Yachting

Originally published in Saint Pauls (Virtue and Co.) vol.2 #8 (May 1868).

A few years since the wildest Anglo-maniac among our gallant neighbours would have thought and spoken of going to sea for pleasure, as the Latin poet sang of the first man who trusted his life to a "frail skiff." There exists, however, in these latter days a "Society of Paris Sailing Club," presided over by a French commodore, and consisting of some thirty-two vessels, from one to thirty tons; and, with scarcely an exception, all these yachts belong to French owners. Whether Commodore Benôit Champy's tiny squadron disport themselves on the lower reaches of the Seine, or tempt, from time to time, the rougher waters of the Channel, we cannot tell, but it is pleasant to observe that French sport is no longer limited to the Turf. Nor is it at Paris only, that the sport of Yachting has found French disciples. At Cannes (almost, it is true, a British colony) we find established "Le Cercle Nautique de la Méditerranée," with a French commodore and vice-commodore, and some twenty-four small craft, owned, with only six or seven exceptions, by Frenchmen. Probably here, too, the original impulse came from England, or rather from English yachtsmen cruising in the Mediterranean; but it is not the less gratifying to note that both these French clubs, at Paris and at Cannes, are principally composed of native yachtsmen.
        The "Imperial Yacht Club" of St. Petersburg owes its foundation to the Grand Duke Constantine, himself a sailor, and a frequent visitor to the Isle of Wight, where, a true descendant of Peter the Great, he has doubtless appreciated the national importance to a maritime State of a sport so favourable to the science of naval architecture, and to the employment of the population of the coasts, as yachting. Of the twelve vessels, all of considerable tonnage, belonging to the St. Petersburg Club, six are owned by members of the Imperial family. The Emperor's yacht, called after our Queen, was built at Cowes. Russia is not an essentially maritime State; nor are the majority of the wealthy classes in Russia in the habit of seeking the seaside, except for baths, gaieties, or the climate. Yachting in Russia is, in short, an English institution. Russian yachts come from English yards.
        The Royal Swedish Yacht Club is no doubt a more genuinely national institution. It counts thirty craft of various tonnage, and is under the patronage of Prince Oscar, who, both as a sailor and a poet, can appreciate the merits and the charms of the sport. The Swedes are admirable yacht-builders, as the Sverige and the Aurora Borealis have taught us. Among our Swedish yachting brethren there are, however, one or two unmistakably English names, as there are also in the Royal Netherlands Yacht Club, and indeed in all foreign Yacht Clubs of our acquaintance. But in justice to our Scandinavian comrades, we must remember, that if they have borrowed yachting from England, it is from their Scandinavian ancestors that the peaceful English sea-rovers of the nineteenth century fetch their birth.
        And our jolly Dutch neighbours, who spend as much genius and energy in literally keeping their beads above water as some other nations do in maintaining their rank as Great Powers, are certainly no mere imitative yachtsmen. To their powers at sea our own naval history bears ample witness. As pleasure-sailors, Dutchmen are entitled at least to the merit of having given us a word, which many yachtsmen never succeeded in spelling correctly. Dutchmen certainly built the first "yachts," though Dutch yachting may have originally been a somewhat sleepy sport, if indeed it consisted in towing and being towed sluggishly up and down a canal in sort of cut-down Noah's ark. Some antiquarians have ascribed to the Venetians—those Dutchmen of the Adriatic, as a Hollander might call them—the honour of having invented this amusement. It may be so. But to all intents and purposes of our present paper, which deals with yachting as an organized national sport, there can be no question that it belongs to the British Isles. The gentlemen at ease, who, on either side of the Atlantic, go down to the sea for pleasure, and not for business, or profit, or duty, will be found, with very few exceptions, to combine in their blood the great kindred elements of the Saxon and the Scandinavian ancestry. It is to the Pagan pirates from the Saxon coasts and to the Slayers of the North, of the ninth and tenth centuries, and to the "Brethren of the Coast" of the Tudor times, that the harmless yachtsman, who is now hauling his beautiful craft off the mud in the Medina, owes the passion that urges him afloat.
        In claiming for yachting as a "national sport" of the British Islanders a certain distinction, we are not insisting on the obvious fact that it is absolutely free from those parasitical industries or vices of gambling and betting which unfortunately degrade so many of our land sports, and even our fresh-water aquatics. We do not mean to say that yacht-racing has wholly escaped those sharp practices and crooked arts which have wrested the noble sport of horse-racing from its original purpose as an encouragement to the breeding of the finest and fleetest animals of the purest blood. We shall have occasion to touch presently upon some analogous corruptions which have grown into the customs and usages of yacht-racing, but which, we are happy to believe, are already tending to disappear rather than to increase. But it has certainly escaped that widespread popular demoralization which notoriously surrounds and infests every racing-stable in the kingdom, and has created a new and disreputable profession, fruitful in crime and misery. From these diseased excrescences Yachting, even in the limited sense of yacht-racing, is, perhaps by the essentially natural conditions and circumstances of the pursuit, singularly free. We do not exalt the practice of yacht-sailing to the rank of a virtue on this account. The absence of corrupting influences and habits is to its credit, no doubt, but it is only to its credit as the absence of some vices is to the credit of early youth or of old age. A man may be ruined by yachting, if in order to keep a yacht he lives beyond his income. But he cannot be ruined by yachting as many a racing man is ruined by the Turf. Yachting, like any other amusement, may lead a man into many ways of mischief; but the mischief will neither be the fault of the yacht, nor of the pleasure and sport of cruising. Yachting must always be a select, if not an aristocratic, sport; and the more sea-going it is, the manlier, the healthier, the more unexceptionable it becomes.
        One obvious reason for the comparative innocence of yachting is, that it takes a man away from the "world," breathes into his lungs the purest air, and brings him into close communion with the serenity, the simplicity, the power, and the repose of Nature. Verily, the sea-life returns the love of its adepts with usury. It strengthens and braces their limbs, steadies their nerves, clears their brains, refreshes their spirits, cools and calms their tempers, appeases and consoles their hearts, renovates every fibre in their moral and physical frames.
        Another sufficient reason for the comparative selectness of yachting is, that a sea-going yachtsman must, in the most exact sense of the word, have a "stomach" for the sport. Now, a sea-going stomach is,—happily, perhaps,—by no means universal, even among Great Britons, who, as Captain Marryat used to insist, should be, one and all, more or less sailors. This previous question of a stomach will always limit the number of active sporting yachtsmen,—more effectually than that other previous question of an income sufficient to buy, fit out, and keep a yacht afloat for four months of the year. Probably in no country in the world,—excepting always the United States,—can there be found so many sea-going stomachs as in the United Kingdom. But it must not be forgotten that in no seas throughout the surface of the globe are finer opportunities and excuses for sea-sickness to be found than in the waters of Great Britain and Ireland. Here some unfortunate migratory reader, who has made a voyage to Australia and back in a Blackwall liner, or some soldier who has been boxed up for ninety days in a transport, or some man of business who has crossed the "Pond" half-a-dozen times in one of the magnificent Cunard steamers, interrupts us with a protest. "You know," he says, "I'm never sick. But I most cordially accept Dr. Johnson's definition of life at sea,—'a prison, with the chance of being drowned.' Intolerable monotony,—a dull, insuperable sense of discomfort and uneasiness, even under the most favourable conditions of weather, and with the pleasantest passengers," To such a protest we can only reply, as the monk of the Camaldoli did to the too-enthusiastic tourist, "Cosi passando!" Three months in a packet-ship may well be weary work; ten days in a steamer, with an engine always thumping, and a deadly-lively mob of intimate strangers always in your way, may well be a purgatorial infliction. But, in a vessel of your own,—in a floating home with a choice of companions of congenial tastes and equal temper,—with the faces about you of your own ship's company,—honest fellows who, "ever with a frolic welcome take the thunder or the sunshine,"—with your own times and seasons for sailing and staying at anchor, your own pick of ports to visit or to pass, yachting is what the monastic life appeared to the tourist, rather than what it was to the old monk's life-long experience.
        The yachting world is perhaps more heterogeneously composed than any other of our numerous sporting confederations. From Lord Chancellor to a fashionable music-master, all sorts and conditions of men belong to it. Parliament and Downing Street, the Stock Exchange, the clergy, the bar, the medical profession, the army and navy, the civil service, the fine arts, literature, commerce, Manchester, and country squires, may all be found side by side in the club lists. Some of the boldest riders and best shots are the most adventurous and devoted of yachtsmen. All the three kingdoms are represented in the sport. We take pleasure in recording that in the history of yachting, the first in point of date, and certainly not the second in all the qualities that ennoble the sport, stands Ireland. No better or braver yachtsmen than Irishmen; no heartier or more hospitable shipmates; no stauncher or more thorough seagoing vessels than those that hail from the Cove of Cork and the Bay of Dublin. Their home is on the blue water, and their daily cruising-ground is on the edge of soundings. Among no set of men, let us confess, are there more eccentric characters, or more strongly-marked varieties of species, than among the yachtsmen of the United Kingdom. For example, there is the man who keeps a yacht as a sort of Greenwich dinner afloat, en permanence; there is the man who keeps a yacht as a racing-machine; the man who keeps a yacht like a man-of-war; the man who keeps a yacht as what the Chinese would call a "family boat;" the man who buys a yacht for a single cruise in the Mediterranean or the Baltic, and sells her on his return, and never goes yachting again; the man who keeps a yacht because he loves the sea, and the freedom and quiet of a sea life; the man who keeps a yacht as a trawler; the man who keeps a yacht for the love of seamanship, and who is his own sailing-master; the man who keeps a yacht, and never stirs beyond the Isle of Wight; the man who goes round to all the regattas, and never enters for a match; the pert little London cockney who, as poor Albert Smith depicted him, sleeps in a chest in Margate harbour, within a few yards of a comfortable hotel, dresses like the hero of a nautical drama at the Surrey, and,—to do him justice,—knows how to handle the pack-thread, the walking-stick, and the pocket handkerchiefs of his own morsel of a cutter, which he thinks as big as a line-of-battle ship;—and we know not how many other originals.
        Let us show as briefly as possible in what a noble national sense yachting, as an organised sport, deserves most honourable mention. We are not writing about such acrobatic vanities as "canoe" sailing, which is to yachting what circus-riding is to fox-hunting,—however worthy of admiration, as a somewhat self-conscious exhibition of personal daring and endurance, such imitations of the aquatic sports of our ancient British forefathers may be.
        In 1867 there were thirty-one yacht clubs in the United Kingdom,—and, with two exceptions, sea-going yacht squadrons,—bearing the Admiralty warrants; and about 1,740 yachts, of which 240 only were under twelve tons' admeasurement. The total tonnage of these yachts amounted to about 55,700 tons. Allowing one man for every ten tons, we find here a force of 5,700 men,—and boys,—employed in the yachting service. The Royal Thames Yacht Club,—it is the grant of the Admiralty warrant that confers the title of "Royal,"—stands first on the list in date of establishment, the Royal Western of the sister island comes second, and the Royal Cork third. But in justice to our gallant Irish brethren it should be recorded that the Royal Cork is probably the oldest yacht club in the world. It was established as long ago as 1720, although it was not until 1827 that the "Old Cork Water Club" was re-christened the Royal Cork Yacht Club. The earliest record of the Royal Yacht Squadron of England,—as it is now called,—is that of a meeting held in 1815 at the Thatched House Tavern, at which Earl de Grey presided, in the capacity, we suppose, of commodore. The seal of the R.Y.S. bears date 1812, in which year we may assume the original Club was established. But this distinguished society, which is now regarded by all as the headquarters of the yachting world, comes only tenth on the list, according to the date of its Admiralty warrant, having been preceded in this privilege by the Royal Thames, the Royal Northern,—of Scotland,—the Royal Western,—of Ireland,—the Royal Cork, the Royal Eastern,—of Scotland,—the Royal Western,—of England—the Royal Southern,—of England,—the Royal St. George's,—of Ireland,—and the Royal London. The Admiralty warrant confers much more than a title; it constitutes, in fact, the "pleasure navy" of the United Kingdom; it gives the yachts, at home and abroad, a distinct rank second only to that of men-of-war; permits them to carry one or other of the ensigns of the fleet; exempts them from the payment of tonnage dues in British and foreign ports,—local dues on going into basins or private harbours of course excepted; enables yacht-owners to remove their furniture or property from place to place in the United Kingdom without coasting license, to deposit wine and spirits in the Customs warehouses on arrival from foreign ports free of duty, until reshipped for another voyage; and authorises the yachts to take up man-of-war moorings, and their boats to go alongside and land company at the King's sally-port at Portsmouth, and similar landing-places of her Majesty's ships'-boats at the other naval ports. All the foreign Powers of Europe have granted the like privileges in their ports to the yachts of the United Kingdom bearing the Admiralty warrant. No yacht on hire is allowed to carry the colours of the club, or to enjoy the privileges of the Admiralty warrant; and any infringement of the local laws and customs in foreign ports forfeits the warrant, and entails expulsion from the club. When the Admiralty first recognised the public policy of granting their warrants to yacht clubs, no doubt it was not only a privilege that was conceded, but a certain responsibility that was intended to be enforced.
        Some yachtsmen, as we have said, happen to be of an eccentric turn, and a little apt to kick up their heels and sing "Rule Britannia" a little too loudly in foreign waters. We have heard of an owner of a long, low, black schooner, who had a taste for chasing strange merchantmen when he got well into blue water, more especially in hazy weather, in the grey light of the dawn, or the shadowy gloaming. He would suddenly round to and hoist the black flag with death's head and cross-bones, and crowd his bulwarks with an effective row of fierce red caps; and then, as suddenly, turn on his heel and bear away. There might be no great harm in such antics, but among our seventeen or eighteen hundred active yachtsmen there may possibly be British subjects of wild and unruly disposition, perfectly capable of getting the flag of their country into scrapes, and perhaps of offending the susceptibility of a foreign government by some silly freak, and upon these exceptional characters the responsibility of bearing the Admiralty warrant exerts, perhaps, a salutary restraint.
        The crews of these 1,740 yachts come from all parts of the kingdom; principally, it seems, from the Isle of Wight, which even in the time of Queen Elizabeth was a royal yachting station. In the days of Queen Bess there were twenty-nine royal yachts,—that is, vessels in her Majesty's service employed for conveying great personages of State,—always stationed at Cowes. A yacht was understood, in those days, to be a small ship with one deck, carrying from eight to ten guns, and averaging from 80 to 160 tons.
        The principal yacht seamen of our day come from Cowes, Bembridge, St. Helens, and Yarmouth,—Isle of Wight,—from Portsmouth, Southampton, Lymington, Poole, Dartmouth, Plymouth, and the fishing villages adjoining these two latter ports. There are some, too, from Gravesend, and other places on the Thames and the coast of Essex. The Cowes men are considered to be, in many respects, the best for yacht-racing; but otherwise there undoubtedly exists among the most influential yachtsmen an objection, too probably founded on experience, to Cowes men. Many of them are said to be lazy, insubordinate, and insolent. Our own impression is, that the Cowes yacht sailors are for the most part a superior class of men in smartness and intelligence, and in general character, if properly treated,—that is, if placed under a strict and firm, but judicious sailing-master, and kept at a proper distance by the owner of the yacht. But there are obvious disadvantages in shipping a whole crew from any one place, and in taking a sailing-master and a crew from the same port. It becomes an effort of will to get away from a port where your whole ship's company reside. The sailing-master finds it difficult to maintain his authority over men who, as an Eton boy would say, "know him at home." And a Cowes sailing-master is rather apt to be on too friendly terms with the tradesmen who fit out and "find" the yachts in everything that is necessary or superfluous. In short, a Cowes crew have some of the defects of the servants' hall. But, taken singly, we believe a Cowes yacht sailor to be above the average of his class, and a certain proportion of Cowes men to be very valuable elements in a crew, which should always be mixed.
        What becomes of these yacht seamen from October to May? Well; there are usually from twenty to thirty yachts cruising in the Mediterranean in the winter; some with a whole family,—children and nurses,—on board. But how do the crews of the yachts that are laid up on the mud all the winter obtain a livelihood? Many of the men who have been employed in racing-yachts all the summer remain idle all the winter, as the crews of racing-yachts get an increase of pay on the days when the yacht is engaged in a race. Many of the Isle of Wight men (from St. Helens and Bembridge) take to fishing and to pilot-boats during the winter. The Portsmouth men are pretty generally watermen, and return to that occupation when the yachting season is over. It should be added that there are first-class yachtsmen from Harwich and the Essex coast who are oyster-dredgers, and who like to return home in August or September. Some of the Southampton men may be found perhaps in the great packet steamers out of the yachting season, but we should say that, as a rule, few of the five or six thousand men engaged every summer in the yachting service engage themselves for distant voyages in the winter. A few yacht-owners,—especially naval men,—prefer to employ man-of-war's men as more amenable to discipline, and less disposed to give themselves fine gentlemen airs, than the Isle of Wight men. Yet it may be questioned whether seamen accustomed to the discipline of men-of-war are the best personnel for a yacht: seamen who have only served in square-rigged ships are undoubtedly not the fittest for small fore-and-aft rigged craft. A sailing-master who had only served in square-rigged ships would be absolutely run away with by one of these cutters or schooners which a Cowes man can put through all the figures of a skating-match; and, in short, as we once heard an old hand say, "make her do everything but speak." It has been suggested that every owner of a yacht bearing the Admiralty warrant should,—by a general concert of all the Royal Clubs,—undertake to employ no man who had not joined the Royal Naval Reserve. Of course the Admiralty could not take the initiative in suggesting such a condition. But it would certainly be a fair and honourable recognition, on the part of yachtsmen, of the privileges they enjoy in consideration of the services they are supposed to render to the nation. Nor, we think, could yacht sailors, although perhaps more than any other class of seamen averse to service in a man-of-war, decline employment on terms which would involve no real hardship or interference with their liberty, while their value as yacht sailors would be sensibly enhanced, and the country would receive a reinforcement of superior and available seamen, sufficient in an emergency to take a flying squadron to sea.
        Many of those fine and roomy schooners which, as we write, are getting ready for their summer cruising, belong to owners who seldom, if ever, transgress beyond the sheltered waters of the Solent. Many never go. beyond Cherbourg, or the Channel Isles, or the western ports. Some years ago one of the largest cutters in the squadron used to stand over to the north shore every afternoon, lay to for lunch, and then approach within a convenient distance of the Club-house, and proceed with great deliberation to order her owner's dinner by signal. Another yacht, the very largest of the whole squadron, and one of the best fitted and handled, belonging to one of the smartest practical yachtsmen afloat, was scarcely ever known to sail outside the Needles, or to make a longer cruise than from Cowes harbour to Southampton and back. She was reported, indeed, to have once gone over to Cherbourg, but no one believed it; she was once heard of at Falmouth, but that was held to be an extravagant fable. To be sure, she had a staff of domestic servants and babies on board, a boudoir, a nursery, and two "companions" which were perfect easy staircases, four-post beds, and, in short, all the comforts of a country house. But, if there are conspicuously home-staying yachts, there are also cruisers that have "sailed beyond the sunset and the paths of all the western stars," doubled the Hope and the Horn, encountered and defied the icy gales of the Polar seas. Five-and-twenty years ago the Wanderer schooner was astonishing the natives of the South Sea Islands. In 1841 Mr. Brooke made his memorable expedition to Borneo in the Royalist, and founded a kingdom. Need we cite the Corsair cutter, a famous cup-winner in her time? She defeated the Talisman cutter, in a match from Cowes, round the Eddystone and back in a gale of wind, by four minutes, and is now, we believe, an ornament of Australian waters. The Albatross cutter went out to Sydney, and so did the Chance schooner. The Themis schooner returned a year or two ago from a voyage round the world. The famous Marquis of Waterford visited New York in his brig, the Charlotte; and, the story goes, jumped overboard in a gale of wind in the Atlantic, for a wager. The Alerte cutter, which has lately been lengthened by her builders at Gosport, is remembered at the Antipodes. The St. Ursula schooner fetched New York in thirty days from the Clyde. There are more British burgees than British pendants in the Mediterranean every winter; and, if proof were wanting that the same spirit animates the fighting and the pleasure navy of Great Britain, and that our yachts are not the butterflies of a summer hour, we might recall the service of a schooner of the R.Y.S. on the coast of Syria, when, in the absence of a man-of-war to protect the Christians, she anchored as close to the shore as her draught of water would permit, and, with her little deck guns run out and double-shotted, saved the Christian population of a Syrian village from massacre.
        In the Baltic, every summer sees a fleet of British yachts hovering round the coasts of Norway, while the owners are salmon-fishing in the fiords. The late Sir Hyde Parker, in the Louisa schooner, was, we believe, the first to set the example. He has been followed (among others) by Mr. Graves, M.P., Commodore of the Royal Mersey Club, who published a most agreeable account of his cruise in the Ierne; by Lord Dufferin, whose delightful "Letters from High Latitudes" made the Foam for ever famous, as the first British yacht that ever showed her colours at Spitzbergen; by Mr. Rathbone, Mr. Lamont, Mr. Brassey; and last, but not least, by the little ten-ton Romp, which frisked one fine morning into a Swedish harbour. These instances are enough to show that our Transatlantic kinsmen performed no unprecedented exploit, when they crossed the Atlantic in the Sylvie, the America, the Gipsy, the Henrietta, the Fleetwing, and the Vesta. If we are disposed to smile at some owners of big schooners who seldom venture out as far as the chops of the British Channel, we may take comfort in knowing that many of our American friends, who hail from the "Elysian Fields," are bantered by their countrymen for their very moderate cruises up and down the Bay of New York. But it is fair to remark, that out of the forty schooners and sloops of which the New York Yacht Squadron is composed, a very fair proportion have done more than any yachts afloat to sustain the character of a sport of all others most congenial to the energy and enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon family. We shall neither exaggerate nor undervalue the importance of the visits of the American yachts to our waters, when we say, that the easy victory of the America schooner in the Solent over eight English cutters and seven schooners in August, 1857, was well won, though not quite on equal terms. The America was a vessel of 208 tons, O.M.; length over all 100 feet; draught of water aft 10 feet; beam 28 feet. She had crossed the Atlantic under reduced spars and sails, and made a tolerably comfortable passage of it. But she was built all for racing, and the English yachts that sailed against her were about as fit to contend with her, as a roadster with a winner of the Two Thousand. From the moment when she came into English hands, and had her bulwarks raised, and was converted into an ordinary English yacht, her glory as a cup-winner departed. She was beaten in the following year by the old Arrow cutter, and by the Mosquito cutter, the latter, it is true, a racer all over, but an excellent sea boat into the bargain.
        The American schooner Gipsy, which had beaten the celebrated Maria sloop yacht in a breeze, and was considered by her builders twenty-five per cent. faster than the America, was sold in England, and handsomely beaten in a private match by Mr. Weld's Alarm. Both the America and the Gipsy were built for racing only, and, though they crossed the Atlantic, were not adapted to the ordinary service of an English yacht. It is no reproach to a vessel to observe, that she could only win in certain hands. Some horses are only good to win when ridden by certain jockeys. The Americans did their English yachting brethren great service in showing them a longer, a finer, and a bolder bow,—the bow of the America was almost that of a Japanese boat;—and in teaching them to lace their mainsails to the boom, to make their canvas to stand as flat as a board, and to set their masts up without a "rake." The necessity for lacing, however, is now in a great degree superseded by the new patent "graduated" sails. The three American yachts, which sailed a match from New York to Cowes in the midwinter of 1866, would certainly have found many dangerous competitors in a match in the British Channel. These schooners were not like the America, mere racing craft; their sea-going qualities were tested to the utmost at every point in the course of a stormy Atlantic passage, and were found not unequal to the strain. Handled, as they were, with admirable skill and courage, they fully deserved all the honours they received. They are vessels of much greater power, however, than their reputed tonnage represents. According to the English system of admeasurement, they would show a much higher register. Their spars and sails were such as only a vessel of extraordinary power could carry with safety. In a gale of wind there is scarcely an English yacht that could beat them. In light winds, and a time race over a short course, their powerful qualities would probably be of little avail against yachts more lightly rigged and ballasted. But British yachtsmen would do well to note, that the Americans made the Atlantic passage under comparatively easy sail, and that, of the three rivals, the winner of the stakes was the most cautiously and snugly sailed. In their internal fittings, comfort was certainly sacrificed, in some measure, to racing considerations. Nor does this detract from the merits of the craft. There is a possibility, we hear, though not, we fear, a probability, of a match being made to New York from Ryde. One spirited yachtsman—a member of the Royal London—has put down his name for £500 towards a prize. We should be glad to see such a match contested by some of our crack schooners. It would teach them the folly of "carrying on," and persuade our yacht-builders and owners to trust more to trim and shape and seamanship than to excessive spars and driving canvas, and a dead weight of lead or iron ballast laid along from floor to keel to counteract the "tophamper." On all accounts, it would be creditable to English yachtsmen to respond to the generous challenge of their kinsmen beyond the Atlantic by appearing in the Bay of New York with their racing-flags at the fore.
        About a quarter of a century ago an active and zealous member of the R.Y.S., who owned a fine sea-going cutter of the old school, proposed to sail a match against all the world round the British Islands. His offer was treated as a joke; but it pointed at least in the right direction, as a protest against the then prevailing habit of keeping yachts for racing only, and without reference to sea-going capabilities. In those days an evil analogous to that which still afflicts the Turf flourished in the yachting world, and produced similar effects. The practice of running two-year olds, and of training for high speed for short distances, has resulted, if we are to believe the most trustworthy testimony, in deteriorating the breed of useful horses in this country,—that is, of hunters, roadsters, and carriage horses. In like manner the production of a class of vessels good for racing only, and utterly unfit for any other purpose, threatened to deprive yachting of all its substantial merits as a national sport. Yachts without a bulkhead or any cabin fittings were sent round the coast to all the regattas under the charge of a special sailing-master and a scratch crew. These cup-hunters were worn and torn to pieces by this usage, and good for nothing except to race, and race, and race again, while yachts which stood no chance in a sailing-match under such conditions were fulfilling admirably all the purposes of seaworthy and sea-going craft. It is highly praiseworthy on the part of the sailing committees of the leading clubs that they should have seen the error of this invidious distinction between racing and sea-going vessels, and have resolved to put an end to a most injurious system. There is, unfortunately, as yet, no permanent and general committee of reference, analogous to the Jockey Club, and composed of flag officers of the Royal Yacht Clubs, to draw up and interpret a code of rules and regulations applicable to all yacht-racing, and enforced by all clubs bearing the Admiralty warrant, for the summary settlement of all disputes. This is a desideratum which we hope will be supplied ere long, thanks to the efforts of the most eminent yachtsmen, particularly of the present Commodore and Vice-Commodore of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, who have always insisted on sea-going trim for all matches within their command. Already, we would fain believe, the days are past and gone when, in a race, men were stowed away below to run over from side to side of the yacht as she lay over on either tack, to trim her as she turned, because every pound of ballast had been shelled out to lighten her. The bad practice of shifting or trimming ballast has been decisively condemned by nearly all the leading clubs of the three kingdoms. There is, however, a diversity of opinion, not so much upon the practice itself as upon the means of preventing it. One of the great difficulties of prevention is the want of uniformity in the rules of the various clubs. It appears to us that a simple rule forbidding yachts engaged in a match to carry more than their proper complement of hands,—one for every ten tons,—would meet the case. All hands would thus be wanted on deck, and none could be spared below. Each vessel might be required to send a representative on board another to certify that the rules of the race were strictly observed.
        Occasionally difficulties arise in a contest which only a central board of reference, applying a carefully-considered code of rules, can adjust. For example, it was once an almost universally accepted sailing regulation that yachts could not anchor during a race without forfeiting the prize. Some years since, in a match on the Thames, a coal-smack came bearing down upon the winning yacht, and the latter, eager not to lose an inch of the way, and trusting in vain that the huge barge would put her helm up, held on her course until, to save herself from a collision, she was compelled to drop her kedge. Notwithstanding this mishap, the famous little Phantom got her anchor up, and was off again the moment the danger was passed, and, still leading, held on her way, rounding the flag-buoy nine minutes before the Mystery, gaining on her every mile to the end of the race, and finally winning in a canter. A protest was entered when her owner claimed the cup, because he had dropped his kedge, though she was winning easy from first to last, and only anchored for a moment to avoid destruction. Here was a case in which a general Committee of Reference would have quashed a most unreasonable protest, and assigned the cup to the unquestionable winner. The New York Yacht Club, whose sailing regulations appear to be most carefully drawn, permits anchoring during a race, and it can hardly be doubted that the permission is, on the whole, judicious; although, in the case of a drifting match in a dead calm with a strong tide running, the reason for forbidding a contesting yacht to anchor is obvious enough. Some other questions have lately been under consideration of the Sailing Committees, such as the restrictions upon canvas and spars in match-sailing. Opinions are much divided on these points. Some would insist on racing yachts being restricted to "all plain sail;" others demand unlimited liberty of canvas. Without presuming to speak dogmatically on the subject, we would take the liberty to suggest the possibility of fixing a happy medium between the pedantry of restriction to all plain sail only, and the extravagant devices in the shape of "spinnakers" and other cockney contrivances which are often practised in the Thames. Of the two extremes of license or restriction, we think the former the less objectionable. Wetting sails, or "skeeting," appears to us a practice that may fairly be left to the discretion of each yacht. In these and other respects, more particularly as to boats to be carried by yachts in a race, and the deposit of a true model of each vessel with the Secretary of the Club before she can be entered for any regatta, the sailing regulations of the New York Yacht Club are evidently framed with care and judgment. The principles enforced in yacht-racing, it should not be forgotten, are apt to affect the whole character of yachting as a national sport. We should not regret any regulations which would tend to the reduction in ordinary cruising of both spars and canvas. The complaint of all good sailing-masters of crack yachts now is that they are overballasted, over-canvased, over-sparred. Reduce the sails and the sticks, and there is no need of a lead lining to the kelson to make the yacht stiff enough in a sea-way. Reduce the heavy ballast and the spars at once, and the wear and tear of the vessel will be proportionately decreased, and, with the wear and tear, the continued necessity for repairs on the patent slip. Yachts, like men-of-war, seldom come to grief in a sea-way, because they are admirably found and handled; but, like men-of-war, they wear out rapidly because they are torn to pieces by excessive spars, and by the yachtsman's proverbial love of "carrying on," as if a vessel could be driven faster by dragging her lee quarter through the sea.
        There can be no doubt of the progressive improvement in yacht-building during the last twenty years. Cutters like the Hebe, the Ganymede, the Aurora,—which were considered prodigies of speed and beauty in their day, would appear to the present generation of yachtsmen as antiquated as the Great Harry among the Channel fleet. These goodly old tubs, with their bluff bows and flat floors, possessed qualities not to be despised even in our time, and not always found in the faster and more elegant craft of a later date. They were stiff, weatherly, safe, powerful, and comfortable vessels, fit for any service, not absolutely dull sailers on a wind, and, with their sheets eased off the least bit, speedy enough to sail round and round a square-rigged ship under a press of canvas, as if she were at anchor. Perhaps they plunged rather heavily in a short confused Channel lop, but they would lay to in the heaviest gale "like a duck," and run before the fiercest following sea without taking a pailful of water on deck. They steered like a boat, and on short tacks in smooth water behaved with all the nimbleness and alertness of the airiest of waltzers in a crowded ball-room. To the yachts of to-day, they were what the race-horses of two generations back were to the favourites for this year's Derby,—slower for short distances, less fine about the legs, but stouter, more serviceable, and more enduring. As roadsters or teamsters of the sea, they were unexceptionably sure-footed, safe, and clever goers. To judge from a specimen,—lately exhibited in a Clubhouse,—of the timbers of a schooner yacht, purchased the other day by one of the most experienced of our yachtsmen, we should not hesitate to add that these vessels of the old school were built with a solidity and a sincerity which are now as rarely to be found in the construction of our yachts as in the walls of our town houses. Nor must it be supposed that there was no such thing as racing-power in the yachts of that ancient epoch. Happily we can appeal to two survivors of the pre-American period to rebuke the conceit of an age which is apt to fancy it has nothing to learn from its grandfathers. Look at the old Alarm and the old Arrow, both designed by that immortal yachtsman, the late Mr. Weld. The Arrow was built more than six-and-thirty years ago. After her defeat by the Pearl,—a famous cutter of that period, belonging to the Marquis of Anglesey,—Mr. Weld laid her up on the mud, in disgrace, and built the Alarm, as a cutter. Neither as a cutter, nor under her later rig as a schooner, could the Alarm find her equal, on either side of the Atlantic, while she remained in Mr. Weld's hands. Her victories were as many as the matches she sailed in. The Arrow, after languishing some years, was bought by Mr. Chamberlayne, who lengthened her bow. She defeated the America in splendid style, and has only been beaten by a younger sister of her own,—the Lulworth, a cutter some twenty-two tons smaller, and designed also by Mr. Weld. In 1863 she defeated the Phryne, a cutter then just launched by one of the ablest and most successful of our yacht-builders, and which has since become renowned for her achievements.
        There is, we fear, considerable faultiness in the materials of which yachts are built at present, and if yacht-builders were exposed to the searching criticisms of a committee on the Naval Estimates, some damaging exposures might be made of the state of a yacht's timbers after two years' service. But we are bound to express our belief that, if unsound timber is put into a yacht, the owner has often himself to thank for the purchase of a bad article. There is no warranty of the soundness of a yacht's timbers, as of the wind and limb of a horse. Nine out of ten yachtsmen build or buy their vessels in the dark. They seldom, if ever, take the trouble to have the vessel rigorously and systematically inspected while she is on the builder's slip. Perhaps they leave this duty of inspection to the future sailing-master, who is a native of the place, and who cannot be expected to quarrel with the builder. Probably, in most eases, they would not be much the wiser if they depended on their own inspection. Then they are almost invariably in a desperate hurry to get the yacht finished and fitted out, and it may be absolutely impossible for the most honest of builders to provide properly seasoned timbers at the shortest notice.
        The majority of yachtsmen who buy their vessels,—and who should be advised never to buy between April and October,—are at once too hasty and too uninstructed to pronounce an opinion between a sound and an unsound vessel. They rush down, with a return ticket, to Cowes, look at the yachts "on the mud," take a fancy to one, go on board, ask the price, rush back to town, and buy; engage a sailing-master, probably a Cowes man, and leave to him all the business of fitting out. Among all the owners whose names appear in Hunt's List, very few are qualified to command their vessels. They may be able to steer, and perhaps to sail them; but very few know anything of the mysteries of the rope-walk, the building-slip, and the mould-loft,—of sailmakers, of furnishing ironmongers, brass-founders, ship-chandlers, and other necessary cormorants. The consequence is that many yachtsmen are disgusted at the incessant and everlasting wear and tear, which makes up so much of the cost of the sport. Yet there is really no natural or necessary reason why yachting should be more expensive than fox-hunting. A man who makes his yacht his home for half the year ought to live more economically than he can ashore;—he gets his wine and groceries and spirits free of duty; he has no travelling expenses when he goes abroad. In travelling with a wife and family, a yacht is at once a great saving and a great convenience. We say nothing of the comfort of carrying a little England with you wherever you go, and of sleeping at home among your own people. What, in fact, are the legitimate expenses of a yacht? For £26 a ton you can build or buy a new yacht, in all respects ready for sea,—excepting iron ballast,—with bedding and blankets complete. The cost of a suit of sails may be estimated by the following proportions:—A suit of racing sails for a twenty-five ton cutter would cost about £125; for a fifty-ton cutter, about £160.
        Wages have risen within the last ten years. At present the rate is perhaps not less than twenty-five or twenty-six shillings per week for an able seaman,—finding himself in food, but not in clothes; thirty-two shillings for the mate,—who looks after gear and stores, from a needle to an anchor, and should be able to lay his hand on what he wants in a moment on the darkest night; and for the sailing-master, who takes care of the yacht during the winter, an annual salary of 120 to 150 guineas, or more, according to the size of the yacht. Then there is the cook, at, say, seven-and-twenty shillings a week; and the steward,—supposing him not to be the owner's own servant,—thirty shillings. Of course, all these expenses vary according to the size of the yacht and the caprice of the owner. They vary very much according to the rig of the vessel. Four men and a boy,—exclusive of sailing-master and steward,—should be sufficient for a forty-eight ton cutter or a sixty ton schooner; seven men and a boy fora sixty-five ton cutter, or a ninety ton schooner. A cutter is always the most expensive of all rigs, and a fore-and-aft schooner the least expensive, Between the cutter and the fore-and-aft schooner comes the yawl, The insurance of a yacht whilst cruising would be something like ten per cent. per month; and against fire only, when in harbour or dismantled, a maximum of seven shillings per cent.
        Cutters will always be a favourite rig for racing and Channel cruising, because nothing touches them in light weather and in beating to windward. But in a gale of wind, the taking in of a cutter's mainsail, and "stepping" the boom, is like putting a straight-waistcoat on a madman. A yawl has nearly all the speed of a cutter, looks almost as close to the wind, and has the inestimable advantage of a reduced mainsail and boom, and may be sailed very snug in heavy weather under her mizen and headsails only. In a schooner the foretopsails are of very little use, except, perhaps, for running. The fore-and-aft schooner requires fewer hands, because all her sails can be sent up from the deck; and if she chooses to indulge herself in jibheaded topsails, she can send them up "flying." We believe there is no rig at once so easy, so safe, and so cheap as this. Since "the good old commodore" Lord Yarborough's little frigate, the "Falcon," there has, if we are not mistaken, only been one ship-yacht, the "Sylphide," built at Bremen, and when last in commission, in the Mediterranean, belonging to the Marquis of Downshire. We know of only one considerable lugger yacht, the "New Moon," built for Lord Willoughby D'Eresby, by Firth of Hastings. She is, in fact, an enormous boat, 186 feet long, and only eleven feet beam, and even in fine weather and smooth water must require a large and powerful crew. In bad weather and in "blue water" she would be simply impossible. Steam yachts appear to be decidedly and rapidly on the increase, and we must honestly confess we regret the fact. A small auxiliary lifting screw may be useful in a calm; but, however small, it must seriously interfere with the comfort of the vessel, even when the engines are not in motion. If a gentleman at ease likes to own a steamer, it would be impertinent to call his fancy to account. We will only take the liberty to suggest that a yachtsman should be sufficiently master of his time, and fond enough even of the caprices of the sea, to be no more impatient of a calm than a lover is of his mistress qui boude. We cannot understand screw-driving for pleasure. A voyage in a steamer is bad enough when it is for business. But if there must be steam yachts, let them be steamers out and out, and not attempt to combine the schooner and the dispatch-boat. Some steam yachts of large tonnage,—notably the Sea Horse, 820 tons; the Hebe, 320 tons; the Brilliant, 420; the Northumbria, 425,—have lately been added to the R.Y.S.
        For home cruising a comparatively short complement of hands is enough, even for a cutter; for foreign cruising, few hands are a false economy. It is perhaps advisable to have two sets of sails and of rigging, the one for home, and the other for foreign, cruising. One result of the want of concert among clubs, and of a common code of regulations for yachts and yachtsmen, is the frequent difficulty of preserving discipline, in crews which too often include "sea-lawyers" and long-shore loafers. Nor is this always the fault of the seamen. Yacht-owners are apt to be too easy-going or too fidgety. The crews have too much idle time or too much fussy duty. There is supposed to be a black list kept at all the clubs, in which the names of men discharged for insubordination or bad conduct are inserted, so as to prevent their further employment. But as these lists are not exchanged between the different clubs, a man who is black-listed at Cowes or Ryde may get a berth at Plymouth or at Cork. And there are too many instances of a man discharged from one yacht getting a berth,—probably through the sailing-master,—in another yacht of the same squadron, lying in the same roadstead.
        A paper on Yachting would be incomplete without some mention of the most famous racing-cruisers of recent years. We say racing-cruisers advisedly, because these celebrated vessels do not sacrifice the sea-going to the racing qualities. The fastest schooners now afloat are the "Aline" and the "Bluebell," built by Camper and Nicholson of Gosport; the "Egeria," by Wanhill of Poole; the "Pantomime," by Ratsey of Cowes; the "Kilmeny," by Fife of Glasgow. Among the cutters, the most remarkable for speed are the "Vanguard," built by Ratsey; the "Hirondelle," by Wanhill; the "Vindex," built by the Millwall Iron Works Company; the "Phryne" and the "Niobe," by Hatcher of Southampton; the "Aimara,"—a most formidable-looking cutter of 165 tons,—by Steele of Glasgow; the "Volante," by Harvey of Wivenhoe; the "Sphinx," by Maudslay of the Thames; the veteran "Mosquito," by Mare; and, finally, the venerable and still unapproachable old "Arrow," whose owner was once politely requested by a correspondent of Bell's Life to renounce contests which must be unequal.
        One of the most remarkable sailing-matches was the Royal Victoria Ocean Match from Ryde to Cherbourg in 1863. It was run in a gale of wind, and won in capital style by one of the most ardent and generous of yachtsmen, Mr. Thomas Broadwood, in the "Galatea" schooner; the commodere's schooner, the "Aline," leading the way with the most liberal ease, and being safely anchored and made snug in Cherbourg roads when the racing squadron passed the breakwater. These ocean matches deserve every encouragement. They tend to make sea-going the rule of yachting; they create a bond of union between different clubs; and the only objection we have heard to them is, that they take the yachts away from their stations, and so injure the trade of the local shopkeepers,—an objection which does not strike us as being very serious. When the yachting world shall possess an institution analogous to the Jockey Club, it will probably deal not only with the questions of shifting ballast and restrictions upon canvas in matches, but will abolish the present ridiculous system of time for tonnage, which, whether half a minute for one class or a quarter of a minute for another, is full of absurdity and injustice. Were no time for tonnage allowed, yachts would naturally range themselves in broad classes within certain limits of tonnage, and the public would have the satisfaction of seeing the winning vessel declared the winner. If this should be considered too sweeping a change, at least it would be desirable to fix a uniform system of admeasurement for racing allowances. Perhaps the Thames Yacht Club plan is the best that could be adopted. It is as follows:—Take the length of the yacht from the forepart of the stem to the after-part of the sternpost, from that subtract the greatest breadth,—the remainder shall be estimated the just length to find the tonnage; then multiply such length by the breadth, and that product by half the breadth, dividing the whole by 94,—the quotient shall be deemed the tonnage. We cannot pretend that this is a very simple operation, but we believe it to be tolerably exact and just. Had the three American schooners been measured by it, their tonnage would certainly have been much larger than it was reported to be.
        Have we justified the "distinction" we claim for Yachting as the most decidedly characteristic of all our national sports? We hope we have shown that it is public policy to foster such a pastime. Censider the amount of money spent every year by private gentlemen in the British Islands in building, fitting out, and repairing this magnificent fleet of 1,740 vessels; the number of seamen they employ,—of seamen's families they support,—the spirit of maritime adventure and enterprise they promote among the population of the coasts,—the heroic founders of colonies, and pioneers of commerce and civilization they have sent out,—the help and succour they have sometimes carried to their countrymen amidst the sufferings and hardships of distant wars and protracted campaigns,—is it not a cause for satisfaction that these harmless and beneficent buccaneers, the Yachtsmen of the United Kingdom, are increasing in numbers year by year; and that to go down to the sea in their own ships, and carry the flag of their country at their own mastheads, is a passion of hundreds of our gentlemen who cannot be persuaded to live at home at ease?