Deep-Sea Cruising.—The inevitable remark that greets the deep-sea cruiser in small craft on completing a passage is: "Fancy coming all this way in that little thing!" And if the speaker only knew it, his remark is an insult to the owner. There is no reason in the world why a staunch, seaworthy craft of not less than forty-one feet on the waterline should not continue to circumnavigate the globe indefinitely, and with every whit as much safety as a ten-thousand-ton liner. The forty-one-footer goes to the top of every wave; the ten-thousand-tonner rests upon two or more; that is the sole difference.
Before leaving England, "know-alls" were good enough to point out to me that it was a silly game at best; that I was risking my precious life for no particular purpose, and that I should never get where I wanted to, anyway. As for taking one's sister, it was nothing short of murder.
When I returned, the self-same people, chatting over a club "port" between races, agreed that there was, after all, nothing in it. Was not deep-sea cruising in fair-weather latitudes safer than coastal navigation in our pestiferous home waters?
With this latter argument I entirely agree, and would point out that I never held any other view. Moreover, we made the cruise because we wanted to, and not because it was a safe or daring thing to do.
Where to find a Dream Ship.—This, as I think has been sufficiently demonstrated in the foregoing pages, is the most difficult question of all to answer at the present time.
I have given here the design and sail plan of my dream ship, and if it meets with your approval sufficiently to impel you to have a replica, and if you are willing and able to spend in the neighbourhood of £2,500 or about $12,500, I can only suggest going to Porsgrund, Norway, or better still Randers, Denmark (where her timbers could be of Danish oak), and have her built. For this particular type of boat, Scandinavia cannot be equalled, let alone beaten. But in these days, building boats is a pastime for millionaires only.
From this giddy pinnacle of affluence we fall to the next best thing, which is a second-hand boat as like the dream ship in seaworthiness and handiness as it is possible to procure, and that is what I have been searching for ever since the dream cruise ended. There are no more pilot boats of the dream-ship type being built in Norway. Steam has dethroned them, and those still in use are either too old to buy or too invaluable to sell. So, we are reduced to the inevitable compromise, and personally, I think I have found it in an English, Bristol Channel Pilot cutter, for which I paid £450 or, at par, about $2,250.
Yes, I have another dream ship. I have notified Peter. I have cabled to Samoa. Next time....
But that is another dream.
THE END