Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/143

 great mistake to exercise any cheese-*paring economy on a yacht's means of propulsion, whether it be steam or duck. The best in the market, whether it be machinery or sails, is none too good.

A cruising craft with a slovenly or slatternly owner may, perhaps, be content with a suit of sails that fits like a purser's shirt on a handspike, with a mainsail all abag and headsails that would disgrace a coal barge; but even a cruising craft may be caught on a lee shore with a gale of wind, and perhaps the owner will curse his fatuous economy when he has tried in vain to claw off the beach with his baggy sails and finds that his craft is crunching to pieces in the surf and he himself is struggling for life in the treacherous undertow.

The cost of racing sails is high, and, ordinarily, a yacht that goes the cup-hunting circuit needs a new mainsail every season. Under careful management, however, a mainsail, with good luck, has been known to do good service for two summers. The quality of cotton duck has improved appreciably of late, owing to a better method of manufacture, and sails "sit" better and do not "bag" as they used to. Cotton is king, so far as racing sails go, in Europe as well as America, flax having been entirely superseded by it. The change from flax to cotton began in England about 1893.

The rig of a racing yacht should be no more neglected than her sails. The