Yachting Volume I Part 20

I give here dimensions, drawings, and diagrams of two typical yachts'

sailing boats, well suited for knocking about in all sorts of weather, one belonging to the writer, the other to Colonel Gamble of the 'Aline.' The former, the 'Black Pearl's' cutter, is a 25-ft. lifeboat, with copper air-tanks, built by Messrs. Fay & Co., from a design of T.

Soper's, with a centreboard, and sloop-rigged. She has a high side, and a good deal of shear, while her forefoot is somewhat cut away. She is fairly fast, and weatherly, fairly stiff, and a beautiful sea-boat.

She carries usually 11 cwt. of ballast, occasionally as much as 14 cwt.

[Ill.u.s.tration: s.s. 'Aline's' lifeboat (Colonel Gamble, C.B.)]

Colonel Gamble's boat is a 22-ft. lifeboat, with wooden air-tight compartments, of the Lamb & White pattern, built by Hansen & Sons. She has no centreboard, but a 9-in. wooden false keel, deepest in the middle, and tapering to nothing at the ends, is screwed on to her keel. She carries a standing lug mainsail, and a foresail. The peak of her lugsail is cut very high, and her mast, yard, and boom are very light and workmanlike. Her side and ends are less high out of the water, and she is in every way a smaller boat than the 'Black Pearl's'

cutter, and probably less of a boat in a sea-way: but she can sail round the latter in a light wind, and in a strong one is very nearly as fast, and stands up like a stake. The reader will please to notice the flatness of her floor in the drawing of her mids.h.i.+p section on p.

207. She has been, I believe, very successful in races against boats of her cla.s.s, showing that speed and stability are not quite so incompatible as they are sometimes supposed to be. She carries usually about 9 cwt. of ballast in shot-bags, and when full of water will float 4 in. clear of the sea, with that ballast and four men on board.

'BLACK PEARL'S' CUTTER | 'ALINE'S' CUTTER ft. in. | ft. in.

Length 25 0 | Length 22 0 Beam 7 1 | Beam 6 3 Depth amids.h.i.+ps from | Depth inside 2 7 gunwale to outside | Depth of keel from outside garboard 3 2-3/4 | garboard 3-1/2 Depth of keel from outside | Depth of additional false of garboard 5-1/4 | keel 9 Draught of water with | Draught of water with 11 cwt. of ballast and | 9 cwt. of ballast and crew 2 0-1/2 | crew 1 10 Draught with centreboard | Ditto with false keel down 5 0 | added 2 7 | | _Sail plan_ | | Length of mast from | step to hounds 16 0 | _Sail plan_ Ditto from step to | masthead 19 7 | Length of mast 14 0 Length of main-boom 20 4 | Length of main-boom 16 9 Length of gaff 11 3 | Length of yard 19 0

It does not come within the scope of this chapter to give a full and elementary manual of the art of boat-sailing. Descriptions of the thousand and one things belonging to a yacht and the sailing of her, a glossary of nautical terms and their meaning, and a full account of the art of sailing are given in another portion of this work. The leading principles of boat-sailing are the same as those for sailing a larger vessel. The gear of a boat, as far as it goes, is identical, and the knots, bends, and hitches that are most used are common to both. I need not, therefore, describe them, nor waste s.p.a.ce by repet.i.tion in giving such elementary directions as that a boat should be luffed in a squall, or in explaining what is meant by 'gybing' a boat or 'putting her about.' But there are some things in the art of sailing that have a special application to open boats, so perhaps I may be allowed, even at the cost of an occasional repet.i.tion of what has been said elsewhere, to give a few hints and directions, based upon practical experience, as to the handling of a boat, together with some of the simple rules that experience has taught me are the most important to remember, even though some of these may seem to be of a very elementary character.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Earl of Pembroke's 'Black Pearl's' cutter.]

The yachtsman who is inexperienced, or much out of practice in the management of a boat, had far better take a sailor or a couple of sailors with him. By observing what they do he will learn or remember how to do things properly, and the tiro will pick up in a day or two, from watching an expert, many things that he would take long to learn for himself. Indeed, I think that in dangerous weather it is always as well to have a seaman on board. He will be unnecessary, probably, if nothing happens--that is to say, if nothing carries away or gets jammed; but it is just on such days that things do happen, and it is in such emergencies that the difference between a sailor and an ordinary amateur becomes widest. A good sailor has some resource for almost everything that can happen, and if one thing will not do he tries something else. Even if the amateur is as quick to know what should be done, he is usually far slower and more clumsy in the doing of it. Suppose, to take a very simple instance, the peak halliards carry away. How many amateurs are there who could make a long splice and re-reeve them with reasonable expedition? In a tumble of a sea, with a lee sh.o.r.e imminent, the mere reeving of them, if no splice is required, will very likely bother him considerably.

Still no one will ever be a pa.s.sable boat-sailer, or will ever enjoy boat-sailing as it can be enjoyed, until he learns to dispense with professional a.s.sistance and to manage his boat single-handed if necessary. So, when he has learnt with his eyes, as far as a man can, how things should be done, other than steering and giving orders, let him go out alone or with an amateur like himself and learn his business. Let him choose a fine day and sail away if possible out of sight of the most powerful gla.s.ses on his s.h.i.+p, and then deliberately and of set purpose practise everything essential that is comprised in the art of boat-sailing. He will instantly discover that between knowing how things are done and doing them there is an extraordinary difference, and he will find himself curiously awkward in doing what he has seen his men do a hundred times. He will make acquaintance with the malign tendency of all ropes to get foul of each other, and the strange law that whenever you are trying to put something right on a boat something else always goes wrong. When he first tries to reef his sails--he will do it at anchor if he is wise--he will find that the foretack is horribly inconvenient to get at, and that the foresail will keep running up the stay and m.u.f.fling his head, while the main-boom seems to be possessed by a devil and tries to push him overboard whichever side of it he gets. When he gets under way again he finds that he has got the anchor-line foul of the foresheets, and while he is clearing these and re-reeving them through their fairleads, a puff of wind knocks the boat nearly flat and sends him scrambling aft to the tiller and the mainsheet. He will bruise his s.h.i.+ns and bark his knuckles all manner of ways--he hardly knows how; he will get hot and blown, and go near to tumbling overboard in the violence of his exertions; he will do things and he will forget to do things that it will make him blush in bed to remember afterwards. But let him not feel too deeply humiliated. For even experienced sailors will make the most monstrous blunders in a boat when they are strange to her, and to boatwork; and he will find that his awkwardness seems to vanish miraculously after a few lessons, and it will not be long before he has the satisfaction of feeling that he can handle his boat as well as any man on the s.h.i.+p.

It is foolish to go far, and especially far to leeward, when there is every appearance of bad weather coming on, and a low gla.s.s. You may do it many times with impunity, but some day you are sure to get caught, and the consequences may be serious. Remember that you are always liable to meet with an amount of wind that your boat will not be able to bear under the shortest canvas that you can work her with. Many people do not realise this; and indeed it requires some powers of imagination, when a boat is standing stiffly up under her full canvas in a good breeze, to realise that in a few hours, or even minutes, there may come an amount of wind which will make it impossible to keep her lee-rail out of the water even with close-reefed sails and sheets flying loose. But a few rough and unpleasant experiences will soon convince the young boat-sailer of the fact, and teach him that a boat has no business to be out in a gale of wind, and that when he is caught in one the thing to do, if it is possible, is to gain shelter at once. If he sails much he will come across plenty of bad weather without courting it, and when he does he will probably meet it with more coolness and confidence if he is free from the depressing sensation that the sc.r.a.pe into which he has got himself, and perhaps others as well, is entirely due to his own wanton folly.

It is always best, if possible, to reef down and make everything snug before the squall or storm comes upon you; but you cannot be continually reefing down for every threatening cloud, so this is not always practicable. When the wind has become too strong for the sail you are carrying, you will have to act according to circ.u.mstances. It is not always wise to attempt to reef at once. There may not be sea-room enough to lower down the sails to reef them, and to attempt to reef a cutter's mainsail in a squall when she is nearly overpowered by wind is extremely dangerous. For the sheet must be hauled right in, and cannot be eased while the earing is being made fast. It is better under such circ.u.mstances to lower your peak altogether, taking up any slack in the topping-lift so as to support the boom. This will ease the boat immensely, and gives you a capital leg-of-mutton sail. Possibly this will be a sufficient reduction, and you may stand on under this canvas until you get shelter, or sea-room to reef in, or there comes a lull in the squall. If it is not, and the boat is still overpowered, haul down the foresail as well and double reef it, and when it is set again you can, if you have then got sea-room, take down the reefs in your mainsail, keeping the peak down all the time.

There are generally three reefs in a cutter's mainsail. If when these are taken down you have still too much canvas, let the throat run down, and lash the jaws of the gaff down to the boom. It is well to have a line of reef points running from the throat of the mainsail to the cringle of the third reef on the after-leach to make this arrangement snug. It is then called a balance reef.

Most boats will stand rather more wind when it is on the beam than they will when they are close hauled. For while they do not feel it quite so hard, it is easier to keep good way on, and you can spill the sails by slacking the sheets as much as you like without fear of losing it. So that in smooth water you will be as safe in a blow with the wind abeam as you are when sailing close to it and luffing up into the puffs. But a beam sea is the most dangerous sea of all, and when it is heavy you must always be ready either to luff up towards it, or to keep right away before it, as may be best. But if you do the former be careful not to have too much way on, or you will run your boat's nose right into the sea. If your course gives you a dangerous beam sea the best plan is to keep your luff until your port is well to leeward, and then up helm and run for it.

In running before a strong wind and a dangerous sea do not attempt to carry much sail. It is a common belief among the inexperienced, founded upon nautical literature absorbed in youth, and even amongst some who ought to know better, that you must carry plenty of sail in order to run away from the sea and avoid being p.o.o.ped. But, in the first place, you cannot run away from the sea, which travels more than twice as fast as any boat can sail, and a press of canvas which buries the boat's stern as it drags her through the water increases the danger of being p.o.o.ped. Moreover, it makes her harder to steer, and increases the much greater risks of broaching to or running the boat under water in those desperate rushes on the steep front of the big seas, which are at once the danger and the delight of running before a wind. So far from its being desirable to emulate the pace of the sea, the sooner the wave pa.s.ses the boat, and the shorter, therefore, these rushes are, the less is the danger.

I learned this once by experience. Many years ago, on the coast of New Zealand, I was caught out at sea by a gale of wind in a 13-ft. sailing dinghy, and had to run home before it in a short, dangerous, rapidly rising sea. The little boat tore before the wind under a reefed mainsail and jib, running her nose and stern alternately level with the water, until it became evident that we should be swamped in a few minutes. I ordered the man who was with me to haul down the sail. The moment he did so the little boat, which was sharp at both ends and was steered with an oar, began to ride the seas like a duck, and we ran home before the gale with ease and safety under a bare stick and a fragment of head-sail.

A boat with a sharp stern, steered with an oar, has a great advantage under such circ.u.mstances. For the rudder is sometimes right out of the water and useless; and though the water of a great wave does not really move forward with the wave as it appears to do, the breaking top of it does, and when the rudder is in this water, which is going faster than the boat, it is useless for the moment. It is well to have a place for a crutch in the gunwale far aft, so that an oar can be used to steer with if necessary.

There is generally less wind under the shelter or lee of the land.

But this is not always the case, and the most experienced seaman cannot always foretell whether this will be so or not. Sometimes the wind seems to belong to the land, and there may be little or none of it out at sea. Under high land--cliffs or mountains--you may lose the wind altogether; you may find it blowing in occasional baffling puffs of great violence and uncertain direction, or you may find it blowing much harder, not in puffs merely but altogether. It is not an uncommon experience, especially in the Mediterranean, to run down a coast before a fresh breeze, and to find a perfect tornado blowing when you turn a corner and luff up under the land. This is one of nature's paradoxes--one of the undoubted facts that one occasionally meets which seem opposed to all reason and probability. I do not know how far it has ever been scientifically explained.

Some places where there is high land seem to brew their own wind. Loch Scavaig, in Skye, under the Coolin hills, is an instance of this. It may be fine and almost calm outside, but as you sail into its gloomy waters you may find a perfect tempest blowing in or out. It staggers one to think what it must be like in a real gale of wind.

In Carlingford Lough, Ireland, last autumn, when there was but a fine-weather breeze blowing outside, the puffs off the mountain on the south of the lough took the form of a succession of regular waterspouts, any one of which would have twisted the mast out of the boat or capsized her if it had struck her. We kept as far to leeward as we could, and most of them died away before they crossed our track, but they felt very uncanny.

Speaking generally, high land is always dangerous for boat-sailing, as well as trying to the temper. On a day when there is nothing but a fine-weather breeze elsewhere, under high land you are liable to get puffs as violent while they last as a gale of wind. It is as though the hills bottled up and concentrated the wind, so that when it is let loose it comes with double force; and these puffs are specially dangerous to a boat apart from their force: first, because the angle at which they will strike is so uncertain, and secondly, because, coming from above and striking downwards, a boat does not relieve the pressure on her sails by heeling over as she does when the wind blows horizontally along the water. This is the reason why you will probably find that the squalls that go nearest capsizing your boat are not those that you have seen tearing towards you turning the water into smoke as they come, violent as these may be, but those which you have hardly seen a sign of on the water at all, and which strike the sails with a downward blow straight from the mountain side. The Sound of Raasay, outside Portree Harbour, when a westerly wind is blowing over the tremendous cliffs of Skye, is a fine place for the study of these phenomena.

When the wind is blowing up or down a channel with high land on either hand, the fiercest puffs will be near the sides which seem to concentrate the wind, and the safest place will be the middle of the channel. One day, in Loch Scavaig, beating out of that inferno of furious winds against the usual succession of tearing puffs, with double-reefed sails and all pa.s.sengers down in the bottom of the boat, I stood rather far over one tack under the high mountain on the west side. Just as I was preparing to go about a furious blast struck the boat like a cannon-shot. I thrust the helm down, letting fly the mainsheet. The foresheet fortunately carried away of itself, but for a few seconds a volume of water poured over the rail, and I thought we should go over or fill. A minute later, as we were standing off on the other tack, setting things to rights and pruning our ruffled plumes, my c.o.xswain, a most excellent boat-sailer but a man of a somewhat sardonic humour, remarked grimly, 'I should think that would be a lesson to you in future not to stand over too far under high land.' It has been.

Here follow a few of the things which it is well to remember when boat-sailing, whether you are acting as captain or crew, or both in one.

As soon as your sails are set and properly trimmed, coil away the ends of all your halliards, topping-lift, &c., in the bottom of the boat, capsizing the coil after you have made it so that the part of the rope that has to go up first becomes uppermost, and so will not get foul when the halliards are let go.

See that all your blocks are clear. A reef pendant (earing) getting drawn into the mainsheet block, or a bit of bunting or spunyarn into the block of the peak halliards, may easily cause an accident.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The squall in Loch Scavaig, Skye.]

See that boathooks, oars, and crutches are all ready for use if required.

Never make fast your sheets in any way that can possibly jam, or that a single pull will not set free. The same is advisable with your halliards also.

Always see that your mainsheet is clear, and that it cannot get foul of anything in running out. The most favoured lady pa.s.senger should not be allowed to put her feet on it.

When you have pa.s.sengers on board in dangerous, squally weather, try to get them to sit down in the bottom of the boat. It adds greatly to stability, besides getting them out of the way. But if there is much water in the boat already, they may require some persuasion.

Always carry an anchor or grapple and a line to attach to it, and see that both are ready for instant use if you are likely to want them.

The anchor for a 25-ft. boat should weigh about 30 lbs. If it is heavier it will tax your wind severely to get it up quickly in deep water.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'Excuse me.']

Always carry a knife. A sheath-knife is best: there is no difficulty about opening it when fingers are cold, and it will not shut on them when you are using it.

Always carry a pocket-compa.s.s in case of fog.

In what is called a temperate climate always carry oilskins and a sou'wester.

Always carry some spare rope, particularly odds and ends of small rope; you may always want it for something. Your spinnaker gear will probably do at a pinch to replace a broken halliard or sheet.

When you are exploring and have ladies on board, do not forget to take a landing-board.

Always carry some water and biscuits when you may be out many hours.

Always have the centreboard down in coming alongside a s.h.i.+p. The boat will answer her helm better and steer more accurately with the centreboard down, as the wind and sea cannot push her about on the surface.

If it is ever necessary to leave your boat untended, take great care that she can neither damage herself nor get adrift when the tide rises. Nothing will make you feel so intolerably foolish as to come back and find your boat damaged or gone, perhaps still in sight bobbing away without you. The writer was once left stranded on a small island in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand, owing to his man having considered a round stone a suitable object to make a boat fast to.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Self-unmoored.]

Keep out of the way of steamers and big s.h.i.+ps when you can, even when by the rule of the road it is their business to keep out of yours.

They will probably expect you to keep clear of them, and, when in narrow waters, are justified in doing so.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Never 'moon.']

Finally, never 'moon,' or think about such things as politics, philosophy, or people, when boat-sailing. Frivolous conversation on subjects unconnected with the boat or the weather should be sternly discouraged in any but the most familiar waters and the finest of weather. Distraction is a real danger in boat-sailing, and is probably the commonest cause of fatal accidents. The attention of the boat-sailer should always be concentrated on his business. He has plenty to attend to and think about. He must always have an eye on his sails, and at the same time must keep watching the wind on the water before it reaches him, and the general appearance of the weather. And in spite of these preoccupations he should be continually noting the features of the coast. If he is leaving a place to which he is going to return, he should be constantly taking note of the relative bearings of rocks and headlands by which to remember the proper channel when he comes back, not forgetting that the state of the tide will be different, and carefully observing, therefore, if the tide is low, the position of rocks and shoals that may be submerged on his return, or if it is near high water, the bearing of places which his chart tells him will have to be avoided when the tide is out. In short, it is an engrossing occupation, permitting of no distraction, except perhaps fish, and even _then_ one man must continue to give his attention almost entirely to the boat. There is a time for all things, and the man who wants to talk or to read his book in the boat has no business there. Sh.e.l.ley used to read, it is true, and he was an ardent boat-sailer. But Sh.e.l.ley's case is a bad one to quote as an example, for his boat-sailing came to an unlucky end, and we shall never know now how much or how little that little volume of poetry had to do with it.

I have said a good deal in these pages of the dangers of boat-sailing.

It has been necessary to insist upon them, because the price of safety in boat-sailing is eternal vigilance and a little knowledge. The careless man may drown himself any day, and there is no saying what mess the complete duffer may not get into. But given the habit of carefulness, which soon becomes instinctive and unconscious, together with a little experience, and a moderate amount of prudence as regards weather, and boat-sailing is certainly not a dangerous sport as sports go.

[Ill.u.s.tration: There is no place like home.]