Harper's Round Table, September 17, 1895 Part 7

Both of his island and t.i.tle bereft, Lucky indeed that his razor was left.

But hickety, pickety, John Cabot Really discovered a brand-new spot.

THE RACING YACHT OF TO-DAY.

BY L. A. TEREBEL.

When the _America's_ Cup was first contested for, a good many years ago, the boats that competed for it were out-and-out yachts--pleasure craft that could be of service to their owners for other purposes besides cup-hunting and cup-defending. But the craft that we see taking part in the international races nowadays are nothing more nor less than racing-machines. These are built solely to take part in the struggle with the Britisher, just as the Britisher is built solely to sail against the fastest Yankee: and after the cup contests are over these $250,000 beauties are of no further use, except, of course, to win other races. When I say that they are of no further use, I do not mean this statement to be taken as literally true, because the boats can be reconstructed and remodelled for cruising purposes, and sometimes are, but they cannot be used for anything but racing when in the condition they appear in at the starting-line. Many people not particularly interested in yachting cannot see why rich men should put a quarter of a million of dollars into a boat which, after it has sailed against an English yacht, will only bring about $10,000 in open market. They argue that the end of sport would be just as well served by the racing of smaller boats, and Lord Dunraven himself has been reported as saying he thought it would be advisable to restrict the length of the racers to seventy-five feet. A few years ago there were no such restrictions, but when _Puritan_ was built to meet _Genesta_ it was mutually decided by the Englishmen and the Americans that the sloops should not exceed ninety feet on the water-line.

But the builders have to a certain extent neutralized this rule by giving their yachts such an overhang fore and aft that they can stand much more sail than other sloops of larger dimensions. We have probably reached the limit in expense of yacht-building this year, however, and I doubt if any cup defender will ever be built to cost more than the present one. A new cla.s.s, called half-raters (restricted to 15 feet racing length), is coming into popularity, and the Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club is to hold international races of boats of that kind next month. This new cla.s.s in international matches will doubtless claim some of the interest that has been given to the giant single-stickers, and in years to come the expense involved in the defense of the _America's_ Cup ought not to be so excessive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DEFENDER."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "VALKYRIE."

THE CHALLENGER AND DEFENDER OF THE "AMERICA'S" CUP IN DRY DOCK.]

But to return to the yachts themselves, and to what I said about their uselessness as cruisers. The _Valkyrie_ that sailed against _Defender_ on September 7th was not the _Valkyrie_ that crossed the ocean in August. The racer is an empty sh.e.l.l, with a towering mast and thousands of square feet of sail, whereas the travelling _Valkyrie_ was the home of the forty or forty-five men who const.i.tuted her crew, and she was a two-masted craft--with stubby masts at that. As the one aim of both _Valkyrie_ and _Defender_ is to attain the highest possible speed, everything is done that experience and money can do to make the boats as light and as swift-sailing as possible. The one thought of the builders from the moment they got the orders to design the yachts was to make the shape of each boat the best to cut through the water, and the sails the most efficient to catch every breath of air stirring overhead.

In order that his rival might not know what kind of a boat was going to be turned out, both the English and the American architects worked with the greatest secrecy, and even after the boats had been launched and seen by the public their true measurements were withheld. But enough is known about the construction of racing sloops in general, and sufficient has leaked out about the building of _Defender_ in particular, for us to have a pretty good knowledge of the boat that was depended upon to keep the _America's_ Cup on this side of the water.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DEFENDER"]

About three months were required for the construction of _Defender_. She was built at Bristol, Rhode Island. The plans were first fully discussed by the owners and the architect and his a.s.sistants, and were then laid out on paper to a scale, probably one inch to the foot--although this would make a pretty large working plan. But still, the larger a plan is the better, and in an important matter of this kind no pains are spared to reach perfection. A model of a yacht under construction is unnecessary, and is seldom made, except for the pleasure or curiosity of the owner.

It was decided to give up the centreboard this year--much to the disappointment of a great many patriotic yachtsmen, for the centreboard is a purely American inst.i.tution--and the plans were consequently designed for a keel boat. _Defender_'s keel is of lead, and weighs 80 tons. It is 5 feet 6 inches high, 3 feet 6 inches wide, and 35 feet long on top, and was cast in the shop where the yacht was built, for such a weight as that could not very well be moved from one end of a ship-yard to the other. A cross section of this lead keel would look very much like the cross section of a pear cut lengthwise, with the bulge at the bottom. Fore and aft it is shaped somewhat like a whale or a cat-fish--that is, it is largest forward and tapers toward the stern.

This doubtless seems strange to a great many un.o.bservant landsmen, who know that ships are usually made as pointed and sharp as possible at the bow. This is all very well for a body that is intended to cut through the water, but for anything meant to travel under the surface the fish shape is the proper thing. All fish are larger at the head than at the tail, and yet they seem to find no difficulty in getting through the water very rapidly. Following this natural phenomenon, the keel of _Defender_ is bulging at the bow and tapering at the stern.

Just, as the size and position of every stone in a large building are figured out before the work is begun, so was every part of _Defender_ designed and laid out in the mould loft at Bristol long before the actual work of construction could commence. The mould loft is a very large room, with a s.p.a.cious floor and plenty of light. On the floor every part of _Defender_ was sketched out in chalk to the actual size required. Every beam and section was accurately laid down, and the workmen made wooden moulds or patterns from these sketches. To these wooden moulds the metal ribs and frames were afterwards bent. This work was done on the "bending table" by methods fully described in an article on ship-building published in No. 784 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE. When the steel ribs were satisfactorily completed, and had been found to be exactly as designed in the mould loft, they were taken into the shed where the yacht was being constructed. This shed, by-the-way, was a harder place to get into than the palace of the Czar. The doors were kept locked all the time, and watchmen were on duty day and night to drive away intruders. Only the owners, the architects, and the workmen were permitted to enter.

The keel, which is made of cast bra.s.s in three sections, was bolted to the lead with great screws from six to eight inches long, and the ribs were riveted to the keel and steadied across the top with wooden cross spalls until the deck beams were ready to be put on. The latter are of aluminium bronze. Everything in the make up of the yacht so far has been metal, and everything will be metal to the end. Even the stern and stem are bra.s.s castings, and there is no wood in the body of _Defender_, except the deck, which is of 24-inch light pine. The two or three part.i.tions inside of her are made of canvas stretched on light pine frames, and the only other wood on board is in the mast. Even the boom is metal--that is, since _Valkyrie_ came over with a steel boom.

To the ribs were riveted the plates, which are of manganese bronze, which is a kind of refined bra.s.s, only three-sixteenths of an inch thick, and the upper two streaks are of aluminium. This aluminium is said to be almost pure, and is the lightest metal known.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "VALKYRIE."]

_Valkyrie_ is not such a metallic boat as _Defender_. She is of the composite type. Her stem and stern are of wood, and she is planked on the outside with American elm below water and spruce on top. This elm is an excellent wood for yacht construction. It will not decay if kept under water, but spoils if allowed to be wet and dry by turns. It is used a great deal in England, and yet, strange as this may seem, it cannot be bought in the New York lumber market. It is scarcely known here. It comes from Canada, in the neighborhood of Quebec, and the whole supply is shipped to England. In Canada the elms are grown in plantations, and cultivated so that they are straighter and taller than those we have in the United States. Here elm is seldom used in the construction of ships except for knees. It is also a favorite wood for the hubs of wheels. But this elm is the common elm, not the American elm of the English market, which, as I have said, is hardly ever seen on this coast.

But although _Valkyrie_'s hull and stern are of wood, her frames are of nickel steel strapped together with steel ribbons running at an angle.

Thus, before her planking was put on, she must have looked like a huge steel basket.

The masts of both yachts are of Oregon pine. And with regard to this Oregon pine another peculiar feature of the Atlantic coast lumber market becomes apparent. Ten years ago Oregon pine was not known here.

Ship-builders did not use it. But the Britishers did, and all the Oregon pine that could be purchased used to be shipped to England in sailing-vessels that went around Cape Horn from Puget Sound. When our ship-builders finally discovered that this pine was about the best that could be had for masts and spars, they tried to buy some, but they found they had to go to English markets to get it. Within the past few years, however, more and more Oregon pine has been offered for sale on this coast, and it is probable that _Defender_'s mast was not imported from England. The first boom of _Defender_ was also of Oregon pine. This boom cost nearly $2000, and was built like a barrel, or rather like two barrels--one on the outside of the other. This was to give additional strength. The inner boom was hooped together with steel bands, and then the outer layer of pine staves was fitted on and hooped with bra.s.s rings. But when _Valkyrie_ appeared in dry dock here and began to put on her racing togs, the _Defender_ syndicate saw the Britisher's steel boom, and forthwith set about to build one like it. _Valkyrie_'s boom is the first of the kind ever seen in this country, and probably the first of the kind ever made. Some of the big sailing ships of commerce have had steel yards, and racing-boats abroad have sometimes been fitted with spars of drawn steel; but nothing like this boom of _Valkyrie_ had ever before been attempted. It is hollow, of course, and although of steel, is about one ton lighter than the pine boom that _Defender_ first carried. The American yacht's steel boom is now a counterpart of her rival's. It is made in sections that are riveted together through f.l.a.n.g.es that project on the outer side. It is built on the plan of an elevated railroad pillar, and looks very much like one, being of about the same thickness, only round instead of square, and about twice as long as the average elevated-road pillar is high.

The sails of the racers are probably the most wonderful part of their whole make up. _Defender_, when she has her mainsail, her jib, her jib topsail, her staysail, and her working topsail up, carries 12,000 square feet of canvas. And when she subst.i.tutes for these working-sails her balloon jib, her club topsail, and puts out her spinnaker she almost doubles that area. These sails cost thousands of dollars, because there must be several of each in case of accident to one or another, and for use in the different kinds of wind that may prevail in a race. There is a heavy mainsail for strong winds, of sea-island cotton or Egyptian cotton or ramie cloth, while the jibs are made of lighter grades of the same material, until they come down to the const.i.tuency of a coa.r.s.e pocket-handkerchief. One of _Defender_'s spinnakers is of Scotch linen.

In 1893 it was reported that one of _Valkyrie II._'s big spinnakers was of silk, but it was not; it was of exceedingly fine Irish linen.

Taking all these matters into account, and considering that each boat must have from forty to fifty sailors to man her, it becomes evident that the building and maintaining of such a yacht is a matter of no small expense. Mr. George Gould spent no less than $40,000 to put _Vigilant_ in condition to race with _Defender_ in the preliminary trials this year. The crew has to be engaged and trained for weeks before the racer is put into commission, and kept at work for a couple of months before the great contests for the Cup are held. These sailors, of course, cannot live on the yacht, since there is no room for bunks or lockers or a galley on the modern racing-machine. Therefore both _Defender_ and _Valkyrie_ have steam-tenders.

There is really something humorous about a crew of sailors leaving their hollow unbunked boat every evening to go to bed in a tender near by. At meal-time, too, the gallant tars have to seek their floating hotel. When _Defender_ was with the New York Yacht Squadron on this summer's cruise she reached port one evening ahead of most of the fleet, and of her slow consort. She was too deep of draught to get far into the harbor, and being a "racer" she had nothing aboard but men and sails, a small anchor, and a small dinghy. Consequently the crew sat on the deck for several hours, with their legs hanging over the sides, waiting for the _Hattie Palmer_ to come along and give them their supper.

A great number of Americans--and I am one of them--would have preferred to see _Defender_ built on the American centreboard plan, all of American material, and without borrowing British ideas, especially as to the boom. They were sorry to hear that Mr. Gould last year wanted Mr.

Ratsey, _Valkyrie_'s sail-maker, to make _Vigilant_'s sails, and they were very glad when the loyal and patriotic Ratsey (credit be to him for it!) refused to take the order. But, after all, this great number of Americans has nothing to say in the matter, and all they--and I--want is to see _Defender_ win by fair means the matches she was built to race in, and the Cup she was built to defend.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]

The only school in this country that I know of where rowing takes the leading position in sports is St. Paul's of Concord. There is rowing done at other schools, of course, as at Cascadilla, near Ithaca, and at St. John's, Delafield, Wisconsin, but at none of these inst.i.tutions has the art reached the stage of perfection which characterizes the work of the St. Paul's oarsmen. It is doubtless because rowing has been indulged in there for almost twenty-five years, whereas at the other schools I have mentioned boating is a comparative novelty. It is growing in popularity as a scholastic sport, however, and in a few years I have no doubt that every school situated close enough to a lake or a river will have a crew, just as almost every school nowadays has an eleven and a nine.

It was in 1871 that the two rowing clubs were formed at St. Paul's, and the scholars divided about evenly in the membership of each. Since then the interest and enthusiasm in the sport have grown so steadily, that the annual race in June between the Halcyon and Shattuck crews is looked upon as the princ.i.p.al athletic event of the school year. Each club puts three crews on the water--a first crew of eight men and a c.o.c.kswain, using a regular racing-sh.e.l.l; a second crew of six men and a c.o.c.kswain, using a gig; and a third crew of four men and a c.o.c.kswain, also using a gig. Captains are elected for every crew, and the captains of the first crews are the captains of their clubs. The rowing is done on Lake Penacook, which affords a very good mile-and-a-half course, and is within easy distance of the school buildings.

The first race between the rival clubs was held in 1871, the year of their organization. The crews rowed in four-oared barges over a two-mile course. The best time made was 8 minutes and 53 seconds. In 1874 the course was changed to 1-3/4 miles, and each club organized a second crew, owing to the increasing number of candidates for a seat in the boat. These crews also rowed in four-oared barges, as did the thirds, which were organized a few years later. In 1883 the first crews rowed in six-oared barges for the first time. The course was made two miles. This gave a new interest to the sport, and many fine oarsmen began to develop. The best time for the two miles was made in 12 minutes 32 seconds, which is a very good showing for a crew made up of novices. In 1891 the first crews of both clubs began to row in eights, and the course was made a mile and one-half without a turn. The fastest eight rowed over the course in 8 minutes 25 seconds, and although the crew of '94 claim 8 minutes and 8 seconds, the former figure stands as the record at the present time.

The routine of training is similar to that of the college crews. Soon after the Christmas recess all applicants are taken in charge by the trainer and the older men from former crews. The candidates are divided into squads and put to work at calisthenics, weight-pulling, and the first principles of rowing on the hydraulic rowing-machines. This goes on through the winter, and one by one the poorer material is dropped and the crews are chosen. As soon as the snow is off the ground the running begins; short distances at first, increasing to two or three miles. The gymnasium work meantime continues, and the mysteries of the stroke are gradually unfolded at the machines, and each member of the crew is coached, prodded, and scolded into proper form, until at Easter the men have learned the full stroke.

When the school reopens after the Easter recess the daily work continues, with practice in the water on a small pond by the gymnasium.

A working boat of two or four oars, with the coach for a c.o.c.kswain, is used for this purpose. As soon as the course at Lake Penacook is open the crews row there every afternoon, except Sundays, going and coming in four-horse barges. Here the drudgery stops, and the interesting though hard work begins. The coach shouts and gesticulates from a pair oar, men are changed about in the boats, c.o.c.kswains are taught to use the seemingly simple rudder, and the captains exhort their crews in language which strangers might consider superexpressive. When hands are surer and muscles harder the full course is attempted, and the time is taken. This is generally represented to the oarsmen as rather poor, and the necessity for doing better is constantly impressed upon them.

On account of the Vice-Rector's views as to how athletics should be conducted in his school, the date for the final race in June is never set or definitely announced much before the day of the event. This is done so that the good people of Concord shall not know when the races are to be, and may thus not avail themselves of the opportunity to see some good rowing. This spring, in order to carry this principle to an extreme, the races, as was told in this Department of July 2d, were rowed in the morning instead of in the afternoon, as has been usual, and only the members of the school knew of this in time to reach the sh.o.r.es of Penacook. There is always a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm displayed on the occasion of the contests, and at the close of the day the colors of the winning club are hoisted on the school flag-pole.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cochran, 3. Whitbeck, 5. Glidden, 2. Sturges, stroke.

Woodle, 7. Lockwood, bow. Small, 6 (Capt). Holly, 4.

THE SHATTUCK CREW.]

The crews this year were made up as follows:

SHATTUCK BOAT CLUB.

FIRST CREW.

Height. Weight. Age.

Walter K. Sturges, stroke 5 7-1/2 159 18 9 Allan S. Woodle, No. 7 5 10-1/2 164 17 2 George Small, No. 6 and Captain 5 11 170 17 7 Brainerd H. Whitbeck, No. 5 5 11 164 17 10 James K. Holly, No. 4 6 165 18 10 William F. Cochran, No. 3 5 8-3/4 134 19 4 John M. Glidden, No. 2 6 160 18 Henry M. Lockwood, bow 5 11-1/2 160 18 2 -------- ------- ----- Averages 5 10-1/2 159-1/2 18 3

c.o.c.kswain, Parker Whitney, weight 90 lbs.

SECOND CREW.

Height. Weight. Age.

Howard L. O'Fallon, stroke and Captain 5 7-1/2 140 18 2 Albert L. Nickerson, No. 5 6 1 165 18 James D. Ireland, No. 4 5 11-3/4 143 16 8 Frederick H. Brooke, No. 3 6 150 18 7 Crispin Oglebay, No. 2 5 8-1/2 160 18 George C Beack, bow 5 9 140 17 5 -------- ------- ----- Averages 5 10-1/2 149-2/3 17 8