Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/251

 yacht should get what she can carry. I know this idea has many opponents, although I never saw a valid reason against it; a yacht can be spoiled with excessive spars and sails, and sail area may therefore be left to take care of itself. To satisfy those, however, who fear that, in the absence of any tax on sail area, excessive sail areas might be introduced, a maximum allowance of so many square feet per ton might be specified."

We are, however, confronted by conditions and not theories, but I could not help putting myself on record as being against the taxation of sail. I am almost alone in this. But to resume. Madge, Clara and other imported British cutters had considerable influence, and caused our designers to modify the shallow underwater bodies and beamy tops, the Puritan in 1885 being the first successful compromise vessel built in the United States. Mayflower and Volunteer followed.

Under the British tonnage rule in vogue in 1886, a 90-foot yacht of 26-foot beam would have been an impossibility, but as soon as the penalty was taken off beam the British designers took advantage of the circumstance and followed in the footsteps of the Americans, until, in the days of Valkyrie III. and Defender, the national types were practically the same, Herreshoff being a trifle in advance of Watson, as the victory of the British craft demonstrated.