The model yachtsman should always watch the wind and note whether it shifts its direction or alters its force. The boat is trimmed accordingly when the boat is put about. Easing or tightening the jib or main-sheet slightly will make a very noticeable difference.
By taking down the top-sail or setting a jib-head top-sail in place of a jack yard top-sail, the yacht will be caused to ride easier in puffs of wind. In case she does not point well to windward when beating, the yachtsman should try a smaller jib, or he can slacken the foresail-sheet. If she runs off regularly to leeward on one tack only, while keeping well to windward on the other, she has some defect in construction or a bent keel.
CHAPTER XIV
TWO-FOOT SAILING YACHT
THE model yacht described in this Chapter is the design of Mr. W. J. Daniels, of England, and was described by him in "Junior Mechanics." Mr. Daniels is one of the best known and most successful English designers of model yachts, and the one here described can easily be constructed by the average boy:
In order that the reader may realize the obstacles to be surmounted in designing a model yacht that will sail in a straight line to windward, irrespective of the different pressure that the wind may expend on the sails, it must be pointed out that the boat is continuously altering the shape of the submerged part of her hull: therefore, unless the hull is so designed that harmony is retained at every angle to which the pressure of wind on the sails may heel it, the model's path through the water will be, more or less, an arc of a circle. Whether the boat sails toward the wind, or, in other words, in a curve the center of the circle of which is on the same side of the boat as the wind, or in a curve the center of the circle of which is on the opposite or leeward side, will depend upon the formation of the boat.
As these notes are intended to first initiate the reader into the subject of model yacht building and construction, the design supplied is one in which all things, as far as shape is concerned, have been considered.
It is the endeavor of every designer to produce the most powerful boat possible for a given length—that is, one that can hold her sail up in resistance to the wind-pressure best. Of course, the reader will easily realize that breadth and weight of keel will be the main features that will enable the model to achieve this object; but, as these two factors are those that tend to make a design less slender, if pushed to extremes, the designer has to compromise at a point when the excess of beam and buoyancy are detrimental to the speed lines of the hull.