Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/263

 IX.

THE ETIQUETTE OF YACHTING.

WHAT IS CONSIDERED TO BE "GOOD FORM" IN CRAFT, OWNER AND CREW.

Every yachtsman should be conversant with the etiquette of his calling. If ignorant of the many nice points pertaining to his own personal behavior afloat, or of the proper conduct of his craft at anchor or under way, he may become the subject of a certain amount of ridicule, which is, to say the least, annoying in the extreme. There are many commodores who would rather forgive a man for breaking the majority of the Ten Commandments between dusk and dawn than for committing a breach of nautical etiquette as handed down from the days of the fathers of the sport and added to infinitesimally year by year.

In Great Britain yachting etiquette is modeled largely after that of the Royal Navy, and the same is true in a measure of our own code of yachting manners.

It ought to be unnecessary to urge that a yacht should always be clean and bright as a new pin; her decks white as