established club; Rochester has one, and Toledo and Kingston have two each, while the great clubs of Chicago and Buffalo are as well known in the yachting world as are many of the most popular clubs of New York and Boston. And besides, many yachts are to be found on the waters of Green Bay, the Georgian Bay of Canada, and some of the smaller bays and river-mouths along the coast of the lakes. On the American side of the Great Lakes every kind of craft may be found, many of them built from designs by eminent yachtarchitects. The sailor of the Great Lakes has little chance for his life in a storm if his boat be poor, since harbors of shelter are few and far apart, the winds violent, and the waters rough. The Canadian yachters of the Great Lakes use powerful boats, cruise far, and face bad weather bravely. Their favorite yacht is that of their home country, the cutter, although one will find other types in their fleets. They have two clubs at Kingston, three at Toronto, and one at Hamilton. At Montreal and Quebec there are clubs whose boats cruise the St. Lawrence. There are also two sea-coast Canadian clubs, one at Chatham, New Brunswick, and the other at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The members of these latter clubs use only stanch seaboats, for the coast off which they cruise is a perilous one for all vessels. The yachters of the Canadian sea-coast are no fair-weather sailors, but boating men of the ablest sort. Formerly the South took little interest in yachting. In recent years, however, this sport has taken a strong hold upon the people of that region, and to-day the coast waters from the Carolina line to Galveston, Texas, are well supplied with sailing pleasure-boats. Most of the Southern yachts are of light draft, for the waters of the South are shallow; and the number of flat-bottomed and very shoal roundmodeled yachts far exceeds all other types. On the inlets of Florida and along the Gulf of Mexico the craft of the pleasure-seeker may be seen all the year round, for there is no beginning or end to the Southern yachting season. Though yacht-clubs are not numerous in the South, North Carolina has two, South Carolina one, Maryland two, Louisiana one, Alabama one, Georgia one, and Florida maintains three. There is also a club in prospective at Galveston, Texas. Some of these Southern clubs are strong in membership; the New Orleans club, whose yachts sail upon Lake Pontchartrain, is notable for the number and standing of its members. The yachts chiefly used in Southern waters are, as has been stated, light-draft vessels of the generally accepted types which have been developed in the North. Sloops and cat-rigged boats are in the majority; but schooner-rigged sharpies are popular with those who like yachts of good size, and the builders of vessels of this type find a ready market for their boats in the South. The only type of yacht which is of Southern origin is the buckeye, or, as it is sometimes called, " bugeye," a vessel which tradition says was first conceived by the dugout builders of the Dismal Swamp, and which will be described more fully later on. Some Americans belong to the Havana Yacht Club, an organization of several years' standing, whose members cruise among the West Indies, a most seductive sailing ground. Among the yachts of this club are many boats which were built in New York, Philadelphia, and New England, and have made the voyage to Cuba, never to return; for well-built yachts, it is said, find a ready sale at Havana and in other parts of the West Indies. At Bermuda there is no THE BUCKEYE. THE SHARPIE. club, but yachtsmen are numerous. Schooners and cutter-rigged craft prevail, the keel type of boat being the favorite. Small, light-draft boats are also in use there for pleasure-sailing. Many of them are built in New York and shipped by steamer to Bermuda and the West Indies. Among these is a style of narrow, crank boat, generally open, square-sterned, and modeled much after the pattern of what is known as a "cargo-boat," and equipped with a centerboard and a pole-masted rig. These boats are popular as "flyers," but can be kept right side up only by alertness and skill in the handling. They carry no ballast, the crew sitting "hard to windward" to keep them "on end." For dare-devil sailing such boats, like the narrow canoe, are just the thing, but they scarcely deserve the dignity of being called yachts. On the Pacific coast, throughout the whole range of the sea-board, from the tropical waters of Lower California to Puget Sound, wherever there is a bay that will afford harbor, and a town that will support people, the yacht is used as a vehicle of pleasure. The number of organized clubs on the Pacific coast is small, but the clubs which have been formed there are all strong in membership and active in yachting. San Francisco, of course, takes the lead with two very good clubs and a fleet of yachts that would not shame any seaport town of the East. Many of the San Francisco boats are large schooners, a number are powerful seagoing sloops, while of smaller craft there is an abundance of almost every type, although the New York catboat and the flat-bottomed sharpie of Long Island Sound are seldom met with, and seem not to be in favor. The keel cutter has its representatives in the harbor of the Golden Gate, and the yawl-rigged boat is very popular, perhaps the favorite above all other VOL. XLIV.-3. types. Pacific yachters appreciate the good points of the yawl, for the squalls which blow over the waters of the west coast are sudden and severe, and no rig meets these conditions of weather so well as does the yawl. There is also a flourishing organization at Tiburon. At Tacoma, in Washington, there is a club whose yachts fly their pennants upon the waters of Puget Sound, and cruise as far north as the British dominions. No other organized clubs exist on the Pacific coast; but private yachts are kept in many places, notably at Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Oakland, in California, and it is predicted that the near future will witness the formation of a Pacific coast yachting fraternity similar in principle. and purpose to the New York Yacht Racing Association of the East. The day is not far off when these and associations of the clubs of the Great Lakes and those of the South will concentrate the American yachters in four grand divisions. Then may be formed the American association of all yachters which some optimistic yachting men desire. From the organization in 1844 of the first band of pleasure-sailers, the New York YachtClub,-whose anchorage at Hoboken, New Jersey, was the scene of the first club regatta ever held in America, the progress of the Eastern yachter has been steady; until to-day the yachting investment of the Atlantic coast is beyond a doubt the most important aquatic interest in the world. It is in the East that the problems of yachting have been propounded and solved. The distribution of yacht-clubs over the Eastern waters is uniform, and every DRAWN BY W. TABER, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY WALTER BLACKBURN. ENGRAVED BY A. NEGRI, are great rivers upon which the lover of natural scenery may sail his boat; deep waters for the cutter-lover, and shoal inlets and sounds for the advocate of the sharpie; Long Island Sound gives the short cruiser a field for his water rambles such as can be found nowhere else on the globe, and for him who would cruise over pleasant waters between green mountains there is the beautiful Hudson; while "old ocean's gray and melancholy waste" lies outside, inviting the bolder yachtsman to wander far from land. No such field exists anywhere else as that granted the sailer of the Eastern coast, and he is availing himself of his advantages to the utmost. The yachts of the Eastern clubs may be classified in five general groups: Those which make their home ports between Cape Cod and the coast of Maine are enrolled in thirty-two clubs; those of the Sound and the south shore of Long Island comprise thirty organizations; those of New York harbor and northern New Jersey waters are entered in twenty-one different clubs; the Hudson River has eleven wellestablished yachting homes; and Delaware Bay has four. To these should be added private yachts innumerable, and the sail-boats of many rowing and canoeing clubs, the total composing a fleet of pleasure-craft greater than that of any other part of the world. 66 Concerning the craft used by the yachters of the East it will be needless to speak, excepting in a general way. In the mass of vessels which make up the total of their squadron of yachts may be found every kind of boat, from the great steamer, which is really an ocean greyhound" in appearance and speed, to the modest little skipjack. There are cutter and sloop, schooner and yawl, sharpie and sandbagger, each filling its place, and all getting on very well together. The center-board boats of course outnumber the keel boats, and the sloops outnumber the cutters; but there is no especial type of yacht which can be said to be the distinguishing Eastern style. Everything is in use, and it is safe to assert that everything new will be tried and, if found good, adopted by these masters of the art of sailing. The earliest form of yacht was, of course, a rowboat with a sail. This in time gave way to the wider-beamed boat with greater sail-carrying ability and a center-board. With the adoption of the center-board the era of American yachting really began. The steady improvement of center-board models, and the importation from England of the cutter type of narrow, deep-keeled boats, furnished yacht-builders and -designers with material for thought and experiment during many years; and their endeavors to improve are not less earnest to-day than they have been in the past. From the primitive spritsail pleasure-boat comes the ever-present and universally favored center-board catboat, a type of yacht which for speed, handiness, and unsafeness has never been surpassed. Keel catboats are also built, but the typical American "cat" is the center-board boat of light draft, big beam, and huge sail. The two objectionable points about boats of this class are their capsizability, and their bad habit of yawing when sailing before the wind. Yet the cat is the handiest lightweather boat made. It is very fast, quick in stays, and simple in rig; but it can never become a first-class seaworthy type of yacht. It belongs among the fair-weather pleasure-boats, and is BODY-PLAN OF A SKIPJACK. not a good cruiser. Its popularity in the waters of New York harbor and the Sound is often a cause of perplexity to old yachters, who have learned by much experience that it is not by any means the best boat that can be used for pleasuring. But its simplicity of design and rig, and its handsome appearance, seem to insure it perpetual good will and a long life among the favorite boats of the time. Cat-rigged boats with heavy keels are undoubtedly safe and serviceable cruisers, since they are not easily overturned and can face rough weather. They are popular in the waters about Boston harbor and Newport, but synonymous terms with a great many yachters, and no one can deny that these boats, like Brother Jasper's sun, " do move." While describing the sandbaggers it may be well to call attention to a type of yacht hull which has been in use for many years, and which is in every practical respect identical with the ordinary light-draft hull. The difference between this type of hull and others is wholly one of cost and appearance. From a sailing point of view this boat, called a "skipjack," or "smoothing-iron," is merely a hard-bilged light-draft boat; that is to say, its peculiar shape has no perceptible effect upon its use as TYPES OF AMERICAN SLOOP-YAWLS. are not favored by yachters of New York and vicinity; in the shoal waters of the South they are never seen, for the patent reason that light draft only will serve for use in Southern yachting grounds. From the center-board catboat grew the jiband-mainsail sloop, a type of yacht which has always been noted for its great speed and general unhandiness. Small yachts of this kind are always racers, and the interest in racing is sufficient to keep them in the lists of popular boats. In design they are like the catboats, the only difference being in their rig. These two boats, the center-board cat and the jib-and-mainsail sloop, are what yachters call "sandbaggers"; that is to say, their ballast consists of bags of sand which are shifted to windward with every tack and thus serve to keep the yachts right side up. A boat ballasted in this manner can carry more sail than rightly belongs on her sticks, but she cannot be very safe or comfortable. Her place is in the regatta. It is not beyond the truth to assert that the sandbaggers constitute probably two fifths of the total of small yachts. They will never cease to be popular, for the reason that speed and sport are a vessel. The skipjack is always an odd-looking boat, is never handsome in appearance, and cannot be made to appear pleasing to the nautical eye; but its sailing qualities are excellent. Many men who desire a small yacht adopt the skipjack, and from such a boat get much fun with small outlay of money. A strong, wellbuilt, and correctly molded skipjack is just as good a boat from a sailor's point of view as a sharp-bilged, round-finished vessel of the same general shape. Passing the sandbaggers, the next popular and most universally used yacht is the ballasted sloop. A sloop may be a center-board boat, or a keel boat, or a combination of both. She has only one mast, and carries a topmast. Her sails are many, and, like the cutter, she is permitted to carry clouds of canvas in a race. Technically speaking, a cutter differs from a sloop only in one point, as the terms "sloop" and "cutter" really apply to the rig of the yacht. The cutter has a sail set from her stem to her masthead; the sloop has not. This is the technical point of difference. This sail is called a forestaysail, and its presence marks the cutter rig. The term "cutter," however, is usually applied to the 44 A CUTTER RAP-FULL" IN A GOOD BREEZE. long, narrow, deep-keeled vessel, and has in common parlance grown to mean a boat of that type. It is in that sense that it is generally understood. It is worthy of notice that nearly all yachters who cruise about in summer, and especially those who are fond of speedy boats, use either sloops or cutters; and it is remarkable to see how much comfort can be found in boats of these types, even when quite small. A little cutter or sloop not twenty-five feet long will be provided with berths for four men, dinner-table, lockers, cook-stove, and many other general comforts; and a yacht thirty-five feet long will sleep six people without overcrowding, and have one state-room. The deep-keeled boat is of course the more comfortable yacht, because she has head-room enough to enable one to stand erect in her cabin. Any one who has done much yachting knows how uncomfortable a shallow boat becomes during a long cruise. The average yachting man, if he be of that stuff of which good seamen are made, soon finds his chief delight in being master of his own vessel. He likes to feel that it is his skill, his prowess, his intellect, that rule the ship in which he sails; and finding this complete mastery of the vessel to be impossible aboard a big boat, he longs for one which he can handle alone. This independent and sportsmanlike instinct of the American yachter has culmi nated in a liking for certain classes of very small boats," single-handers" they are called,and this liking has given impetus to the building of some little vessels which are really marvels in their way. Simplicity and handiness of rig have been considered in their construction, and this has led in many cases to the adoption of what is known as the yawl style, a rig which for safety and convenience has never been surpassed by any other. The yawl is really a schooner with very small mainsail. For small cruising-yachts it is an excellent rig, and preferable to the cat rig. Cat-yawls are also in use; they are merely yawls without jibs. With such rigs as these, a yachter can go alone upon the water without fear of trouble, and with no need of assistance. Naturally, with men of moderate means who love the water, these small singlehanders have become very popular. Some of them are not over sixteen feet long, yet the solitary skipper-crew-and-cook, all in one, of such a boat finds in his yacht comfortable sleepingquarters, cook-stove, dinner-table, and all necessary "fixings." The ingenuity displayed in fitting out the cabins of these little boats is quite remarkable. Of the many nondescript rigs which are applied to small yachts, two are in common use. One of these is the sharpie, a simple leg-o'-mutton rig used with flat-bottomed boats. Large sharpies have been built with fine cabin accommodations, and such boats are particularly adapted to the shoal waters of the South. They are fast sailers, but, owing to their long, narrow bodies and light draft, are not always trustworthy. They are cheaper to build than boats of other designs. Numerous modifications of the sharpie exist, but the genuine sharpie is always flat-bottomed and leg-o'-mutton rigged. The sharpies of the Sound are famous in their way, and some of the sailers of those waters have even gone to the extreme notion of assuming that they are preferable to any other type of vessel for yachting purposes. Such an assumption is of course absurd, for at best a sharpie is an imperfect vessel, owing to its flat bottom. As an old sailor once remarked, when asked his opinion about boat hulls, "A wessel wot's more out o' water than she 's in ain't no safe wessel for them as likes to keep dry." But the sharpie has its place among the yachts, despite the old sailor's opinion, and that place is clearly defined by Nature, who has made so many shallow sailing grounds upon which no other type of boat can go. The sharpie, like the gunboats of which President Lincoln once spoke, "can go wherever it is a little damp," and its ability to do this entitles it to much respect from the American yachter, who must, if he would sail at all, often frequent very shoal water. |