Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/60

 boats are light and durable, and when hung to a ship's davits do not warp or shrink or become leaky when exposed to the burning rays of a tropical sun. These qualities, though of great value in the craft indicated, do not apply to small pleasure vessels, especially when the great heat of metal vessels in our hot summers is taken into consideration. Steel corrodes quickly and soon gets foul. It should, therefore, be kept well protected with a preservative anti-fouling paint.

Old-fashioned yachtsmen, a class of people almost extinct, prefer wood to any other material in sailing yachts of even the largest size. But the most prejudiced of these ancient mariners are forced to admit, however reluctantly, that wood will not satisfactorily stand the jarring strains of powerful modern marine engines. It would, of course, be possible to build an oaken vessel strong enough to sustain the stress of the machinery, but the timbers would have to be bulky indeed, and the weight would be far greater than if steel were made use of exclusively.

A friend of mine who is a devoted yachtsman, as well as a pretty fair hand with the rod and gun, having lost the bulk of his money by an unfortunate investment, was able by the exercise of ingenuity to build for himself a smart and able cruising schooner at a very moderate cost, and also to spend a winter very enjoyably. This is how