To my mind, the West Coast of Scotland is, par excellence, the happy cruising grounds of yachtsmen. I know of none like it—the number and variety of the lochs, the wild grandeur of some, the soft beauty of others, the mountains, the rocks, the islands, the solitude, the forests, the trees.
Oh! the Oak and the Ash, and the bonny Ivy tree,
They flourish best at home in the North Countrie.
The heather, especially the white, the ferns, the mosses, the wild flowers, the innumerable birds and fish, the occasional seals and whales, the wildness of the surroundings, all combine to give it a charm that is indescribable. I have seen on the coast of Skye a whale, thirty or forty feet long, jump clean out of the water three or four times, like a salmon. Anchored close under a cliff in Loch Hourn, and happening to look up, I met the wondering eyes of a hind craning over the edge of the cliffs, and staring right down on the yacht. Go the world over, you will nowhere find so much varied beauty, above or below, on land or sea, as on the West Coast of Scotland.
Nobody can explore or appreciate the beauty of the Scotch lochs without a 'kettle.' It spoils one's pleasure to keep a boat's crew pulling for eight or ten hours in a hot sun, and therefore, if you have no steam launch, many expeditions that promise much interest and pleasure are abandoned; but with your kettle and a man, or a man and a boy, you don't care how long you are out or how far you go. This to my mind is the most enjoyable combination of sails and steam—a comfortable sailing vessel, schooner or ketch for choice, to carry you from port to port, and a steam launch for exploration when you get there.
The accommodation of a sailing vessel is, on a rough calculation, double the accommodation of a steamer of the same tonnage. The Earl of Wilton, Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, had a schooner of 200 tons, and after sailing in her many years he decided, as so many others have done, to give up sailing and take to steam. To obtain exactly the same accommodation that he had on board his 200-ton schooner, he had to build a steamer, the 'Palatine,' of 400 tons. Of course in an iron steamer of 400 tons the height between decks is very much greater than in a wooden schooner of 200 tons. Also the cabins are larger, but there are no more of them.
I think many people have erroneous ideas of the cost of yachting. Yacht racing, especially in the modern cutters of 150 or 170 tons, is very expensive. The wear and tear of spars and gear is incredible. I believe that in the yachting season of 1893 H.R.H. the Prince of Wales's vessel the 'Britannia' sprang or carried away three masts; and some of his competitors were not more lucky. Then racing wages are very heavy: 10s. per man when you lose, and 20s. when you win, with unlimited beef, and beer, &c., mount up when you have a great many hands, and the new type of racer, with booms 90 feet long, requires an unlimited number; when you look at these boats racing, they seem actually swarming with men. In addition to 10s. or 20s. to each man, the skipper gets 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. of the value of the prize, or its equivalent.
So that a modern racing yacht with a crew of 30 men may, if successful, easily knock a hole in 1,000l. for racing wages alone, to say nothing of cost of spars, and sails, and gear, &c. Of course, in comparison with keeping a pack of hounds, or a deer forest, or a good grouse moor, or to pheasant preserving on a very large scale, the expense of yacht racing even at its worst is modest; but still in these days 1,000l. or 1,500l. is an item.
But yachting for pleasure, yacht cruising in fact, is not an expensive amusement. The wages of a 100- to a 200-ton cutter or schooner will vary from 50l. to 100l. a month at the outside, and the wear and tear, if the vessel and gear are in good order, is very moderate; and undoubtedly the living on board a yacht is infinitely cheaper than living ashore.
Thirty to forty pounds, or as much as fifty pounds, a week may easily go in hotel bills if there is a largish party. Half the sum will keep a 100- or 150-ton yacht going, wages, wear and tear, food, &c., included, if you are afloat for three or four months. Certainly for a party of four or five yachting is cheaper than travelling on the Continent with a courier and going to first-class hotels. Travelling on the Continent under the best conditions often becomes a bore; the carriages are stuffy and dusty, the trains are late, the officials are uncivil or at least indifferent, the hotels are full, the kitchen is bad, and you come to the conclusion that you would be better at home. Now, on board a yacht you are never stuffy or dusty, the accommodation is always good, everyone about you is always civil, anxious for your comfort, the kitchen is never bad, and you cannot come to the conclusion that you would be better at home, for you are at home—the most cosy and comfortable of homes!
The yachting season of 1893 will always be a memorable one. The victory of H.I.M. the German Emperor's 'Meteor' for the Queen's Cup at Cowes; the victorious career of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales's 'Britannia' and the 'Valkyrie'; the series of international contests between the 'Britannia' and 'Navahoe,' with the unexpected victory of the latter over the cross-Channel course; and, finally, the gallant attempt of Lord Dunraven to bring back the cup from America, make a total of yachting incidents, and indeed surprises, that will last for a very long time. The victory of the 'Meteor' in the Queen's Cup was a surprise: it was more than a surprise when the 'Navahoe' beat 'Britannia' to Cherbourg and back in a gale of wind. I don't know that it was a matter of surprise that the Americans kept the Cup; I think, indeed, it was almost a foregone conclusion. In yachting, as in everything else, possession is nine points of the law, and a vessel sailing in her own waters, with pilots accustomed to the local currents and atmospheric movements, will always have an advantage. Whether the 'Vigilant' is a better boat than the 'Valkyrie,' whether she was better sailed, whether her centreboard had anything to do with her victory, I cannot say. But there is the result: that the 'Vigilant' won by seven minutes, which, at the rate they were sailing, means about a mile.