Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/265

 *ners. There are only a few occasions when it is necessary to waste good gun-*powder on a yacht. The custom in this country is for all the yachts to salute the flag officer in command of a squadron when he joins the fleet, every boat that carries a gun banging away when the flagship drops anchor. This is a picturesque sight when the fleet is a big one. When the squadron of the New York Yacht Club used to rendezvous at New London for the annual cruise a big crowd of sightseers used to sally forth from the quaint old city to see the flagship join the squadron and receive the salutes. The bang of the big guns from the mighty steam yachts and the diminutive din from the pigmy popguns of tiny but pretentious craft made a rare noise in the harbor, especially when the fleet, as it often did, numbered more than one hundred sail. This saluting of the commodore is considered obligatory, and for the use of yachtsmen who do not care to include a brass cannon in their outfit some ingenious pyrotechnist invented a giant cracker, whose discharge is as earsplitting as that from the biggest yacht cannon ever carried. To hear such a threatening bang emanate from so small a yacht creates something akin to awe! When a squadron or part of a squadron is at anchor in a roadstead the flag officer in command or the senior captain present fires a gun at eight bells in the morning watch making "colors," the fleet taking the