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/227

 aright and does not neglect its warnings, there is no foolhardiness in coasting all over Europe with a small craft. A coasting voyage of this description is a succession of comparatively short runs from port to port; and it is seldom that one is compelled to be as much as twenty-four hours at a time at sea. The prudent mariner picks his weather before leaving the shelter of a port, to make a passage of any duration. He awaits a 'slant' as the sailors call it-that is, steady fine weather and a fair wind. When he is assured of these conditions by the indications of his barometer and other favourable signs, he weighs his anchor and speeds to the harbour of his destination, his object being to get there as soon as possible and before the weather can undergo a change for the worse.

Dangerous weather very rarely, if ever, comes on unheralded, and if one awaits the right moment one can practically insure for oneself fine weather for at least twenty-four hours. I have sometimes been kept in port unnecessarily by an unfavourable weather forecast, the expected gale not arriving; but I cannot call to mind any occasion on which really bad weather has come when the barometer has foretold that it would be fine. Before sailing from a British port one should read the weather observations in one of the morning papers. Each leading London paper publishes a chart representing the movement of the barometer for several days, and also the forecast for twenty-four hours, for