a angle; but, if the fore and aft resistance could be done away with it would become a right angle. Now if the ship is moving steadily along, as CK and CH are the only two forces acting upon her, they must necessarily be equal and opposite. The sum of the two angles FCH and DCK exceeds two right angles by the angle DCF, which is the angle between the direction of the apparent wind and the real path of the ship. Supposing the fore and aft resistance to become nil, the angle KCD becomes a right angle; and (neglecting the frictional force of the wind, and its effect upon the masts, rigging, &c.) theoretically, with perfectly flat sails by making the angle FCH, a fractional amount greater than a right angle, the ship might sail nearly in the wind's eye, because the lee-way would be hardly appreciable and the angle ACE would be made infinitely small.
Practically, in modern racing yachts, the angle ECD is found to be about 40°. leads of the head sheets. It is most important that a vessel's sails should be trimmed at proper angles, and at equal angles. The leads for the fore and jib sheets of a large cutter are generally drawn at an angle of from 7 to 8 degrees to the line of the keel, and those of small vessels at from 9 to 9 degrees, the difference in angle being due to the relative difference in speed. The main sheets of big cutters are, as before mentioned, brought in almost amidships, but as the angle of the gaff is considerably broader than that of the boom, the mean angle of the mainsail is about the same as that of the headsails. In the case of small boats, in order to obtain equality of angles, main sheets are not brought in nearly so flat.
A great deal has been said at times about the advantage of having holes in sails, in order to let the wind out. The idea seems a strange one, but it is by no means new. The Japanese, for instance, have always laced their sails together with about a 4-inch opening between the cloths so as to allow of the escape of the spent wind.
Experience proves that the wind becomes banked up in front of a mainsail with the sheet out, a spinaker, or any square sail; and that there is nothing like the weight of wind in the sails that there appears to be. All yachtsmen know that it is the first filling out of a spinaker that tries the gear, and that afterwards it settles down quietly. Doubtless the decrease of wind pressure, owing to increase in speed of the vessel, is a partial cause of this; but it is also due to the fact that the sails are then backed by large air cushions of spent wind, and it is the pressure of the following breeze on that air cushion which drives the vessel along. Any landsman may demonstrate the same fact by standing on a lee shore under a high cliff, and even at some distance from it, during a heavy gale of wind, and then mounting to the summit of the cliff. He will find almost a calm at the bottom, and a gale fit to blow him off his legs at the top. It is the air cushion which produced the effect, and were it not for this the launch of boats from off a steep lee shore would be impossible. It is the force of the sea, not the force of the wind, which drives a lifeboat back and washes her broadside to the beach; the strength of the gale is not felt until she gets some distance from the shore. Holes in the canvas of square-rigged vessels might therefore be beneficial by allowing the dead wind to escape, and enabling the living wind to exert more direct force on the sails; but holes would be useless and worse than useless in fore and aft vessels on almost every point of sailing.
Spinakers are practically the only sails to which the principle could be properly applied, but as we are slow to adopt new. or to revert to old ideas, and as neither the scientific mind nor the practical mariner has arrived at a definite conclusion on the subject, holey spinakers are not likely to come into fashion.
And now having briefly glanced behind the veil of mystery surrounding designing, construction, and sail-making, let us return to the consideration of the yacht-launched, sparred, canvased, ready for sea. Though a good designer may safely be trusted to make his calculations so accurately as to ensure that the vessel's flotation line, stability, centres of effort, gravity, and lateral resistance, are all as he intended them to be, no human ingenuity, science, or experience, will ensure her sailing up to her proper form at once.
A racing yacht is a marvellous product of the human brain, but, like all such products. imperfect; and its imperfections can be reduced to the lowest possible minimum only by the anxious care, study, and experience, of those who have to sail her. I have never known the scientific designer to be of much use in screwing a vessel up to her best form. Ships are very human, and rather feminine; they act like intelligent, but slightly unreasoning creatures. They do all kinds of odd things, and do not seem to know themselves why they do them, and it is very difficult to find out. They have their own individual peculiarities of disposition; one vessel will like her mast stayed as rigid as an iron bar, while another won't sail at all with the runner too taut. In some cases the boom can be carried almost amidships on a wind; in others the sheets must be eased a wee bit. In getting a new vessel perfectly fit some little alterations in ballast will almost certainly be required; a bit of weight may have to be shifted fore or aft to make her comfortable on her helm, and it may be found desirable to stay the masthead a bit aft or forward as the case may be to make the balance perfect.
All this requires a great deal of attention. An experienced skipper can tell by the feel of the vessel and the way she acts whether she is going comfortably to herself, and some of these skippers are endowed with a marvellous faculty for discovering her whims and peculiarities, and for humouring them. But though a good deal can be done to get a ship in her proper trim during trial trips, no real estimate of merit can be formed until the new ship meets her rivals with racing colours up in a good breeze and under fair conditions of sailing.
The first match is a great occasion. The momentous question whether you are the proud owner of a flyer, or the somewhat despondent possessor of a vessel only indifferently good, will be tested. The hopes and fears of anxious months will be justified or established. But even though achievement falls short of expectation, the yachtsman need not despair. The first match is not infrequently followed by a long and somewhat gloomy consultation between owner, skipper, and designer, resulting in alterations and modifications of a character highly beneficial. On the other hand, if a winning flag is the result, a wise owner will be wary, shy of experiment, and will not forget the wisdom of the adage "Let well alone." The first few races will suffice to get your vessel into the best possible trim. The proper position for every ounce of movable weight and the exact way she likes her masts to be stayed, and her sails trimmed, will have been ascertained. But to keep her invariably to her best form surpasses the wit of man. So delicately balanced are all the factors and forces involved, that differences too slight to be perceptible pro-- duce most appalling results. Ships act like sentient creatures, they are subject to moods and fancies, and are liable to fits of temper, good and bad. Sometimes the vessel will not sail; the helmsman knows at once that something is wrong, he feels it, the vessel seems half asleep, drowsy, irresponsive, and the fact is soon made disgustingly evident by comparison with your competitors in the race. What is the matter? Nobody knows and nobody can find out. Everything--weights, stays, sheets are exactly as usual, and all hands become reduced to a frame of mind that finds a natural though perhaps immoral relief in language of a strictly un-parliamentary character. And then, after straining patience to breaking point. the fickle jade wakes up. sails like a witch, and does her best to atone for past misdeeds. And the reason of all these vagaries is beyond human ingenuity to discover. Of course some minute change in the angles of the sails, in the position of the crew, in the tautness of the weather runner, has made all the difference in the world, a difference, that is to say, imperceptible in cruising or pleasure sailing, but very noticeable when it comes to racing against vessels with an average difference of speed of perhaps only a few seconds in a twenty-mile course. These perturbations of perfection, however annoying they may be at times. undoubtedly constitute one of the many charms of racing. You have got a very beautiful machine, but you can never feel that you are utilising it to the utmost of its capacity. You may sail the same boat, season after season, and yet every day there is much to be observed if you have eyes to see, and much to be learned if you have brains to note, and something to be done if you have ingenuity to act. Possibilities of improvements are ever present, and hence the interest in your vessel never flags, nor does the pastime of racing ever pall.
The rules to be observed in yacht-racing are, with one or two exceptions, identical with the ordinary Board of Trade rules of the road at sea. The principal regulations may be summed up as follows:- Yachts having the wind free must keep clear of yachts close-hauled; yachts on the port tack must give way to yachts on the starboard tack; an overtaking yacht must keep clear of the overtaken yacht. A yacht may luff as much as she pleases to prevent another yacht passing her to windward, until she is in such a position that her bowsprit-end, or stem if she has no bowsprit, would strike the overtaking yacht abaft the main shrouds. She may not, however, bear away to prevent an overtaking yacht passing to leeward.
If, in rounding any mark in a race, or passing an obstruction, an inside yacht has an overlap, the outside yacht or yachts must give her sufficient room. A yacht is considered to be overtaking until she has drawn clear of the other; and overlapping means that the two vessels are in such a position that an alteration of the course of either would involve immediate risk of collision. When two yachts, both close-hauled on the same tack, are converging by reason of the leeward one holding a better wind, and neither can claim the rights of a yacht being overtaken, the onus of keeping clear rests upon the vessel to windward. The rules also ordain that a yacht shall not tack so as to involve risk of collision with another yacht before filling on her new tack; nor so as to involve risk of collision with another craft which, owing to her position, cannot keep out of the way. Then there are various regulations as to anchoring, sounding, &c., &c., all with the object of carrying out the principle that vessels must be propelled by sails only.
Prior to 1907. considerable diversity existed between the sailing regulations in force in the various countries of Europe that foster yacht racing, but as a fitting sequel to the introduction of international measurement rules, a conference of delegates from the different national yachting authorities took place in Paris in October of that year with a view to the unification of the rules.
As the result of this conference, a uniform code of sailing regulations was drawn up and adopted by all the countries affiliated to the International Yacht Racing Union. Although it is, of course, impossible to draft a code of rules to cover every contingency that may arise in match sailing, the regulations now in force are the most satisfactory yet devised, and so long as yachtsmen conform to the spirit of the rules, there is little opening for dispute.
In former days yachts were started from anchors, but about thirty-five years ago the Royal London Yacht Club substituted flying starts. This system has been universally adopted, and vessels are now always started under way.
Good judgment and knowledge of weather are most valuable qualities in a racing skipper, for shortening or making sail is practically out of the question during an ordinary race. It is possible to set a topsail or take in a topsail, or to substitute one topsail for another, and, of course, it is a simple matter if all competitors act in the same way, but usually the gain accruing from shifting sail is not commensurate with the detriment owing to the loss of time incurred through doing so. Staysails, jib topsails, spinakers, can, of course, be set, taken in, or shifted at will with no more harm than is caused by the men running about-a matter, however, which should not be overlooked, for shaking a vessel interferes, especially in light weather, very seriously with her speed; but reefing is generally out of the question during a race; and as a rule it may be said that whatever canvas you start under must be carried or dragged along somehow to the finish. It is very necessary, therefore, that the canvas set should be adapted, not only to the strength of the wind at the time the race is started, but also in view of what the weather, wind, and sea are likely to be during the match.
The start is effected across an imaginary line.
The usual custom is to moor a small boat bearing a big flag at a distance of some hundreds of yards from the shore, or from the Committee boat. The starting line consists of the projection of a line formed by the alignment of two objects on shore, such as two posts, or a post and a church steeple, or factory chimney; and the competing vessels must cross it between the shore and flag boat, or between the Committee boat and flag boat as the case may be. At five minutes before the time appointed for the start, a gun is fired and the Blue Peter hoisted, and the yachts are then in the starter's hands and subject to all the rules of the Yacht Racing Association. At the exact moment of the start a second gun is fired, the Blue Peter is hauled down and the race begins.
During the interval of five minutes elapsing between the two guns, the object of all helmsmen is to manœuvre so as to get into the best possible position-which position is determined by the direction of the wind and tide, and to cross the line, if possible, exactly at gun fire. If a yacht crosses too soon by the fraction of a second, she must go back and recross the line, her number on the card being displayed from shore or from the Committee vessel, and some suitable sound signal given to attract her attention. To re-cross the line is a manœuvre which in nine cases out of ten reduces the chance of winning to the lowest possible ebb. It is well to get under way and jill the ship about some time before the first gun fire, so that all things may be in their proper places and all panic and confusion avoided at the last moment. The ship should be placed in a good position for seeing the gun; someone is told off to watch for the puff of smoke with his finger on a stop watch; he will catch the flash of the gun on the instant, start the stop watch and call out the time to the helmsman as it elapses-"One minute gone," "two minutes gone," "half time," "two minutes to go, "a minute and a half to go," one minute to go." "forty seconds," "thirty seconds," and so on. This is not quite so easy as it sounds, for the man taking the time must be ready to answer instantaneously, and above all things correctly, the helmsman's agonised inquiry, "How much to go?" and all the time the men are tumbling about over each other. booms are flying about his head, sails are shaking and slatting, collisions appear, to sav the least of it, probable, and a good deal of shouting and confusion prevails. "No panic," should be the skipper's motto. All his business. good easy man, is to know instantaneously what he ought to do, and decide instantaneously what he is going to do in reference to his own and ev every other vessel in the race; to work his boat into a weather berth somehow or other; and so to estimate his speed and so to manœuvre his vessel as to bring her bowsprit end within a few yards or feet of the line when the second gun fires. Try to imagine, say, eight 15-metre cutters manœuvring in a confined space not infrequently obstructed by وو shipping, each vessel struggling to get into a weather berth and to be on the line to the moment, the whole eight striving to occupy a position just big enough for one, twisting and turning about, shaving each other by hair-breadths; and some idea of the difficulty of a start may be formed.
A racing skipper should have eyes all over his head, his brain must work like lightning, and his action must be equally swift. He must meet every emergency as it occurs, automatically obeying the racing rules without thought, and he must be a marvellous judge of pace. When it is remembered that, in class racing and when vessels are pretty evenly matched, a good start means winning and a bad start means losing the race, it is not surprising that first-rate racing skippers are few in number, or that their hair turns grey early in life.
Some men make very elaborate plans for starting. It is a good thing, no doubt, for the helmsman to set definitely in his mind what he wants to do and intends to do if he can, but as probably everybody else desires to do precisely the same thing, plans require frequent modification. A good rule is to come down to the line with plenty of way on. The advantages derived from the commanding position of a weather berth are enormous and obvious, but if to get into and keep that position you have to waggle your ship about, or shoot her up into the wind to deaden her speed, and eventually cross the line with but little way on, a rival coming down fast may shoot by you to leeward, and even pretty close to leeward, and take your pride of place before your ship gets on her legs. Of course no two starts are alike.
Some may be in a flat calm, when you drift over the line stern first, others in light airs with vessels jostling each other and no harm done; others in plenty of wind, when a mistake may mean collision, big breakages, and perhaps dangers to life and limb. One day a start will be down wind, on another the wind may be blowing right up, or it may be a reaching wind. Infinite variety is the law and constitutes one of the many charms of racing upon the sea.
Courses vary in every locality according to the necessities of the case. They are marked out by light-ships or buoys, or, if such natural marks are not available, by flag boats moored. Usually the race is twice round the course, and the distance to be sailed ranges from IO miles for 6-metre boats to 50 miles for 23-metre cutters and A class schooners. Occasionally races are three times round a short course, as for instance at Torquay, and Channel races are from point to point, as in the races from the Nore to Dover, or Southend to Harwich.
The interest attaching to a race is so obvious to the initiated, so incomprehensible to those ignorant of the sport, that any attempt at description is but labour lost. It seems but a dull affair to those who do not understand the game. game. Half a dozen yachts start to sail over a certain distance, one of them is faster than the others and must therefore win, such is a very general conception of a yacht race; but it is far from true, for skill in handling a racing yacht on the sea is a more important factor in determining victory than skill in riding a racehorse on the turf; and the element of chance plays a most important part, especially in light summer weather. The movements of the clouds, the surface of the water, all the signs of the weather are carefully scanned, and every little catspaw taken advantage of, but in spite of the utmost watchfulness flukes are of common occurrence, the last is often first and the first last, and until the gun is fired no race is safe. Moreover, an inferior vessel by getting a good start, or otherwise obtaining a commanding position may, and very frequently does, beat a superior boat under perfectly fair and equal conditions of weather. On a reach or turning to windward, it is obviously difficult for a vessel behind or to leeward to get by an opponent, even though she is the faster of the two. She cannot pass to windward, for to do so she must get into the leading vessel's wash, and that will stop her, and the leading boat may luff as she pleases in order not to be passed, and does luff, and will luff till both vessels are head to wind. These luffing matches between two noted rivals not infrequently result in putting them both behind slower boats.
To pass to leeward, an overtaking vessel must keep a long way to leeward, otherwise, even if sailing two feet to the other's one, she will stop as soon as she gets under the lee of her opponent's sails, and it must be borne in mind that the canvas of a yacht of any size affects the wind for a long distance. While the leading slower boat is sailing along the chord of an arc straight for the mark, the faster overtaking vessel has to describe the arc, and may not get to the mark in time to cut her adversary out. In turning to windward a boat once in a weather berth must be very badly handled or very inferior to allow herself to be passed. Your opponent may work up to you, but he cannot get through your lee, and once you are planted on his weather bow it is very difficult for him to get to windward of you. In cross tacking you will stay upon his weather bow as he passes, and though he tacks at once you will give him a terrible shake up. Of course every dodge will be tried. In approaching you, and not being quite able to pass ahead of you, he will keep a good full and pass just under your stern, and still keeping a good full may scramble out clear, and certainly will do so if you are a moment too late in staying. A series of short tacks in rapid succession may be tried, and if your opponent's boat is quicker in stays, or carries her way better than yours, she will reduce you to a standstill and so wriggle out clear. She may try a false tack, pretend to stay, but put her helm up and fill again on the original tack, and if you are not watching her closely and do not follow her quickly enough, she will scrape clear of the lee of your sails, feel the true wind, and it is all up with you. A hundred dodges may be resorted to, but for all that it is extremely difficult for one boat to get by another boat to windward unless she is very much the faster and more weatherly vessel of the two. Running dead before the wind is the most disastrous situation for a leading yacht; she can do nothing to impede the vessel behind her, but the latter can do something to stop her. By sailing dead in the wake of the leader, the sails of the pursuing vessel intercept some of the wind, and the vessel herself will be drawn ahead by the moving water in the wake.
Running with spinakers set is the most trying point of sailing. Two vessels may sail for miles and miles abreast of each other-the spinaker boom of the one almost touching the main boom of the other, and sometimes one will draw ahead a few yards owing to some little extra flaw of wind, and will then fall back again, and the other will temporarily draw ahead, and the helmsman can do nothing except try to hold his ship straight with no object to guide him, crouched in a constrained attitude, craning his neck to try and see under the spinaker, often with a blazing sun on the back of his neck, and, if running by the lee, in abject terror of a sudden jibe. With the breeze falling toward evening, as is often the case in fine weather. the leading boat on a run home is at a great disadvantage. She may sail into a calm and see the rest of the fleet coming up with a nice little breeze, and passing her; and, paradoxical as it may sound, the same untoward event may overtake her when, towards the close of a calm day, a breeze springs up. The hindmost yachts will feel it first, and by the time it reaches the despairing leader, the whole fleet may have sailed by. The tide also, in places where it runs strong, as in the Solent, wins and loses many races. You may be leading by half a mile in a very light breeze, and, on rounding a mark, be brought almost to a standstill by meeting a foul tide, and before you have proceeded half a dozen yards the others are on top of you, and practically the race begins all over again. On the other hand, you may have a very slight lead of a vessel overhauling you, but by scraping round a mark a few fathoms ahead, you may get into a fair tide and be a mile away before your adversary rounds.
Great is the uncertainty of racing, an uncertainty that adds infinite variety and charm to the sport; and though in the long run superiority will tell, and the best boat will show the longest string of flags at the season's close, if you have a decent boat you need never despair, and may make a gallant show also when you sail home to lay up.
It is scarcely necessary to say that a smart crew is essential to success. The men must be young and active, intelligent, courageous, and possessed of endurance and of the peculiar quality that enables a man to skip about on a tumbling, slippery surface, sloping like the roof of a house, without falling off. Quickness is necessary, for your chance of cutting out an opponent at a mark, or holding or passing him at any time during a race, depends upon the rapidity with which every operation is carried out. To get a spinaker set or to shift stay-sails a few seconds quicker than anybody else may give you the race. Courage is necessary, especially to work aloft when a vessel is hard driven in a nasty sea; and endurance, for a race perhaps twelve days in a fortnight, and be wet to the skin most of the time, takes a good deal out of a man.
Some races are doubtless uninteresting. But little fun is to be found in drifting round a course on very calm days. On such occasions vessels get strung out, flukes are the rule, and some lucky air of wind will probably lift some fortunate boat into a position which makes her victory certain; but such days are infrequent in our climate. The vast majority of races are sailed with plenty of wind, and sometimes a good bit to spare; and the interest and excitement of a race under such circumstances are intense. The attention can never flag; every moment is full of possibilities, and brain and nerve are kept on a constant strain. To give an adequate conception of the excitement of a closely contested race is impossible, but the closeness may be gathered from the fact that in class racing over courses of 20 miles, victory or defeat frequently hangs upon a question of a few feet.
When vessels of different rating race in common, time allowance is used to bring them together.
For the convenience of yachtsmen the Yacht Racing Association has arranged the time allowance between yachts of various sizes in a time table or scale, on reference to which the allowance that one yacht has to concede to another may be easily reckoned.
At the same time it must be observed that no time allowance will bring a very big vessel back to the level of a very little one. In light winds, lofty canvas feels an air that would not touch the lower sails of a small vessel, and in strong winds power will prevail. Where the difference of rating is great, the big ship is, bar accident, bound to win: on the other hand, where the difference of rating is but small, the advantage-if any-rests VOL. IV with the smaller vessel of the two. To be given a few seconds of time is a good thing. It may frequently mean having just enough in hand to enable you to win without passing your antagonist, and in many cases you may be able to get close to her, and to keep there, though to pass her would, for reasons already explained, be impossible.
Where vessels of various rating sail together, they all start at the same moment, and the time allowance is given at the end of the race. It is an anxious moment for the owner of the first one in, watching, stop-watch in hand, to see if he has succeeded in giving the time, and for the owner of the second vessel to see if she has succeeded in saving her time. How slowly the time goes in the first case, how rapidly in the other!
Of late years handicap races have come much into fashion. It is a reversion towards racing in its origin, when cruisers were occasionally matched against each other. It is difficult to handicap yachts even with the moderate success that attends handicapping in horse-racing-which is not saying very much for the simple reason that many most important conditions are unknown to the handicapper in the former, and are, or ought to be, known to him in the latter case.
Yacht A. may be ten minutes better than yacht B. in light winds, and ten minutes worse in strong winds; and who shall foretell the weather? The element of uncertainty, therefore, attains to large proportions in handicaps, and for that and various other reasons the interest attaching to them can never equal that involved in legitimate racing.
In that case, every ounce you can get out of your vessel by the expenditure of money and the sweat of your brain tells in your favour; while in handicaps the inducement to furnish your ship with new canvas and gear, and to string her up to the last point of perfection, is but small. Still, handicaps afford a great deal of amusement to men who cannot afford, or do not care to own, vessels intended for racing, and practically for nothing else. It opens up a field of utility for old racing vessels and vessels which have not come up to expectations; and for these reasons it should not be altogether discouraged.
Before leaving yacht racing, some description of the various types evolved and of notable examples of those types is necessary to complete the subject.
As may be gathered from the foregoing pages, the modern racing yacht, and the sport of yacht racing, may be said to have originated within the Victorian Era, for, prior to 1837, square canvas was largely used, and, in the fore and aft rig, designers did not get far beyond the form of the old revenue cutter in their efforts to attain the beau ideal of a speedy craft; moreover, class racing was unknown. The fast boats used for smuggling purposes in those days were usually cutter rigged, and in the latter half of the last century the Government began to build vessels of similar type, known as revenue cutters, to suppress the "free-traders." a Mr. C. White. of Broadstairs, constructed some of the fastest of these vessels. He does not seem to have been particular for whom he built, for a smuggler and a revenue cutter were often laid down side by side in his yard, and the legend goes that if the former promised to turn out the flier of the pair she was at once bought by the Government m at a premium. This Mr. C. White had a son who settled at Cowes early in the last century, and who was the father of Mr. Joseph White, afterwards famed as the builder of the cutter "Louisa" and the brigs "Daring" and "Waterwitch" in the years 1830 and 1832. The racing constantly taking place between smugglers and revenue cutters, and the desire on either side to attain to the highest possible rate of speed, caused great interest to be taken in the lines of the vessels, and certainly did much to stimulate yacht racing. The revenue cutters of 1780 to 1800 were large craft, many being over 200 tons; but later on, from 1815 to 1825, smaller vessels of 80 to 120 or 150 tons, of the type that is familiar to us in many of Clarkson Stanfield's pictures, and more especially in his illustrations of Captain Marryat's works, became the fashion.
Charnock's History of Marine Architecture says that in 1802 there were fifty-eight cutters in the service. Amongst the largest of these were :- Length. Breadth. Depth. Tons. How acquired.
Bought in 1778 دو وو Bought at Folke- وو stone وو.
Built in 1779 وو Kite 77.5 27 I 10.5 218 Flying Fish 75 25.9 10'5 190 Busy......... 75 25.9 10.5 190 Pigmy ...... 80°3 26°1 13°2 201 Alert......... 78.9 25°2 11.5 205 Mutine...... 79.9 26°1 IOI 215 {Taken from the Pilote 78.5 261 10'2 218 Ranger...... 80°30 26°1 201 Bought Seaflower... 72.5 26 107 203 Lapwing ... 47.8 21'I 81 82 وو دو Bought of C.
White, of Broadstairs, 1764 The superiority of the fore and aft rig in weatherly qualities, handiness and speed, being demonstrated by these service cutters as well as by the smugglers and privateers, it became fashionable also in the pleasure fleet; and though topsail schooners and brigs occasionally competed in matches, the cutter, or fore and aft schooner, became the favourite rig for racing. one Trials of speed between the yachts of that period could not, however, have been very satisfactory.
Vessels of different tonnage were raced against the other, and as no time allowance of any kind was granted the biggest craft generally came in first, especially in anything of a breeze.
The Royal Yacht Squadron, which had been established in the year 1815, did much to improve the pastime in British waters, though at first its efforts were attended with only moderate success.
For some years the club languished, and according to the Nautical Magazine for the year 1836, it was reported to be about to close its doors. Both the Commodore and Vice-Commodore had sold their yachts, the Duke of Norfolk had offered his yacht "Arundel" for sale, and the secretary had given notice to Mr. Goodwin, the proprietor of the Club House, that the club intended to vacate the premises as soon as the lease was out. However, a decade later the sport had become far more popular and the Royal Yacht Squadron had revived. In the year 1844, its list contained no less than 100 yachts, whilst some dozen Royal Yacht Clubs had been established round the coast, comprising a fleet of about 400 yachts in all. All the biggest vessels were owned by members of the