ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS.
TURNING THE STAKE.
I.
ADVICE TO AN AMATEUR.
All of us remember the old sailor's retort to the man who reproached him for soaking his clay in bad rum. "There ain't such a thing under heaven as bad rum," he sagely remarked. "Of course some rum is better than another, but I have been knocking about the world for more than fifty years and never did I drink a glass of rum that deserved to be called bad, and I got outside of some pretty fiery tipple in my time."
The same is true in a general way of boats. There are many types of boat and each has some peculiar attribute to recommend it. No two craft, for instance, could be more widely different in every way than a Gloucester fishing dory and a Cape Cod cat-boat, yet each when properly handled has safely ridden out an Atlantic gale. Of course if their movements had been directed by farm hands both would have foundered. In point of fact, there is no royal road to the acquisition of seamanship. Experience is what is needed first, last and all the time. It is true, however, that the rough sea over which the learner has necessarily to sail may be smoothed for him, even as the breakers on a harbor bar are rendered passable for a homeward-bound craft by the judicious application of a little oil.
The choice of a boat depends upon a vast variety of circumstances, the chief of which is the location of the prospective boat owner. If he lives on the Great South Bay, for example, he should provide himself with a craft of light draught, almost capable of sailing on a clover field after a heavy fall of dew. Equipped with a centerboard and a sail a boat of this kind, if of the right shape and construction, will be found comfortable, safe and of moderate speed. A man may also enjoy an infinite amount of pleasure aboard her, after he has mastered the secret of her management. There are so many sandbars in the Great South Bay that a boat of light draught is indispensable to successful sailing. The same remark applies also to Barnegat Bay and adjacent New Jersey waters. There are some persons who believe that it is impossible to combine light draught and safety. They make a great mistake. A twelve-foot sneakbox in Barnegat Bay, with the right man steering, will live for a long time in rough water that would sorely try the capacity of a much larger craft in the hands of a lubber. The same is true of a sharpie.
The man who makes up his mind that he wants a sailing boat should study well the geography of his vicinity. If he lives in New York or on the Sound his course is easy. He is sure to be within reach of a yacht or boat club from whose members he can get all the information he needs. They will tell him the boat best adapted to his requirements and his finances, and if they persuade him to join their organization they will be conferring upon him a favor. I have traveled a good deal among the yacht clubs of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and I never came across a more generous, more obliging and more sportsmanlike body of men than those enrolled on the rosters of these enterprising associations. They are convinced that there is more real pleasure to the square inch in the possession of a stout boat capable of being managed by a couple of men, than there is in the proprietorship of a big yacht that carries a crew of twenty and whose owner probably knows nothing about the art of sailing her, but depends all the time on his skipper. It is a pleasure to meet these men and listen to their yarns. The earnestness, the zeal and the ability with which they pursue their favorite pastime are indeed commendable. And the best of it is they are always ready to welcome recruits, and to pass them through the rudimentary mill of seamanship and navigation, their motto being "Every man his own skipper." The only requisite necessary to membership in one or more of these clubs is that you should be a "clubable" man with manly instincts. Young fellows, too, are eagerly sought, so you need have no compunction about seeking their doors, the latchstrings of which are always down.