Part 2

The next day your crew strut proudly about the port like a lot of mariners just returned from circumnavigating the globe. They are proud of you, proud of their vessel, and very proud of themselves. But what a change it has worked in you! You are a very different man to-day from what you were the hour you took your departure to make that passage. To-day you have confidence in your skill and knowledge, and in yourself as a user of those powers.

I have written that little sketch to show you that knowing how to hand, reef and steer is not all that is needed to make a seaman. The knowledge of the methods of working sails and ship are only a part of the seaman's craft. His head as well as his hand must be trained. He must not only know his vessel thoroughly, but he must as thoroughly know himself.

_ON BOATS IN GENERAL_

_"Is it come?" they said, on the banks of the Nile, Who looked for the world's long-promised boat, And saw that the lines he had drawn on a tile Would make a good cruiser--if it would float, Thro' pyramids, temples, and mummies stuffed, We vainly search for this ideal plan; We fear the Burgess of Pharaoh's bluffed-- Yet there was hope when that day began._

ON BOATS IN GENERAL

Men frequently come to me, and ask, "What sort of a boat would you recommend me to have?" My reply always is, "What for?" In that small phrase is contained the kernel of selection--what for? Do you want to cruise, go day-sailing, or race? Do you want it to go alone, or with a crew? Do you want to sail in rough or smooth water?

A boat that is suitable for cruising is not the thing for racing or day-sailing; a boat that would fill the bill if used on land-locked waters would make a poor showing on an open sea or in rough stretches of tide-swept channel.

Let us first consider the racing craft. Racing, as I have often told you, is a business, not a pastime. If you want to win, and those who race usually do, you must subordinate everything to that want. If you don't, you will never be a successful mug hunter. A racing boat must be built as lightly as the law allows. This not only means that her frame and planking must be kept down to eights, but she must be looted of everything that the rules will permit you to remove. She must have large, well-made and consequently expensive sails. Her gear must be of the finest and strongest make, and it must be kept up to the top notch of perfection by constant supervision and repair.

Then you must give up all below comforts and consent to live on bare necessities. You must forego all other pleasures and concentrate all your faculties on one thing--your boat. If you are willing to do this, and have the racing skipper eye and hand, you may pull out all right on top.

If, instead of racing, you just want a boat to knock round in during the day, your craft is far more easily chosen and secured. You won't have to read up several volumes of restrictions and rules, you won't have to nose through half a dozen classes to find the one in which the easiest-to-beat crowd harbor, before making up your mind and giving out your order. You can just suit yourself as to how long, how wide and how deep your craft is to be.

A boat for day-sailing wants to be of strong and reasonable light construction. She needs much more cockpit than cabin, and if the latter is of the summer variety it will be far more comfortable and convenient. All boats should have some sort of a cuddy or cabin, especially if they are to be used to take out women and children.

A day-sailing boat, if to be used for taking out shore people, should be absolutely uncapsizable and, if possible, fitted with tanks of sufficient power to float the ballast. Her rig should be simple, and her canvas of moderate expanse. The less gear and gewgaws she has about her the better, as it means a saving of work at all times, and especially in getting underway and coming to anchor.

The two best rigs for this class of boat are the cat and knockabout. Both these rigs are quick and easy to handle, and having no bowsprit, they can be brought up to a landing anywhere where there is water enough to float them.

There is no better day-sailing boat in the world than the cat that is used along our Eastern seaboard to take out fishing and sailing parties. I don't mean the over-canvased brute that is frequently met--a vessel that takes all hands to steer, and a double watch to shorten down, but the properly sparred and balanced boat. I have handled many of these boats, and under our ordinary summer conditions have found them to do what was expected of them in a boatly manner. In skillful hands they are as near being absolutely safe as it is possible for any water-borne fabric to be. One of their chief advantages is that they can be got under sail or be relieved of it quicker than any other type. They have but one sheet and two halliards to look after, and all these can be tended by one hand without leaving the cockpit.

The knockabout has many of the cat's good qualities, and is in some respects a better rig, but the jib is apt to be a nuisance at times. The disadvantage of the knockabout is that, being a narrower model than the cat, you are cramped for room where it is most needed--aft. Owing to this latter rig being in fashion, the cat has fallen out of favor, but there is no better boat for the young sailor to begin his studies in. An open cat--that is, one half-decked, say of sixteen feet length--is just the thing for a boy to learn the sailor's trade in.

Now for the cruiser, and its name is legion. But out of the lot there are more bad than good ones to be picked. A cruiser, in the first place, is a house--a home for days, and perhaps weeks and months. Therefore, she must furnish sleeping and eating accommodations. This means room to stretch and stand, or at least sit upright. A cruiser in which a man cannot live in comfort is no cruiser.

Then first, in selecting a cruiser, the accommodation must be looked to; that is why when a man who knows anything starts to buy one he invariably puts the question, "What is her head room?" The answer generally tells the whole story. The next important query is, "What is her draught?" the third, "What is her rig?"

Unless you can sit up and lie down comfortably the boat is no cruiser; you can at once make up your mind to that. While no man expects to spend the greater part of his time below, the time he does spend below is that in which he seeks rest, and must get it; this is impossible in cramped quarters.

The importance of the draught depends largely upon where you want to sail and harbor. Your draft should never exceed the low-water depth of the channel you have to pass through in order to reach your anchorage. In our northern waters three feet is the minimum draught required; in southern waters less is almost necessary. In some localities three feet is the maximum draught. Short draught has the disadvantage of forcing the bulk of the boat above the water line, and the making of high houses, in order to get head room. This produces a boat that offers considerable resistance to the wind, and consequently makes excessive leeway. They are also unsteady at anchor, and hard on the ground tackle.

Deep draught cuts you out from many harbors and sheltering places, and in getting from port to port along shore frequently obliges you to take the longest way round, but it has the advantage of giving a firm hold on the water and of keeping the weights and windages down low. But, as in everything, there is a happy medium--a betwixt and between.

It may be stated that for all reasonable purposes on a cruising boat of 40 feet and under to be used on our coast, a draught of five feet is sufficient. All over that will prove a cause of worry and a hindrance to pleasant voyaging. With this draught you can pass into nearly all our bar harbors and navigate with safety among the shoals in our sounds and channels. I prefer to limit my draught to three feet, but then it is my peculiar pleasure to sail where other men seldom venture.

It is difficult to get a weatherly keel boat on four or even five feet draught. A boat to be good to windward must have a deep plane of resistance. This makes it almost impossible to dispense with the centerboard in small boats. But as soon as you admit this contrivance into your plans you partly spoil your accommodations. Many designers have tried to get round this by combining the two forms. Putting in a half board that houses in the keel and does not come above the floor. Such of these as I have seen have proved to be poor makeshifts, and the result is the spoiling of what would have been a good keel boat.

While fully aware of its disadvantages, I am a firm believer in the centerboard for small cruising boats. That it weakens a vessel there is no doubt, but with the modern method of building the trunk the injury to the fabric is very slight. The saying that "A centerboard boat always leaks" is more fact than fiction, but in several modern yachts that I have cruised in this is not so, the trunk having been constructed in such a way as to resist the strains which are the cause of leakage.

Now to return to the subject of accommodations. A cruising boat should be of such shape as will give the largest interior possible in a given length. In this the older type of yacht was far superior to the modern. In the boats of to-day a man pays for a great deal of hull that is of no use to him, except for looks and speed. The long overhangs provide plenty of deck room, but they add nothing to the cabin and but little to the storage space. In an up-to-date boat all that is habitable is the middle third. In such a craft, 30 feet over all, you can get but 10 feet for cabin. I have seen a 40-foot boat, which was advertised as a good cruiser, in which there was sleeping room for two. Compare this with the accommodations furnished by an old-fashioned plumb-ender, or with a Cape cat. One of these latter of 20 feet has more room than a modern 30-footer of the up-to-date model.

The extreme overhangs are all right in racing craft, but they are a detriment and a danger in cruising craft. The same may be said of the extreme full bow. There never was, and probably never will be, a set of ends better adapted for all-around work than those carried by the boats of twenty years ago, as shown in Minerva and yachts of her day. This is what is known as the half-clipper or schooner bow.

In boats of this type there is sufficient overhang to prevent their diving and to give them sufficient buoyancy to lift easily over a sea, at the same time the ends are not long enough to trip the vessel if running in large water. Again, the entrance and run are sharp enough to fall without pounding--a disagreeable habit that full modern boats are possessed of. The most serious objection to the modern boat with full and long overhangs is that it will not lay-to in heavy water bow-on. Just as soon as you put it to the wind and check its headway it will fall off in a trough and work around stern to the sea, a very dangerous proceeding. It is a splendid runner, and remarkably dry when so engaged; in fact, it seldom ships solid water when going either on or off the wind, and is less liable to pooping than the older types, but when brought to face a sea it pounds and sags and is exceedingly uncomfortable. To one who has never experienced the sensation it is impossible to picture the punishment these full-bowed vessels receive when driven against a head sea. This pounding brings a terrible strain on the spars and rigging and is very wearying to the crew. I have known a sea striking under the stern of one of these boats to throw the crew off their feet, badly injuring one man. The mate of a large English yacht who had crossed the Bay of Biscay in her on the way to Gibraltar told me that he had never in all his sea experience had such a terrible knocking about. Every man on board was a mass of bruises when the vessel made port, and the copper was torn off her bows back for eight or ten feet. Yet this boat's bow was nothing like so full as that of many of our yachts of to-day.

If you go to the other extreme, and cut all end off a boat, giving her a straight up and down stem, she is a bad runner and very, very wet. The cutters of this type were most uncomfortable sea boats, being constantly deluged, but they would eat out to windward in heavy weather and lie-to a sea like birds. Between these two there is the end which is the one for the cruiser to use.

The ideal end is one that will lift and lower slowly, allowing the vessel to fall and rise without jarring or jerking. This sort of end will, when falling, bring a vessel slowly to when the extreme point of the fall is reached. With the plumb stem a vessel is apt to go too far, deluging the decks, and in one with the full long bow, not far enough, jarring the whole fabric by suddenly checking the motion. It is of course impossible to have absolutely perfect ends on a vessel, as concessions have to be made to other purposes, but the ends of the majority of our modern yachts are decidedly bad for rough-water work.

Another serious defect in many cruising boats is want of freeboard. There is no excuse for this. A low-sided boat is wet and uncomfortable, both inside and out. You see many boats of this description with scant freeboard and excessively high houses. The only object to be gained by keeping the freeboard down is to reduce the windage and weight, important items in racing craft, but of little matter in a cruiser. Farther on, in speaking of handling in rough water, I shall explain the advantages of freeboard.

_ON ONE-MAN BOATS_

"_Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide sea!_"

COLERIDGE.

ON ONE-MAN BOATS

This is a subject upon which volumes of rot have been written by men who ought to have known better. We can forgive a man of no experience for writing absurdly upon a subject, but when those who have had experience in handling craft alone come out in print in advocacy of an utterly unsuitable type of vessel it is about time for somebody to call them down. It is the books of such men that have made common the idea that the single-hander's vessel must be a sort of enlarged toy boat; in consequence, whenever a single-hander is pictured, it is of that type.

The principal cause of this error is that the men who have taken charge of the task of disseminating information regarding the single-hander are of a class that, as a class, look upon small things as making big things and not as big things being made of small things. Consequently they give more importance to any part than they do to the whole. Then they are the servants of an idea; this once firmly fixed they distort all out-doors to fit it. All evidence to confirm is at once admitted, while just as quickly the door is shut in the face of whatever does not go to prove their first and final conception to be correct.

Almost every man I know of who has contributed to the literature of the single-hander has first sat by the fireside and designed a craft and then built and sailed it to prove that it is the only perfect thing.

Go over a fleet of this kind; what are they? Either big toy boats or small copies of large vessels. While they may perfectly fit the theory and be theoretically perfect, they are practically of no use, or else inferior in many ways to a boat of the same dimensions designed by experience. The earliest types of these boats were closely moulded upon the lines of fishing craft, being models built to withstand the rough usage of that trade, and suited to oar and sail alike. That a craft like this matured in a rough locality is the best for its purpose is frequently true, but that it is best for another purpose is as frequently false.

This is an error common to many who have advocated some local type of boat for universal use. Having employed it successfully in certain waters, they imperatively assert that it will suit all waters, and having found it to answer one purpose, they are equally certain that it will answer all. It is the old story of the blind men and the elephant--that of forming a compound conclusion from a single observation.

If a man cruise, and cruise without assistance, the first important thing is that his craft be one that he can handle without excessive muscular strain. Therefore she must not be heavy for her size, and her gear must be of such weight as will readily permit of his working it. The gear must be simple and of strength; the rig one that needs the least attention. This is exactly what the typical single-hander is not.

The typical single-hander is a coarse-lined, heavily built craft, with complicated gear and divided canvas. She is generally very full-bodied and badly overloaded with ballast. Her initial stability is great, and her helm action slow. This is the type of craft advocated by nearly all who have written on this subject. One of the prime virtues of this type in the eyes of single-hander writers, is, that such craft are good sea boats. A few years ago boats of this description were more common than they are to-day, but many are still afloat. The favorite rig is that of cutter or yawl.

These boats are safe--that is, they seldom capsize--and are good sea boats, if simple ability to float in rough water constitutes a good sea; but they are slow, awkward to handle, and utterly unable to make way in rough water and heavy winds.

Off the wind in all weather they move slowly and steer badly and in light breezes are logs. One of these boats that I handled would yaw four points either way when running off in a following sea, and when close-hauled in a blow would lie down and sag off bodily to leeward. It was utterly impossible to get her to windward except under conditions of a smooth sea and steady breeze, weather in which any vessel will do her best.

I remember once seeing a small cutter-rigged, single-hander trying for several hours to beat round Matinicock Point against a head sea and wind. This vessel, which was built after the plans of a celebrated single-hander's boat, was a failure on every point of sailing. Another time we passed a small cutter off Saybrook; she was jumping up and down and chopping waves at a great rate. Our consort, who had passed the same point two hours before, reported speaking the yacht in almost the same position, and no doubt she would be there yet if the wind and tide had not shifted and lifted her in.

The essential element of safety in all vessels is the power to move forward under all conditions of weather. This is especially so of a sailing craft. There must also be a perfect and rapid obedience to the helm. A slow-moving or sluggish craft is a dangerous one. The smaller the vessel the more true this is.

The other element of safety is the mobility of the rig. The ability to make, reduce and shift sail rapidly is essential to safety. This is only possible when the sails and spars are proportioned to the strength of those manipulating them, and the gear of the simplest and most direct description. The over subdividing of canvas is bound to complicate the gear; the keeping of the canvas in large sails to make the spars heavy and unwieldy.

The most perfect type of boat and rig for one man to handle is the cat--in theory; but in practice it fails in many ways. If the weather was a constant it would be the ideal rig. But winds are changeable things in all localities. So long as a cat can carry her whole sail comfortably she is the safest and most easily handled rig in existence; but once reef her and she forfeits much of her ability. Then again, in strong winds, she is a bad runner, and her sail being large and well outboard she is difficult to reef. For windward work under favorable conditions the cat is unrivaled, and as a one-man boat she is for some purposes without a peer. But I do not recommend the rig for single-handed cruising.

Let us next consider the sloop. This is, except for very small craft, an inferior rig for the purpose to the cat, it having all the latter's faults without any other advantages to compensate. In single-handers under 20 feet top measure the sloop rig will work very decently. But it is decidedly inferior to the knockabout, for the reason that in order to expand its canvas both the boom and bowsprit must be carried outboard. This latter rig, if kept down to reasonable proportions, is better than either cat, sloop or cutter for single-handers under 30 feet top measure. But all these three rigs have the one objectionable feature, that in order to reef the boat must either leave her course or be hove-to while the operation is performed, a serious disadvantage under rough conditions.

In a full-manned vessel, reefing, when the proper method is employed, is a simple affair, but reefing by one hand is always a long and troublesome job. If the vessel cannot be kept on her course and is brought to the wind the work is made much more difficult owing to the rolling and pitching. Not only is this the case, but it is very often dangerous to venture on a bowsprit at such a time or to hang out over the stern in order to secure the cringle-lashing. Any one who has reefed a jib when the boat is head to the wind and pitching into a steep sea will not deny this. Last summer in reefing down, owing to the weight of the wind, I was obliged to take the sail completely off my boat, as it was impossible to knot the points with the canvas straining; losing her way, she fell off into the trough of the sea, which was running very large, and rolled so heavily that she threw all hands off their feet. We could do nothing but hold on until at last we were obliged to run her off under the peak and reef her running. This manoeuvre cost us a good two miles of hard-won weather gauge.

The three best rigs for single-man handling are the ketch, yawl or sharpie, or double cat, as it is sometimes called. The advantages of the yawl and ketch rig I have explained in another chapter. The double cat is also fairly good, but its chief objection is that the stepping of the foremast in the eyes of the boat makes it close work forward and the lack of a bowsprit increases the work of handling the anchor.

As to the size of a single-hander. I have handled boats of 35 feet, top measure alone, but it was labor; the ground tackle for such a craft being a big lift for one man. The only advantage of a long boat is the increased speed and accommodation, but the latter is generally not wanted.

I would recommend for this purpose a boat of not over 30 feet--25 is better--and of either yawl or ketch rig. A moderate sail plan, light spars and strong rigging, the iron work especially being extra heavy. The hull, while strongly built, should be clean-lined, and, above all, stiff and weatherly. The last is the prime necessity. She must be capable of going to windward under any set of sail. At least half her ballast should be inside, firmly secured. She should steer with a wheel.

We can summon all this up in one sentence, that will concisely describe the ideal single-hander: A fast hull and a small rig.

_ON SEAGOING BOATS_

"_The sea and the wind are not our enemies. They seldom destroy our vessels without our connivance. It is our own folly, neglect or carelessness, that opens the way for the attack._"

ON SEAGOING BOATS