Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/238

 lateral plane was not left to hold her to windward, and although she sailed the water as fast as the American champion, the Volunteer, she drifted bodily to leeward."

After Mr. Watson had realized the superiority of Vigilant's model over that of Valkyrie II., he designed the 20-rater Ellen, which I reproduce from a photograph. It will be noticed that her form is strikingly similar to that of Vigilant. Of a verity, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

With the long overhang forward, the running bowsprit was abolished. The modified cutter rig thus resulting is practically the same in both America and England. Bobstays are now bars of steel or iron, and bowsprits are comparatively short when compared with those that used to project from the bows of the straight-stemmed cutters.

The clipper bow was gradually altered and modified until the present stage was reached.

That sterling old British racing skipper, Captain Tom Jay, talking about the modern cutter, with her cutaway forefoot and raking sternpost, being an awkward craft to handle in a seaway, said: "Believe me, sir, it's not always so much the craft that's awkward as the people that's in her. Of course, being so easy to drive, they reach faster than the old-fashioned vessels, and that makes them drive harder into the seas; but that is mostly a matter of the can