Fig. 20.
If a boat has a deep keel, her lateral resistance to the water will cause the leeway to be insignificant. If the boat is of very shallow draught and so offers little lateral resistance to the water, she will not go ahead at all, and the entire force of the wind will be expended in driving her bodily to leeward. Lee-boards and centre-boards are fitted to shallow boats in order to obviate this.
The pressure of the wind on the sails, in addition to producing the above effects, heels a boat over. A sailing-boat is so constructed as to resist this tendency to capsize. Either she is made narrow and deep and is weighted with ballast as far as possible below the water-line, or she is shallow but of considerable beam. The deep and weighted boat will heel over more readily than the beamy shallow boat, but the further she heels the greater pressure of wind is necessary to make her heel still more, for the leverage of her ballast increases as she heels, and many boats with lead upon their keels are practically uncapsizable. On the other hand, the beamy shallow boat does not heel so readily, but after she has heeled to a certain angle she will capsize.
The pressure of the wind on the sails not only propels, drives to leeward, and heels over a boat, but, unless the sails are absolutely balanced, it tends to turn her in one direction or the other.
In (Fig. 20 we have a boat with two sails. If the after sail is the more powerful, it is obvious that the wind will drive round that sail and the stern of the boat with it in the direction of the arrow C, while the head of the boat will run up into the wind. If, on the other hand, the head sail be the more powerful of the two, the bow will be driven off the wind and the boat will bear away.
The sails of a boat should be so balanced that she has a slight tendency to run up into the wind; and to counteract this weather helm, as it is called, the steersman will have to keep the rudder slightly to leeward of the line of the keel.
If a boat carrying weather helm be left to her own devices in a squall she will at once do the right thing, luff up into the wind and be in safety; whereas a boat with too much head-canvas and carrying lee-helm will run off her course and put herself in a dangerous position.
A boat should not gripe, that is, carry too much weather helm, for steering will then be very hard, and the rudder, forced far over to counteract the helm, will act as a serious drag in the water.
In balancing the sails, it must be remembered that the further out a sail is on an extremity of a boat, the greater its effect in driving that end of the boat off the wind.
Sometimes a vessel’s sails are not properly balanced because the ballast has not been stowed in the right place. It is obvious, for instance, that if ballast be shifted aft the weather helm will be diminished, for the stern of the boat will draw more water and so offer more lateral resistance, whereas the stem of the boat will draw less water, and will therefore be more easily blown round. A centre-board, again, is generally placed well forward, so it is found that when this is lowered the weather helm of the boat is considerably increased.
We have explained that a boat properly constructed and rigged can sail within forty-five degrees of the wind. Now, if it be desired to sail to some point more directly to windward than this, what is called tacking becomes necessary. This consists of sailing a certain distance close hauled with the wind on one side, and then turning round and sailing close hauled with the wind on the other side. A zigzag course is thus taken, each tack being at about right angles to the last.
One diagram of (Fig. 21 illustrates the process of tacking with the wind right ahead, and in the other diagram the wind is a point or two off, so that one tack is longer than the other, there being, in sailor language, a short leg and a long leg.
Fig. 21.
Fig. 21.
That the action of the rudder, when forced over till it is at an angle with the keel, is to act as a drag on that side and so deflect the boat’s course, is plain enough. But it is not so obvious a fact that this action of the rudder in turning the boat is not to turn her bow round through the water, but to push the stern sideways while the bow is almost at a standstill. For the centre of rotation of a boat, that is, the imaginary pivot on which she turns, is always well forward.
In (Fig. 22, A is the centre of rotation. So when the rudder is put over to the right, the boat will revolve on the pivot A till she is in the position indicated by the dotted lines. It will be observed that the stern has moved about twice as far as the bow. The further forward the centre of rotation the greater will this disproportion be.
It is very important to remember this effect when sailing very near any object such as a buoy, for while steering so as to turn the boat’s head away from the object and avoid it, the stern is made to approach the object, and the very action that seems calculated to prevent a collision may become the cause of one.
Fig. 22.
Having shown what are the relations of the sails, hull, and rudder of a boat to the wind and water, and explained how a vessel requires either ballast or beam to prevent the wind from capsizing her, and needs draught to increase her lateral resistance and prevent her from being blown to leeward, it remains to add that the longitudinal resistance to the water must be diminished as much as possible, so that the boat can slip easily through the water and travel with speed.
For this reason a sharp stem is put on a vessel, so that she can open a way for herself through the water like a wedge, and she is given what is called a fine run aft, so that her stern will not drag heavily.
Fig. 23.
Again, the larger the area of the boat’s greatest cross-section (Fig. 23), the more resistance that results and the slower she will travel. The area of the cross-section is diminished by making a boat of narrow beam, while the necessary displacement is obtained by increased length and depth.
Now, the difficulty arises that most of the qualities that ensure speed in a boat have a tendency to lessen her stability and even her lateral resistance. It follows that, while constructing a boat, a compromise has to be made between these three; and the problem as to how to produce the fittest craft becomes a very complicated one that has never been solved yet, and probably never will be.
Thus a long narrow shallow boat will run the fastest before the wind, but she will not turn to windward at all, and will capsize with great ease.
As it is recognized that beam is opposed to speed, it has been long the fashion in England to construct racing yachts extremely narrow and of great draught. Such craft do attain speed, but at the expense of all comfort, and when a heavy sea is running go through it instead of over it.
To come to the opposite extreme, we have the flat-bottomed very shallow and very beamy craft, with a deck plan not unlike a flat-iron—a veritable skimming-dish. Provided with a centre-board, such a boat is well adapted for shallow and sheltered waters. The centre-board can be raised while crossing a shoal, and the boat will then draw only as many inches as a deep-keel boat of her size would draw feet. She will be very fast in smooth water, but in rough water she will pound heavily into the seas, and, having no good hold of the water and little momentum, will lose her headway and soon prove dangerous.
For real comfort and seaworthiness—and some now maintain for racing purposes as well—a boat that is something between these two extremes answers the best; that is, a boat that is moderately beamy and has a moderate draught of water.
Some years ago we sailed to South America in a yacht that well represented the class of vessel we are now speaking of. Her length was forty-two feet, her beam thirteen feet, and her draught seven feet six inches. Not being one of the narrow deep class, she was an excellent sea boat; indeed, she once had the reputation of being the best sea boat of her size in the Channel. Now the advocates of the narrow boats will contend that speed must have been sacrificed to obtain this comfort in heavy weather. We scarcely agree with these gentlemen; for this boat, though furnished with exceptionally small sails, could do her nine knots an hour, and on one occasion travelled two thousand sea miles in ten days.
The author also once owned a centre-board yawl of five tons, which drew between two and three feet without her centre-board. She thus combined the advantages of the shallow boat with the seaworthiness of a boat that is sufficiently immersed to have a good hold of the water.
This compromise between the deep-keel and the centre-board types of boat has long been popular in America, and probably the recent victories of the American yachts constructed on these principles, over our own crack deep-keelers will gradually modify the English views on this subject.
Most of our yachting men maintain that a long hole through the bottom of a boat must weaken her; that the great strain of the centre-board, concentrated as it is on one small portion of the keel, must render a large craft thus fitted ill-adapted to buffet with a really heavy sea.
On the other hand, the American builders emphatically deny that a centre-board is a cause of weakness, and point to their noble pilot vessels and trading schooners, which are all provided with centre-boards, and which are exposed to every sort of weather.
It is unnecessary to dwell longer on this controversy; for though there is much divergence of opinion as regards large craft, there can be no question as to the advantages of fitting centre-boards into many kinds of small craft, especially in those that are intended for river sailing.
CHAPTER IV.
ON SMALL BOATS.
Open and half-decked boats—Ballast—The centre-board—False keels—Lee-boards—Counters, square and pointed sterns—Battened sails.
The following observations apply chiefly to small boats, which can be rowed as well as sailed, and be easily handled by one man—that is, boats from the smallest size up to about eighteen feet in length.
Open and Half-decked Boats.—A small boat is often half-decked, that is, she is provided with a small deck in the bows and a narrow deck on either side, low coamings being carried round the inside edge. Such a boat must to a certain extent be safer than an entirely open boat; that is, if she be struck by a squall and heel far over, or again, if she run her nose into a sea, the water will flow off her decks instead of pouring into her and possibly swamping her. But a small boat is not a yacht, and she ought not to be sailed in so reckless a manner as to drive her bows or gunwale under and ship large bodies of water in this way. A quite open boat, if she be properly constructed, not over-ballasted, not over-canvassed, and of course properly sailed, will go through an extraordinary amount of sea without taking a bucketful of water on board; and not only this, but she will sail as fast if not faster than the half-decked craft of the same size staggering along under excessive canvas, with the water under her lee coamings. The slight additional safety, or rather inducement to recklessness afforded by the half-deck and waterways, is more than counterbalanced by several disadvantages. In the first place, this deck—too narrow to walk along—will occupy much of the already limited space available on board a small boat, and it will be in the way of and impede one working the sails or rowing to an extent that it is difficult to appreciate until one has tried the experiment. In the next place, this deck must be of considerable weight—a serious disadvantage if the boat has often to be beached. And not only is the deck heavy in itself, but, situated as it is high above the water-line, it tends to make the boat top-heavy, and this must be counteracted by putting more ballast into her than would be required in an entirely open boat of the same dimensions. Now, if a small boat is intended ever to venture into rough water, the less ballast she carries and the more buoyant she is, the better.
We therefore do not recommend half-decks for the class of boat of which we are now speaking. When a boat is big enough to be a small yacht, and the half-deck forward covers a cuddy large enough to afford sleeping accommodation to the crew, the case is different, and the half-deck becomes a decided advantage.
Ballast.—A small boat’s ballast, whatever form it may take, should be readily movable. Thus, if lead is used, it should be cast in small blocks of not more than half a hundredweight each, and in order that it may be lifted with ease, each block should be provided with a handle. Lead being very heavy, and therefore occupying little space in a boat, is the most convenient form of ballast, but it is also by far the most expensive. The iron half-hundredweights with handles at the top, which can be purchased at any marine store dealer’s, are nearly as convenient as lead weights, and are very cheap.
Battens should be nailed to the bottom of the boat to keep the ballast in its place, otherwise it might slide to leeward in a squall and cause a capsize.
Stones and bags of sand are often employed as ballast, but water contained in small barrels, or, better still, in metal tanks, shaped so as to fit closely into the bottom of the boat, is far the safest ballast that can be used. For if a boat provided with water ballast capsize and fill she will be no heavier than if she contained no ballast, and, consequently, she will not sink.
Another advantage of water ballast is that it can be pumped out to lighten the boat when a calm necessitates the use of oars, and be quickly admitted again when a breeze springs up and the sail is hoisted. Again, when the water-tanks are empty the boat is practically converted into a lifeboat, and if a sea fill her she will still float.
The advantages of water over other forms of ballast are so numerous that nothing else would be used in small boats were it not for the great amount of space it occupies; and so serious is this objection that one but rarely comes across a boat thus ballasted.
The Centre-Board.—In England the centre-board of a small boat is generally of galvanized iron; thus acting also, to some extent, as ballast. In America wooden centre-boards are more often used. If a boat has often to be beached or carried, lightness is an important object, and therefore the wooden centre-board is to be preferred. One objection to the centre-board is that its trunk or case occupies so much space in the interior of the boat. A telescopic or fan centre-board has recently been invented which folds up into itself when hauled up, and therefore requires no trunk. We believe, however, that this is only adapted for canoes and other very small boats.
False Keels.—If the tyro lives by the sea it is very likely that he will commence his nautical career by becoming the proud possessor of some old yacht’s dinghy or ship’s boat, which, when he puts sail on her, runs before the wind to his complete satisfaction, but is too shallow to turn to windward. Now, to put a centre-board into a boat that has not been expressly built for one is an expensive and generally unsatisfactory job, but any carpenter can nail a false keel on to the old one, and so give the boat the necessary draught at a small expense. A false keel should be rounded up towards the bow and stern, and have its greatest depth some way abaft the middle of the boat.
Lee-Boards.—The tyro will find lee-boards even less expensive and possibly more effective than a false keel, and when they are raised the boat will row more easily than if she were provided with the latter. There is some prejudice against lee-boards in England, and to eyes unaccustomed to see them on pleasure craft they appear ugly, but in Holland no boat or yacht is without them.
Large lee-boards are made in several sections, and are strengthened with iron bands, while they require a good deal of gear to support and raise them; but the author has found that with a small boat the following simple method of fitting lee-boards proved very satisfactory.
The shape and position of this lee-board is shown in (Fig. 24. It is cut out of one plank and has no iron fittings, and
Fig. 24.
it is between three and four feet in length. The inner side is flat. The outer side, as represented in the diagram, maintains the thickness of the plank at the head and down the middle, and is thence planed away to a narrow edge. A rope is rove through a hole at the head of the lee-board, and passing over the gunwale is secured to a cleat. Another rope rove through a hole at the bottom of the lee-board is led aft and serves to raise it, while the first rope serves as a pivot. When the lee-boards are not required they can be brought on board and placed at the bottom of the boat. If the boat is wall-sided, that is, has perpendicular sides, the lee-boards can rest against these; but if, as is the case with most boats, her sides fall in beneath, wooden pillows must be fastened on the outside of the boat to support the lee-boards and keep them at the right angle; or, and this is sometimes the better plan, battens of the requisite breadth are nailed on the lee-boards themselves. In working lee-boards the lee one is lowered and the weather one hauled up, and when the boat is running both are raised. All those who are accustomed to the use of lee-boards speak well of them, and they certainly have some advantages over centre-boards, notably, that if the boat runs aground, they will not bend, break off, or strain the boat, as is often the case with a centre-board.
Counters, Square and Pointed Sterns.—Whatever it may be on a yacht, a counter or overhanging stern is not an ornament on a small boat, being, as it is, the very reverse of useful; and to the educated eye the useful and beautiful go together in boats, as they do in many other things. In rough water, if a sea strike a boat under the counter a variety of disagreeable results may ensue; for instance, the boat’s bows may be driven under, or she may broach to, that is, be driven broadside on to the sea, and be swamped by the next wave.
A square stern, as is usual in small boats, is far better than a counter; but far better still, for a boat intended to be out in rough water, is the pointed stern. Such a boat is undoubtedly safer, especially when running before a sea, and we maintain that she will be faster as well. All lifeboats are thus constructed. The author was caught in a north-west gale in the Gulf of Heligoland last summer, and had to sail sixty miles before a high and dangerous sea. He was in a little yacht of three tons, which had a pointed stern. She showed no tendency to broach to, but rushed straight ahead across the steep sea in a fashion that gave us confidence and astonished us. Had she had the ordinary yacht’s stern to present to those following masses of water instead of a graceful wedge offering little resistance, we should have had a very uncomfortable time of it. Many men dislike a pointed stern, and consider it ugly. However that may be, it behaves handsomely, and we should certainly recommend any amateur building a sailing-boat for coasting purposes to give her the lifeboat stern.
Battened Sails.—Battens of pine tapering at the ends, are sometimes fastened to the reef bands of balance lugs and other sails in use on small boats.
The object of battens is to make a sail stand very flat. Another advantage gained by the use of these is that if one is sailing a boat alone, a reef can be taken down in a moment with one hand while the halyard is being slacked off a sufficient length with the other. This is done by means of a line which, when hauled taut, draws the boom and batten close together. It is not necessary to tie down reef points in a sail reefed as above, but to do so makes a much neater reef.
Battens are of great service on the sails of canoes and very small craft, but they make a larger sail somewhat heavy and clumsy to handle.
CHAPTER V.
THE RIGS OF SMALL BOATS.
Spritsails—Dipping lugs—Standing lugs—Leg-of-mutton sails—The balance lug—The Una rig—Balance reefs—The sloop—Rules of open boat sailing.
The Spritsail rig is much used on small boats all round the coast of England. It is an exceedingly handy and safe rig, and the spritsail will set flatter and is better adapted for turning to windward than almost any other form of sail. It has no boom or gaff, but is extended by a long diagonal spar called the sprit, which tapers away at the two extremities, the upper end of it fitting into an eye on the peak, the lower end fitting into a loop on the mast called the snotter. The snotter (see (Fig. 25) is a grommet which is placed round the mast, and then seized in the middle so as to form an eye for the sprit.
Fig. 25.
Fig. 26.
In using this rig, the sail is hoisted first; one end of the sprit is inserted into the eye of the peak, and then the other end is inserted into the snotter. Lastly, the snotter is pushed up the mast as far as it will go, bringing the sail quite flat. It is well to have a tackle for hoisting the snotter and preventing it from slipping down the mast. It is important that the snotter should be quite sound. There is a great strain on it, and should it break, the sprit end may drive a hole through the bottom of a boat or work some other serious damage.
A spritsail can be brailed up along the mast in a moment by means of a line leading through a block on the mast and passing round the sail. A glance at any Thames sailing barge at anchor will show how this is done.
An old ship’s long-boat provided with a sprit mainsail, sprit mizzen, and jib, as in (Fig. 26, is a very convenient sort craft in which to take one’s first lessons in sailing. When it blows hard the mainsail can be stowed, and the boat will sail under jib and mizzen, or these last two sails can be taken in and the mainsail alone be left standing.
The mizzen sheet, it will be observed, is rove through a sheave-hole at the end of a bumpkin, a small fixed spar projecting from the stern of the boat.
The Dipping Lug is a powerful sail very well adapted for sea work, and a favourite with fishermen and other professional sailors, but it cannot be recommended to the amateur; for at every tack the sail has to be lowered and passed round to the other side of the mast. This necessitates plenty of sea room, and would be an awkward operation to undertake while turning up a narrow and crowded channel. To handle a dipping lug with safety in a stiff breeze requires considerable experience both on the part of the steersman and of the hand or hands to whom the dipping of the sail is entrusted.
Any one who wishes to rig a boat in this fashion should read W. H. S.’s description, in the Yacht Racing Calendar and Review for this year, of a very useful invention of his, whereby the dipping of a lug is made easy and the possibility of bungling in tacking reduced to a minimum.
The Standing Lug, though not so powerful a sail as the dipping lug, is far more convenient; as the sail has not to be lowered in tacking. The tack, instead of being carried forward, is brought down to the mast, where it is hooked on to an iron hook if the sail be a small one, and if the sail be a large one it is fitted with a tackle, so that the tack can be bowsed down after the sail is hoisted. The yard is swung at about one-third of its length, where it has a strop to pass over the hook on the traveller—an iron ring on the mast to which the end of the halyard is attached, and which prevents the sail blowing away from the mast.
Fig. 27.
In order to ensure a lug sail that will stand well, the peak should be cut high, as in the drawing. It is a common fault to cut the head of a lug sail too square. Such a sail can never be made to set flatly. A short beamy dinghy with one lug is a handy little craft for the amateur; but if the boat is a long one she will be better with a jib and mizzen, as in (Fig. 27.
The Leg-of-Mutton Sail.—A very handy rig and one that requires no spars but the masts is that represented in (Fig. 28. The masts though long are slight, as there is little strain on them. Each sail is hoisted to its masthead by one halyard, and its luff is kept close to the mast by hoops or more usually by a lacing. A boat thus rigged is possibly the safest of any, and is not easily capsized.
Fig. 28.
The rigs we have so far described are well adapted for a novice, insomuch as they need no booms. As soon as a sail is provided with a boom the danger of sailing is much increased. If you let go the sheet of a sail that has no boom—a spritsail, for instance—it flaps away from the mast innocently like a flag. Put a boom on it, and you at once have a great surface of canvas extended rigidly and offering the greatest possible resistance to the wind. When running before a strong wind a jibe, and especially if it be an unpremeditated jibe, of a sail bent on to a long boom becomes a source of danger.
Thus a green hand or a careless person cannot be safely trusted with a boom sail on a squally day; but when the novice has acquired the rudiments of sailing, and employs that constant caution and watchfulness of his ever-open weather-eye which are indispensable qualities for a sailor, he will most certainly, and very rightly too, prefer the boom sail. For a sail that has no boom is most unsatisfactory if one wishes to get any speed out of a boat. When running free it curves into a bag, and only presents half its area to the wind. It never stands flat, except when the boat is close-hauled, and not always then, unless the sheet is led exactly to the right place; and though a sail without a boom jibes with greater safety, it is much more liable to accidental jibes than one with a boom.
The Balance Lug.—The favourite sail for small centre-board craft in England is undoubtedly the balance lug. Most of the racing boats on the Upper Thames are fitted with this sail; some have jibs, others jibs and mizzens, besides the mainsail; but we will confine ourselves to describing the single-sail centre-board dinghy, which little craft is perhaps unrivalled for the purpose of single-handed sailing on a river.
A handy boat is one fifteen feet long, with five feet beam. She should have a flat floor, and therefore shallow draught. The mast is supported with wire shrouds, and is fitted into what is called a tabernacle, that is, a wooden case for the heel of the mast, having a pivot through it, on which pivot the mast is easily lowered when the boat is passing under a bridge.
The sail, as is shown in (Fig. 29, is hoisted on a yard similar to that of a standing lug, but the foot of the sail is laced to a boom, and extends some distance in front of the mast. One end of the tack is fastened to the boom, where it crosses the mast, and the other end of it is secured to the mast.
Fig. 29.
The tack is a most important rope in a balance-lug boat, for after the sail has been hoisted with the halyard and it is required to give that last haul on the sail which brings it to its proper tautness, a much smaller amount of power will do this when applied to the tack than if applied to the halyard. An efficient tack purchase is what is known as a watch tackle, which is represented in (Fig. 12. When after sailing awhile the ropes have stretched, and the sail is no longer flat, it is with this tackle, and not with the halyard, that one sets it up again. A balance lug requires more frequent setting up to preserve its flatness than any other sort of sail.
In a small dinghy, no purchase is needed for the halyards; the sail will lower more easily and quicker without one. The tabernacle also is unnecessary, as the mast can be easily unstepped.
The sail is kept close to the mast by an iron traveller; but if the sail be cut with a high peak it will be found that the traveller has a tendency to prevent the sail from lowering completely. A traveller is also liable to jam if the mast is not kept well greased.
On this account the iron traveller is dispensed with on most of the Upper Thames boats, and instead of it, a line is fastened to the yard, which passes round the mast and is rove through an eye on the yard. When the sail is up, this line is hauled taut, and prevents the yard from blowing away from the mast. This method will be understood by referring to (Fig. 30.
Fig. 30.
A well-cut balance lug properly hoisted should be nearly as flat as a board. The fact of the tack being some way down the boom prevents the pressure of the wind from lifting the after-end of the boom and so forming a belly in the sail, as is the case with the ordinary fore-and-aft sail. A balance-lug sail is always rigid; the boom and yard can only move together, and this rigidity renders it somewhat unfit for rough water, where it is apt to considerably strain mast and boat.
The balance lug is rather an awkward sail to lower, and as it is impossible to brail it up, or lower the peak, or trice up the tack to temporarily reduce the canvas in a squall, as can be done with other rigs, the sail has to be lowered bodily if the boat is overpowered by the wind. Thus, if one is overtaken by a violent squall while running before the wind, the balance lug is perhaps the most dangerous sail one can have on a boat.
So as to facilitate reefing, a grommet is sometimes placed on each reef cringle at the luff of a balance-lug sail. In taking down a reef, the fore end of the boom is thrust into this eye and an earing is thus dispensed with.
The usual method of fitting the sheet of a balance-lug sail is to fasten one end of it to one side of the stern, and then to lead it through a single block strapped on to the boom, and through another block fastened to the other side of the stern.
The Una Rig.—Whereas the balance lug is the favourite English rig for small river craft, the Cat or Una rig is generally preferred by the Americans, and it undoubtedly possesses some important advantages over the other rig.
The cat boat (Fig. 31), being intended for very shallow waters, has the least possible draught. This boat, consequently, has great beam, and is often quite flat-bottomed. The centre-board is of wood or iron. The mast is stepped much more forward than in a balance-lug boat, and carries one large sail laced to a boom and gaff. The cat boat, in our opinion, will turn to windward in smooth water even more smartly than a balance lug, and as a rule will row more easily, for the displacement is very small, and in consequence of the stability given by the great beam, little, often no, ballast is used.
In England, it is usual for a Una boat to have but one halyard, which serves to hoist both peak and throat. We prefer two halyards, one for the throat, one for the peak, the latter leading aft, so that it can be let go in a squall, and thus reduce the sail by one-half.
Fig. 31.
The author had recently a good deal of experience in an eighteen-foot cat boat among the quays of the Gulf of Mexico and on an extensive lake in Florida, and he came to the conclusion that for such work the cat rig was far handier than the balance lug, especially when, as was often the case, there was a large party of ladies on board.
This was an entirely open boat, carrying no ballast, and having a wooden centre-board. She was therefore very light for her size, and could be rowed with singular ease.
The lake was subject to sudden and violent squalls, and it was very convenient to be able to let go the peak halyards without leaving the tiller, and have them up again in a moment as soon as the squall had passed, without disturbing the passengers in the least. Had the sail been the uncompromising balance lug, the whole sail would have had to be lowered in a body on to the heads of the passengers.
A topping lift, always belayed so as to feel the weight of the boom, is indispensable in a cat boat, else the end of the boom would drop into the water when the peak was lowered.
Strong winds would spring up suddenly on this lake, so that the boat would be quite overpowered even under close-reefed sail, and it became impossible to tack home until the wind dropped. Neither was it possible to row back, for the very lightness of a cat boat renders her a troublesome boat to pull against the wind. She is blown over the surface of the water before the wind, despite all the efforts of the oarsman. Now, as the swamps which surround this lake also made it out of the question to land and walk home, one was liable to find one’s self weather-bound among the dismal cypress swamps at the further end of the lake for three days at a stretch while a “norther” was blowing. The author almost entirely did away with the chance of such an unpleasant adventure by putting what is known as a balance reef into the sail, a plan he strongly recommends to all those who would sail Una boats or small sloops on broad waters liable to sudden storms.
The Balance Reef (Fig. 31) extends diagonally across the sail from the throat to the clews. In taking in this reef, the jaws of the gaff are lowered till they touch the boom, and are there tied. The fall of the throat halyards will do for this purpose. When the reef has been taken down and the peak is hoisted again, it will be found that the gaff is nearly parallel to the mast, and a very snug little triangular sail is formed, under which the boat will tack or run—with boom well topped up—with safety; and the moment the peak halyard is let go, down the sail will fall into the bottom of the boat without making any fuss.
The boat we are speaking of was remarkably cranky, but she would behave well in a strong gale under her balance reef.
The balance reef is much employed by our fishermen and coasters, but scarcely ever on board yachts. I believe that many amateurs consider this, together with some other useful wrinkles, to be unyachty.
From what we have said, it will be seen that the Una rig offers many advantages over its rival, the balance lug, but it likewise has some serious disadvantages.
The Una boat is not easily capsized—the beam prevents that—but she soon becomes altogether overpowered by sea and wind. Like all flat-bottomed boats, she pounds heavily into a head sea and is very wet. The weight of the mast, being so far forward, makes her somewhat liable to run her nose under water and fill. She steers wildly too before a sea, and will broach to more readily than other boats, while the length of her boom renders an accidental jibe dangerous.
The Sloop.—Boats and small yachts are often sloop-rigged.
There is considerable discrepancy of opinion as to what constitutes the difference between a sloop and a cutter. At any rate, the generally understood distinction among boating men in England is, rightly or wrongly, that whereas a sloop’s forestay is carried to the end of a fixed bowsprit or an iron bumpkin, the forestay of a cutter is carried to the stem of the vessel; and thus the sloop can only set one large foresail, instead of a foresail and a jib as a cutter does.
We will adopt this definition of a sloop, which is represented in Fig. 32. As the rig is in every other respect the same as that of a cutter, we will reserve an explanation of its different parts till the next chapter, wherein the cutter rig will be discussed.
Fig. 32.
The sloop rig is not one to be altogether recommended, except for racing purposes on a river. For cruising purposes, if the boat be a small one, one of the rigs above mentioned is preferable to the sloop rig. If the boat be a good-sized one, it is better to make a cutter or yawl yacht of her at once; for a sloop’s big foresail is an awkward sail to handle in rough weather.
The following important rules apply to the sailing of open boats, such as we have described in this chapter:—
Carefully coil your halyards after hoisting sail, so that they will not get entangled and jam if you have to let go in a hurry.
See that your mainsheet is coiled out of every one’s way. Many a boat has been capsized owing to a man’s leg getting entangled in a sheet.
Do not belay your mainsheet, but hold it in your hand; if the strain be great, take one turn with the sheet round a cleat or pin.
Sit to windward while steering.
If struck by a squall, luff up to it, or ease the sheet, or do both.
Always luff up in the wind before hoisting or lowering sail.
Never climb the mast of a small boat. If anything is wrong aloft, lower the mast to set it right.
Belay a halyard by taking a few turns round its cleat. Do not put a half-hitch on the top of the turns.
Do not jibe in the middle of a squall, if you can avoid doing so. If a jibe is unavoidable, lower your peak first; haul in your mainsheet, and pay it out on the other side, so as to lessen the jerk as the boat jibes.
If it is blowing hard, and all your crew are sitting to windward, remember that a sudden drop in the wind may cause the boat to capsize to windward. Unless your companions are experienced boatmen, do not carry so much sail as to necessitate their all sitting to windward.