YACHT CRUISING.* FOB those who cruise in yachts without professional
help Dr. Claud Worth's book is sure to be reckoned in future as indispensable. It is one of the great books on the technique of yachting, full of enthusiasm and knowledge. Dr. Worth calls his book a second edition, but as it has been greatly enlarged, and as what has been added is, in our opinion, more important than what has survived, it is fair to regard the whole volume as a new book. The public has no real conception of how much the sport of yacht-cruising owes to amateurs. These amateurs, with their high nautical abilities, did very valuable service in the war. The professional skipper, wonderfully good though he is at handling a vessel, has no great liking for sailing in small vessels or open boats. If amateurs had not taken their own line in this matter there would have been very few of the adventurous voyages in small vessels which are now on record.
Dr. Worth pays well-deserved tributes in .various parts of his book to the late Mr. McMullen. In his diaries of his cruises entitled Down Channel—a work which ever grows in popularity and is the Bible of the single-handed cruiser—Mr. McMullen describes how little enterprise there was in the sailing of small yachts when he first took to yachting under the tutelage of a professional. One day when a heavy squall was seen approach- ing the skipper of the little vessel, instead of making his charges carry on and reduce sail under those most instructive conditions, ordered all sails to bo lowered, and anchored until the weather improved. After such experiences as that Mr. McMullen determined to become his own skipper, and he was the first to discover and to preach the comparative safety which quite a small vessel may enjoy at sea. The truth, well understood now, is that in heavy weather a small boat is much safer far out at sea than near the land. Many vessels have been overwhelmed in the confused and fierce seas which run in shoal water because the mistake was committed of running for harbour when safety should really have been sought far out at sea. In deep water the waves have a regular rhythmical motion. To those who are not versed in these matters it seems astonishing that a small boat should be safe when large sailing vessels and even great liners are making terrible heavy weather of it. It must be explained that a liner may straddle several seas at once, and is thus subjected to strains and shocks from which a little vessel nestling in the curve of a wave may be quite free. Again, a heavily laden ship has none of the cork-like buoyancy of the yacht. Mr. McMullen always used to advise his disciples— Dr. Worth among them—either to get to harbour before it was too late or to keep off the land. Sounder advice was never given, and there are hundreds of owners of small yachts who now follow it with complete confidence.
It might be thought that the competition in adventurous cruises—for there are clubs and associations which give prizes for the beat cruises of the season—would lead to undertakings which could not really be justified from the point of view of sound seamanship. The true seaman never takes wanton risks. But in judging the cruises it is fortunately the practice of all reputable clubs to take into account the exercise of proper precautions. When the Royal Cruising Club a few years ago awarded its principal prize to the owner of a twelve-tonner who navigated his yacht from England to the White Sea, they did so not because the yachtsman had reached the White Sea, but because in doing so he did not fail to take every reasonable precaution for his safety. Danger, of course, there is, but it is danger of the degree which is regarded as justifiable in other sports such as big game shooting, mountaineering, and so forth. As Dr. Worth says in his preface, yacht cruising may be either a sport or a pastime. To make an open sea cruise in a seaworthy little yacht without being unduly anxious about the weather, and having confidence in one's knowledge and skill to overcome • Yacht Cruising. By Claud Worth. London : J. D. Potter. RM.]
such difficulties as may arise, is a sport. To sail from port to port by easy stages in selected weather is a paatime--certainly a, very pleasant one.
Just as Mr. McMullen invented the plan of booming out a large headsail on the opposite side of the vessel to the mainsail when running before the wind, and thus began the development which culminated in the use of the modern racing spinnaker, so Dr. Worth, his most eminent disciple, is responsible for various "wrinkles" which have become of great use to other yachtsmen. He was the first, we believe, to think of hanging a weight to an anchor chain in such a way as to prevent the chain becoming too suddenly taut when a yacht is snubbing in a heavy sea. A surprisingly small anchor will hold a yacht if you can make sure that the anchor is not subjected to unnecessary jerks. The weight on the anchor chain, which is lowered down from the bows of the vessel, obviously makes the chain straighten out much more slowly than it would otherwise do when the yacht is hit by a heavy sea. The chain, instead of becoming taut with a bang, has a, certain elasticity. With the help of his device—which many yachtsmen greatly prefer to any buffer yet invented—Dr. Worth has comfortably ridden out many hard blows on indifferent holding ground.
Another matter in which Dr. Worth is an adept is the use of the drogue or sea-anchor. A tight little vessel will survive almost any weather if she is in deep water with a rhythmical sea and can be kept head to wind. The drogue is a. conical- shaped canvas bag with a large hoop round the mouth. It is attached to a rope, which is paid out over the bows, and the vessel rides to it. Of course, the vessel drifts to a certain extent, though the hold of the drogue upon the sea is very con- siderable. The drogue can be used only when the yachtsman, has plenty of sea room—another argument for being well off the land in bad weatler. Some yachts will lie head to sea when the drogue is in use without any canvas, but other vessels need a little help, by means of a small sail set aft, to keep them in the eye of the wind. The drogue is also invaluable when an open boat is being taken through surf to the shore or in any following sea. The danger which besets all vessels in a heavy following sea is that they may broach to ; that is to say, the stern may be thrown up when the bows are buried and tho vessel may turn broadside on to the seas and bo filled, capsized, or crushed. The present writer has found in conversation with professional skippers that they will often say that the way of safety in a bad following sea is to keep ahead of the seas. But that is not possible, even if you could crowd on all sail. The rush of a breaking sea is very fast indeed, and you want to be not just ahead of a bursting wave, but just behind it. In prac- tice the professional skipper hardly ever makes a mistake, but when he is trying to explain things to you he will often give absurd reasons and propound ridiculous doctrines. The drogue when used in surf is towed over the stern of the boat. We think it was that daring seaman Captain Voss—though he was a professional—who used to give demonstrations of the use of the drogue in heavy surf on the New Zealand coast and else- where. When a drogue is dragging behind a boat it can easily be " capsized "—that is to say, the water in it can be spilled out —by the use of a tripping line attached to the apex. When the water has been released from the drogue it will bob along the top of the water, with its nose pointing towards the stern of the boat, and it can be caused to fill again by once more releasing
the tripping line. What Captain Voss used to do when running before the surf was to watch the dangerous seas over his shoulder as they curled behind him. When he saw a sea about to break— such a sea as would undoubtedly have caused his boat to broach to and fill—he let his drogue fill. The way of the boat was instantly checked and the sea passing under him burst harm- lessly in front.
Those who are in doubt about the possibility of bringing a very small vessel through the worst weather which we need reckon upon in these islands should read Dr. Worth's account of the memorable gale of September, 1890. But above all they should read Dr. Worth's masterly chapter on the management of yachts in bad weather. Yachtsmen owe much to various English writers from Mr. McMullen onwards who have had not only a real knowledge of yachting but have been able to write clearly. Mr. E. F. Knight—though the present writer has not always been able to agree with his advice about the choice of boats—and Mr. F. B. Cooke have been excellent mentors to their generation.
We have not space to say more, but the yachting enthusiast will discover endless sources of delight in Dr. Worth's discussions of the designs of cruising yachts, of the comparative merits of various forms of rig, and of the different timbers used in yacht- building.
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