Fig. 2
The vessel in this case would labor quite heavily on the slightest provocation and would not be so steady or so seaworthy as the one first mentioned, with the narrow bin or compartment extending to the upper deck.
The same remarks apply to the ballasting of yachts. Before the days of outside lead, when pleasure craft shifted their racing for a cruising rig preparatory to a deep-water voyage, it was customary to raise the inside lead ballast by placing layers of cork beneath it, thus ensuring easy movements in a seaway. Racing yachts nowadays have all their weight outside, and this device for their relief cannot therefore be resorted to. When crossing the Atlantic, say for a race for the America's Cup, they are always in danger of getting caught in a gale of wind and an accompanying mountainous sea. In order to prevent excessive rolling, which might endanger the mast and consequently the vessel herself, it is necessary to keep a press of sail set. For this purpose a trysail with plenty of hoist to it is indispensable. It should not be one of those jib-headed impostors that some racing skippers most unaccountably affect, but one with a good long gaff that will successfully prevent the otherwise inevitable and peril-fraught roll to windward.
A yacht under these circumstances, it is true, cannot carry a great press of canvas when on the top of one of those big rollers that a gale soon kicks up in the Atlantic. But she wants as much of her sail area as possible exposed to the gale when she is in the hollow of the wave. Otherwise there will not be sufficient pressure to prevent her from rolling to windward.
Rolling to windward—easy enough to write, you may think—but every sailor knows what may follow. Green seas fore and aft, mast sprung, men washed overboard; and if the gale does not abate, why, Davy Jones' locker for all hands and the cook!
The storm trysail must necessarily be a sheet-footed sail set over the furled mainsail. It is a sail comparatively narrow at the foot, but it should for obvious reasons be made as broad as possible at the head, in proper proportion of course to the breadth of the foot. It need not have quite as much hoist as the mainsail, for the throat halyards at such a time must have a good drift, while to keep the sail inboard the peak should be quite extreme. It follows, therefore, that although the rollers may be high the peak of the trysail is above them, and the yacht is kept jogging along steadily without any sudden and violent shocks or strains to spar or rigging.
The following rough sketches will, I think, serve to demonstrate the superiority of the gaff-headed trysail over that abortion, the thimble-headed variety, which I do not hesitate to condemn as useless for a modern yacht ballasted with outside lead in a seaway.
No. 1 shows vessel with gaffheaded sail on the crest of a wave. She drops down into the hollow of the wave and becomes No. 2. The shaded part of the sail catches the wind over the crests of the waves, and the area so exposed is sufficient to steady the vessel and give her a safe heel or list.
