Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/769

Rh YACHTING 723 but it was soon discovered that their timbers and scantlings were unnecessarily strong, and they were made much lighter. It was also found that the single-masted cutter was more weatherly than the brigs and schooners of the time, and the former rig was adopted for racing, and, as there was no time allowance for difference of size, they were all built of considerable dimensions. Among the earliest of which there is any record were the &quot;Pearl,&quot; 95 tons, built by Sainty at Wivenhoe near Colchester in 1820, for the mar quis of Anglesey, and the &quot;Arrow,&quot; 84 tons, originally 61 feet 9 1 inches long and 18 feet 5j- inches beam, built by Joseph Weld in 1822, which is still extant as a racing yacht, having been rebuilt and altered several times, and again entirely rebuilt in 1887-88. The Thames soon followed the example of the Solent and established the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1823, the Clyde founding the Royal Northern Yacht Club in 1824, and Plymouth the Royal Western in 1827. In this year the Royal Yacht Squadron passed a resolution disqualifying any member who should apply steam to his yacht, the enactment being aimed at T. Assheton Smith, an enthusiastic yachts man and fox-hunter, who was having a paddle-wheel steam yacht called the &quot;Menai&quot; built on the Clyde. In 1830 one of the largest cutters ever constructed was launched, viz., the &quot; Alarm,&quot; built by Inman at Lymington for Joseph Weld of Lulworth Castle, from the lines of a famous smuggler captured off the Isle of Wight. She was 82 feet on the load line by 24 feet beam, and was reckoned of 193 tons, old measurement, in which length, breadth, and half- breadth (supposed to represent depth) were the factors for computation. Some yachtsmen at this time preferred still larger vessels and owned square -topsail schooners and brigs like the man-o -war brigs of the day, such as the &quot; Waterwitch,&quot; 381 tons, built by White of Cowes, in 1832, for Lord Belfast, and the &quot;Brilliant,&quot; barque, 493 tons, belonging to J. Holland Ackers, who invented a scale of time allowance for competitive sailing. In 1834 the first royal cup was given by William IV. to the Royal Yacht Squadron a gift which has been continued ever since (except in 1862, when it was dropped for one year, owing to the death of the Prince Consort), and in recent years supplemented by similar gifts to other clubs. In 1836 the Royal Eastern Yacht Club was founded at Gran ton near Edinburgh; in 1838 the Royal St George s at Kingstown and the Royal London ; in 1843 the Royal Southern at Southampton and the Royal Harwich ; in 1844 the Royal Mersey at Liverpool and the Royal Vic toria at Ryde. The number of vessels kept pace with the clubs the fifty yachts of 1812 increasing nearly tenfold before the middle of the century, which was the critical epoch of yacht-building. In 1848, after J. Scott Russell had repeatedly drawn attention to the unwisdom of constructing sailing vessels on the &quot; cod s head and mackerel tail &quot; plan, and had enunciated his wave-line theory, Mare built at Blackwall an entirely new type of vessel, with a long hollow bow and a short after body of considerable fulness. This was the iron cutter &quot; Mosquito,&quot; of 59 feet 2 inches water line, 15 feet 3 inches beam, and measuring 50 tons. Prejudice against the new type of yacht being as strong as against the introduction of steam, there were no vessels built like the &quot;Mosquito,&quot; with the exception of the &quot;Volante,&quot; 59 tons, by Harvey of Wivenhoe, until the eyes of English yachtsmen were opened by the Americans three years later. About this period yacht-racing had been gradually coming into favour in the United States, the first yacht club being founded at New York in 1844 by nine yacht-owners; and in 1846 the first match between yachts in the States was sailed, 25 miles to windward and back from Sandy Hook lightship, between J. C. Stevens s new centre-board sloop &quot; Maria,&quot; 170 tons, 100 feet water line and 26 feet 8 inches beam, with a draught of 5 feet 3 inches of water, and the &quot; Coquette,&quot; schooner, 74 tons, belonging to J. H. Perkins, the latter winning ; but the appearance of the &quot; Maria,&quot; which had a clipper or schooner bow, like that of the newest racing cutters of 1887-1888, did much for yachting in America. Stevens then commissioned George Steers of New York, builder of the crack pilot schooners, to con- struct a racing schooner to visit England in the year of the great exhibition, and the result was the &quot; America &quot; of 170 tons. Like the &quot; Mosquito,&quot; she had a very long and hollow bow, with considerable fulness aft. She crossed the Atlantic in the summer of 1851, but failed to compete for the queen s cup at Cowes in August, although the club for that occasion threw the prize open to all the world, as her owner declined to concede the usual time allowance for difference of size. The members of the Yacht Squadron, not wishing to risk the reproach of denying the stranger a fair race, decided that their match for a cup given by the club, to be sailed round the Isle of Wight later on in the same month, should be without any time allowance. The &quot;America,&quot; thus exceptionally treated, entered and com peted against fifteen other vessels. The three most dan gerous competitors being put out through accidents, the &quot;America&quot; passed the winning-post 18 minutes ahead of the 47-ton cutter &quot;Aurora,&quot; and won the cup; but, even if the time allowance had not been waived, the American schooner yacht would still have won by fully a couple of minutes. The prize was given to the New York Yacht Club and constituted a challenge cup, called the America cup, for the yachts of all nations, by the deed of gift of the owners of the winner. Not only was the &quot; America &quot; as great a departure from the conventional British type of yacht as the &quot; Mosquito,&quot; but the set of her sails was a decided novelty. In England it had been the practice to make them baggy, whereas those of the &quot;America&quot; were flat, which told materially in working to windward. The re volution in yacht designing and canvassing was complete, and the bows of existing cutters were lengthened, that of the &quot; Arrow &quot; among others. The &quot; Alarm &quot; was also lengthened and turned into a schooner of 248 tons, and the &quot;Wildfire,&quot; cutter, 59 tons, was likewise converted. Indeed there was a complete craze for schooners, the &quot;Fly ing Cloud,&quot; &quot;Gloriana,&quot; &quot;Lalla Rookh,&quot; &quot;Albertine,&quot; &quot;Aline,&quot; &quot; Egeria,&quot; &quot;Pantomime,&quot; and others being built between 1852 and 1865, during which period the centre board, or sliding keel, was applied to schooners as well as sloops in America. The national or cutter rig was never theless not neglected in England, for Hatcher of South ampton built the 35-ton cutter &quot; Glance &quot; the pioneer of the subsequent 40-tonners in 1855, and the &quot;Vampire&quot; the pioneer of the 20-tonners in 1857, in which year Weld also had the &quot; Lulworth,&quot; an 82-ton cutter of com paratively shallow draught, constructed at Lymington. At this time too there came into existence a group of cutters, called &quot;flying fifties&quot; from their tonnage, taking after the &quot; Mosquito &quot; as their pioneer ; such were the &quot; Extrava ganza,&quot; &quot;Audax,&quot; and &quot;Vanguard.&quot; In 1866 a large cutter was constructed on the Clyde called the &quot;Condor,&quot; 1 35 tons, followed by the still larger &quot; Oimara,&quot; 163&quot; tons, in 1867. In 1868 the &quot;Cambria&quot; schooner was built by Ratsey at Cowes for Ashbury of Brighton, and, having proved a suc cessful match-sailer, was taken to the United States in 1870 to compete for the America cup, but was badly beaten, as also was the &quot;Livonia&quot; in 1871. The decade between 1870 and 1880 may be termed the Golden Age of yachting, inasmuch as the racing fleet had some very notable additions made to it, of which it will suifice to mention the schooners &quot; Gwendolin,&quot; &quot; Cetonia,&quot;