Sailing

by E. F. Knight

The balance lug is rather an awkward sail to lower, and as it is impossible to brail it up, or lower the peak, or trice up the tack to temporarily reduce the canvas in a squall, as can be done with other rigs, the sail has to be lowered bodily if the boat is overpowered by the wind. Thus, if one is overtaken by a violent squall while running before the wind, the balance lug is perhaps the most dangerous sail one can have on a boat.

So as to facilitate reefing, a grommet is sometimes placed on each reef cringle at the luff of a balance-lug sail. In taking down a reef, the fore end of the boom is thrust into this eye and an earing is thus dispensed with.

The usual method of fitting the sheet of a balance-lug sail is to fasten one end of it to one side of the stern, and then to lead it through a single block strapped on to the boom, and through another block fastened to the other side of the stern.

The Una Rig.—Whereas the balance lug is the favourite English rig for small river craft, the Cat or Una rig is generally preferred by the Americans, and it undoubtedly possesses some important advantages over the other rig.

The cat boat ([Fig. 31]), being intended for very shallow waters, has the least possible draught. This boat, consequently, has great beam, and is often quite flat-bottomed. The centre-board is of wood or iron. The mast is stepped much more forward than in a balance-lug boat, and carries one large sail laced to a boom and gaff. The cat boat, in our opinion, will turn to windward in smooth water even more smartly than a balance lug, and as a rule will row more easily, for the displacement is very small, and in consequence of the stability given by the great beam, little, often no, ballast is used.

In England, it is usual for a Una boat to have but one halyard, which serves to hoist both peak and throat. We prefer two halyards, one for the throat, one for the peak, the latter leading aft, so that it can be let go in a squall, and thus reduce the sail by one-half.

Fig. 31.

The author had recently a good deal of experience in an eighteen-foot cat boat among the quays of the Gulf of Mexico and on an extensive lake in Florida, and he came to the conclusion that for such work the cat rig was far handier than the balance lug, especially when, as was often the case, there was a large party of ladies on board.