'Black Pearl's' cutter 'Aline's' cutter
ft.in. ft.in.
Length250.0 Length220.0
Beam71.0 Beam63.0
Depth amidships from gunwale to outside garboard32¾ Depth inside27.0
Depth of keel from outside of garboard 5¼ Depth of keel from outside of garboard 3½
Draught of water with 11 cwt. of ballast and crew20½ Depth of additional false keel 9.0
Draught with centreboard down50.0 Draught of water with 9 cwt. of ballast and crew110.0
Ditto with false keel added27.0
Sail plan Sail plan
Length of mast from step to hounds160 Length of mast140
Ditto from step to masthead197 Length of main-boom169
Length of main-boom204 Length of yard190
Length of gaff113

It does not come within the scope of this chapter to give a full and elementary manual of the art of boat-sailing. Descriptions of the thousand and one things belonging to a yacht and the sailing of her, a glossary of nautical terms and their meaning, and a full account of the art of sailing are given in another portion of this work. The leading principles of boat-sailing are the same as those for sailing a larger vessel. The gear of a boat, as far as it goes, is identical, and the knots, bends, and hitches that are most used are common to both. I need not, therefore, describe them, nor waste space by repetition in giving such elementary directions as that a boat should be luffed in a squall, or in explaining what is meant by 'gybing' a boat or 'putting her about.' But there are some things in the art of sailing that have a special application to open boats, so perhaps I may be allowed, even at the cost of an occasional repetition of what has been said elsewhere, to give a few hints and directions, based upon practical experience, as to the handling of a boat, together with some of the simple rules that experience has taught me are the most important to remember, even though some of these may seem to be of a very elementary character.

Earl of Pembroke's 'Black Pearl's' cutter.

The yachtsman who is inexperienced, or much out of practice in the management of a boat, had far better take a sailor or a couple of sailors with him. By observing what they do he will learn or remember how to do things properly, and the tiro will pick up in a day or two, from watching an expert, many things that he would take long to learn for himself. Indeed, I think that in dangerous weather it is always as well to have a seaman on board. He will be unnecessary, probably, if nothing happens—that is to say, if nothing carries away or gets jammed; but it is just on such days that things do happen, and it is in such emergencies that the difference between a sailor and an ordinary amateur becomes widest. A good sailor has some resource for almost everything that can happen, and if one thing will not do he tries something else. Even if the amateur is as quick to know what should be done, he is usually far slower and more clumsy in the doing of it. Suppose, to take a very simple instance, the peak halliards carry away. How many amateurs are there who could make a long splice and re-reeve them with reasonable expedition? In a tumble of a sea, with a lee shore imminent, the mere reeving of them, if no splice is required, will very likely bother him considerably.

Still no one will ever be a passable boat-sailer, or will ever enjoy boat-sailing as it can be enjoyed, until he learns to dispense with professional assistance and to manage his boat single-handed if necessary. So, when he has learnt with his eyes, as far as a man can, how things should be done, other than steering and giving orders, let him go out alone or with an amateur like himself and learn his business. Let him choose a fine day and sail away if possible out of sight of the most powerful glasses on his ship, and then deliberately and of set purpose practise everything essential that is comprised in the art of boat-sailing. He will instantly discover that between knowing how things are done and doing them there is an extraordinary difference, and he will find himself curiously awkward in doing what he has seen his men do a hundred times. He will make acquaintance with the malign tendency of all ropes to get foul of each other, and the strange law that whenever you are trying to put something right on a boat something else always goes wrong. When he first tries to reef his sails—he will do it at anchor if he is wise—he will find that the foretack is horribly inconvenient to get at, and that the foresail will keep running up the stay and muffling his head, while the main-boom seems to be possessed by a devil and tries to push him overboard whichever side of it he gets. When he gets under way again he finds that he has got the anchor-line foul of the foresheets, and while he is clearing these and re-reeving them through their fairleads, a puff of wind knocks the boat nearly flat and sends him scrambling aft to the tiller and the mainsheet. He will bruise his shins and bark his knuckles all manner of ways—he hardly knows how; he will get hot and blown, and go near to tumbling overboard in the violence of his exertions; he will do things and he will forget to do things that it will make him blush in bed to remember afterwards. But let him not feel too deeply humiliated. For even experienced sailors will make the most monstrous blunders in a boat when they are strange to her, and to boatwork; and he will find that his awkwardness seems to vanish miraculously after a few lessons, and it will not be long before he has the satisfaction of feeling that he can handle his boat as well as any man on the ship.

It is foolish to go far, and especially far to leeward, when there is every appearance of bad weather coming on, and a low glass. You may do it many times with impunity, but some day you are sure to get caught, and the consequences may be serious. Remember that you are always liable to meet with an amount of wind that your boat will not be able to bear under the shortest canvas that you can work her with. Many people do not realise this; and indeed it requires some powers of imagination, when a boat is standing stiffly up under her full canvas in a good breeze, to realise that in a few hours, or even minutes, there may come an amount of wind which will make it impossible to keep her lee-rail out of the water even with close-reefed sails and sheets flying loose. But a few rough and unpleasant experiences will soon convince the young boat-sailer of the fact, and teach him that a boat has no business to be out in a gale of wind, and that when he is caught in one the thing to do, if it is possible, is to gain shelter at once. If he sails much he will come across plenty of bad weather without courting it, and when he does he will probably meet it with more coolness and confidence if he is free from the depressing sensation that the scrape into which he has got himself, and perhaps others as well, is entirely due to his own wanton folly.

It is always best, if possible, to reef down and make everything snug before the squall or storm comes upon you; but you cannot be continually reefing down for every threatening cloud, so this is not always practicable. When the wind has become too strong for the sail you are carrying, you will have to act according to circumstances. It is not always wise to attempt to reef at once. There may not be sea-room enough to lower down the sails to reef them, and to attempt to reef a cutter's mainsail in a squall when she is nearly overpowered by wind is extremely dangerous. For the sheet must be hauled right in, and cannot be eased while the earing is being made fast. It is better under such circumstances to lower your peak altogether, taking up any slack in the topping-lift so as to support the boom. This will ease the boat immensely, and gives you a capital leg-of-mutton sail. Possibly this will be a sufficient reduction, and you may stand on under this canvas until you get shelter, or sea-room to reef in, or there comes a lull in the squall. If it is not, and the boat is still overpowered, haul down the foresail as well and double reef it, and when it is set again you can, if you have then got sea-room, take down the reefs in your mainsail, keeping the peak down all the time.

There are generally three reefs in a cutter's mainsail. If when these are taken down you have still too much canvas, let the throat run down, and lash the jaws of the gaff down to the boom. It is well to have a line of reef points running from the throat of the mainsail to the cringle of the third reef on the after-leach to make this arrangement snug. It is then called a balance reef.