Photo. West & Son.
To return to the English cutters, one of the most interesting of modern yachts is that seen in Fig. 124, which represents White Heather II. For size and sweet lines, with her bold bows and white graceful hull, her lofty mast and her mountain of canvas, she is an imposing sight if one comes across her on the Solent. She is at her best in a strong wind; in light winds she used to be no match for the latest Shamrock. But during the past winter White Heather has had some structural alterations made to improve her power in light winds.
Photo. West & Son.
An important step was taken in 1906, when an international conference was held to devise such an international rule as would be acceptable to the whole of yachting Europe. During the last fifteen years various rating rules had been in force at different times. It was now felt that something should be done to prevent the success of the racing-machine and skimming-dish type, and recent rating rules had indeed tended to produce a wholesome cruiser that was nevertheless good for racing. The conference therefore formulated a new rule based on that which had produced such recent healthy types as Nyria; but a premium was placed on freeboard and a check on clumsy overhangs, in order that a thoroughly healthy type of sea-going yacht might be evolved that should be good as well for cruising as for racing. Care was taken also to ensure the requisite strength in construction. The rule came into force on January 1, 1908. Under this rule, Shamrock IV., seen in Fig. 125, was built, and during her maiden season last year she showed that in light weather there was nothing of her size to catch her. In spite of adverse criticisms the new rule has in it much that is likely to be an influence for good; and since it is to be in force for ten years, it will certainly add to the prosperity of yachting by introducing to an extent hitherto unknown the element of international racing.
Shamrock, the fourth of that name owned by Sir Thomas Lipton, belongs to the 23-metre class. She was designed by Mr. William Fife and built by Messrs. William Fife & Son of Fairlie. She is of composite construction, her planking being of mahogany and her frames of steel. In yachting, as in the biggest sailing ships, wire rigging has now ousted the old-fashioned hemp. Runners, topping lifts, bobstay falls, outhauls, halyards—all are of wire. Racing boats and many cruisers now have rigging screws too, while the custom as to ballast is to bolt most of it outside the keel.
But our limit is at length reached. We have watched the primitive ship evolve from the tree; we have seen how she has been changed and revived, degenerated and improved, made larger or smaller, tubbier or more graceful according as it has pleased the hand of man. Now that we have shown, however imperfectly, with however many omissions, her noble and illustrious pedigree, her ancestry reaching back through the centuries into the first blush of the dawn of the world’s creation, perhaps we shall regard her with an interest, a respect and affection at once greater and deeper because we have become better acquainted with the reasons that have caused each of these developments.
THE END.