Page:Small-boat sailing; an explanation of the management of small yachts, half-decked and open sailing-boats of various rigs; sailing on sea and on river; cruising, etc (IA smallboatsailing01knig).pdf/210

 through the most delightful scenery. The Slei, like Roeskilde, and the many other Danish fiords which I explored with the dinghy, forms a succession of narrows and broad lakes bordered by grassy hills and woods of firs and great beeches, among which nestle the picturesque old villages and the comfortable, deep-eaved, thatched farm-houses of that pleasant country, the water being in most places too shallow to have admitted the yacht, and so limpid that every stone and weed at the bottom was clearly visible to me, even in the deeper pools. Not only when visiting foreign shores, but also when cruising in home waters, I have always found the sailing dinghy so great a source of pleasure that, personally, I consider it indispensable to a yacht. How many of the prettier Broads of Norfolk and creeks and streams of the Solent and the Channel are so shallow as to be open to the dinghy alone.

Every one who has cruised with a small yacht knows what trouble the dinghy can occasionally give when the vessel is lying at anchor at night. However long the painter by which she rides, and to whatever part of the yacht it be fastened, the dinghy develops an exasperating fidgetiness, ranging up and down, and bumping into the yacht's sides, knocking off her paint and disturbing the owner's slumbers. This happens when wind and tide are opposed and alternately take command of the dinghy, so that at one moment she is carried astern