Page:The history of yachting.djvu/71

 Rh thick, and 11 ½ inches wide. The main-chains were 15 feet long 4 inches thick, and 11 ½ inches wide; the mizzen-chains, 5 feet 6 inches long, 3 ½ inches thick, and 7 inches wide. The foremast step was 15 feet from the stem; the mainmast step, 60 feet from the stem, and the mizzenmast step, 20 feet from the stern. The rudder was 3 feet 7 inches wide, and 8 inches thick at the fore part, tapering to 6 inches at the after edge.

Besides these, there was the Gouvernante Jaght, or Government yacht, used for the accommodation of the Government officials,—carrying Government dispatches, and the like. Then the Reiziger Jaght or Passenger yacht, used for conveying passengers.

The Dutch East India Company owned a variety of yachts, used by the officials for business or pleasure; frequently they were sent upon foreign voyages: sometimes alone, sometimes accompanying one or more ships.

The private yachts, however, were the most numerous and it is probable that at that period almost every one in Holland who could afford a yacht, owned one of some kind. They ranged in size and appointments from the modest Boeyer, of eighteen or twenty feet in length, to yachts of one hundred and fifty tons, equipped with every luxury of the time, and splendidly decorated.

Various portraits of these private yachts are here given. With these and others, together with particulars of construction, we fortunately are enabled to form a fairly accurate idea as to the yachts of