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/81

 passed twenty-four hours in the Gulf Stream, rolling over and over with my swamped boat. My capture by Spanish troops, my imprisonment, and my subsequent adventures before I reached the city of Havana—which was not until seven days later—have nothing to do with yachting or boating, so I will not recount them here.

POINTED STERNS

I have already described my P. and O. lifeboat with which I sailed to the Baltic as having a pointed stern. The double-ended boat is far better adapted for use on rough seas than a boat having a square stern. Hence lifeboats and the small fishing-craft of the Baltic and other stormy seas are thus constructed. A good double-ended boat with plenty of sheer—that is, with her bulwarks forming a bold curve from bow to stern—is strongly to be recommended to the tyro. He will find that such a boat will steer far more easily than the usual square-sterned boat when running before a heavy sea. She is then far safer than a boat of any other form. Presenting a sharp wedge to the following rollers, they glide by her and she rises like a duck to each sea. A boat with a square stern, or, worse still, with a counter—an abomination on a small craft—behaves in a very different manner. The following seas, striking her bluff opposing stern with force, are apt to drive her bows under water,