Boat Sailing in Fair Weather and Foul, 6th ed.

by A. J. Kenealy

To whiten decks, mix oxalic acid with fresh water in the proportion of one pound to the gallon. Apply lightly with a mop and wash off immediately.

Good elastic marine glue for paying seams after they are caulked, can be made of one part of india rubber, twelve parts of coal tar heated gently in a pitch kettle, and twenty parts of shellac added to the mixture. When about to use this preparation, dip the caulking iron, used to drive the oakum or cotton thread into the seams, in naphtha, which dissolves the glue and helps to closely cement the seams. If oil is used instead of naphtha, the glue will not adhere. When melting marine glue for paying, take care to heat it very slowly.

Mildew on sails is almost impossible to remove, but the stains can be rendered a little less unsightly by well scrubbing the sail on both sides with soap and fresh water, and then leaving the sail to dry and bleach in the sun. Avoid the use of chloride of lime or other caustics or acids, which, while they might take out the mildew stains, would certainly rot the duck. Sometimes sails must necessarily be stowed when damp or wet, but they should be hoisted up to dry as soon as practicable. Every boat should be provided with water-proof sail covers.

Composition paints and other mixtures for preventing the fouling of boats' bottoms are plentiful as clams. Each one is warranted to be a specific against weeds and barnacles. But wooden or iron vessels, however treated, if left for any length of time at anchor anywhere on the Atlantic or Pacific coasts, are sure to become encrusted with barnacles and to be covered with such a rich growth of marine grasses as would take some particularly active work with a lawn mower to remove. Luckily small boats can easily be hauled out and scrubbed, but those with any pretension to size should most certainly be coppered. Copper in salt water will keep clean for a long time, the exfoliation being extensive. Some authorities recommend that the copper be coated with one or other of the compositions prepared for that purpose, but I think that to leave the copper clean will be more satisfactory in the long run. A coppered cruising vessel should not require her bottom to be cleaned more than four times in the season, but the oftener a racing yacht is hauled out to have her copper burnished the better should be the result, so far as speed is concerned.

There are several capital paints in the market with which to coat a yacht or boat below the water-line. But admirable though they may be, they are by no means weed or barnacle proof.

In choosing a binocular marine glass, take care not to be persuaded into buying a trashy article. A good one should have a magnifying power of seven times, as well as what is known as good definition—that is, the quality of showing all the outlines of an object with complete distinctness and without any haziness. To find out if a glass has this quality, direct it at any object clearly outlined against the sky—a church steeple, for instance. If the outlines of the object are indistinct, or if they are bordered with violet, blue, orange or red light, reject the glass, as it will never be worth anything. The frame of the glass should be rigid, or the tubes will become twisted and then you will see two objects in place of one. The more powerful a glass is the less field it possesses. While high power is desirable, it is well that a glass should have a large field. A poor glass is worse than none at all.

That sterling seaman, Capt. S. T. S. Lecky, tells a capital story about a marine glass, which I commend to anybody about to purchase one. In the window of a shop he noticed a binocular with a tag on it, which asserted that the glass had rendered an "object" visible at the distance of ninety miles. This was attested by a letter to be seen within. The captain's curiosity was excited. On inquiry in the shop he found out that the "object" was none other than the peak of the Island of Tristan d'Acunha, in the Southern ocean, which is so lofty that it can be seen in clear weather by the naked eye at a distance of one hundred miles. Therefore I say let your motto be caveat emptor when you go cruising about in search of either a cheap marine telescope or binocular among marine store dealers or pawnshops. Remember that clearness of definition is more to be sought than high magnifying power, as in misty weather the glass with the last-named quality in a marked degree magnifies the haze as well as the object, and, of course, makes it still more blurred and indistinct—a defect on which it is unnecessary for me to further enlarge.

It is hard to distinguish with a low-priced binocular on a thick or rainy night the color of a vessel's lights, a white one sometimes appearing with a green or reddish tinge, and a green one looking like a white one. This applies also to lightships and lighthouses, and should make you careful as to your selection of a glass.

Captain Lecky says the proper way to test a binocular for night use is not to stand at a shop door in broad daylight, trying how much the glass enlarges some distant clock-face, but to wait till nightfall and test it by looking up a dark street or passage, and if figures before only dimly visible to the naked eye are rendered tolerably clear by the aid of the glasses, you may rest assured you have hit on a suitable instrument. It is well to go in the first place to an optician, and not to a "shoptician" versed in cheap-jack methods.