Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/76

 item when the final account is rendered. I have known it to amount to as much as $500 on a $2,000 craft. Sometimes vexatious litigation follows.

All this trouble may be avoided by having a clause inserted in the contract to the effect that no work done on the yacht without a written order, signed by the designer and countersigned by the owner, shall be deemed extra work. The careful builder will insist on such a clause if he is alive to his best interests.

A yacht, in the interesting process of construction, possesses a sort of hypnotic attraction to the man it is being built for. He haunts the shipyard from the hour the men turn to in the morning to the time they knock off at night. Naturally, he is anxious to know how she progresses. If he were a wise man he would keep religiously aloof from the scene of operations, and leave the work of inspection and supervision to his naval architect. These remarks apply only to the tyro, who is usually as proud of his first yacht as a young mother of her first-born. With old stagers it is different.

On the day of the launch it is customary for the owner to buy liquid refreshments for the workmen in the shipyard. The naval architect, too, feels hurt if he does not receive a personal invitation to the ceremony and a seat at the collation which follows the launch.

If a man has neither the means nor