Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/39

 call upon the steam yachting fleet of the Atlantic coast. The splendid achievement of the converted yacht Gloucester, formerly the flagship of the New York Yacht Club, which drove ashore two Spanish torpedo boat destroyers near Santiago de Cuba on July 3, 1898, will always be remembered as one of the most brilliant episodes of that "most just and charitable war." She was in command of Lieut.-Commander Wainwright, who was executive officer of the Maine when she was blown up in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898.

The generous response of the Naval Militia to the call of the President and the eagerness of yachtsmen generally to recruit its ranks have been highly appreciated. Yachtsmen will ever feel proud of the gallantry of the Naval Militia because it is so largely composed of their shipmates and messmates. It is needless to expatiate on the patriotic part of my theme. The advantages of yachting as a nursery for the navy in war-time are indisputable, and will occur to anybody who will give the matter due reflection.

The Corinthian Yacht Club of New York, now unhappily extinct, did excellent work in its rather brief but not inglorious career. It achieved much in the way of the abolition of the pernicious broad and shallow type of boat which at the time of the Corinthian Club's heyday was extremely popular. I should be disingenuous were I not to