On Yachts and Yacht Handling

by Thomas Fleming Day

A Seagoing Boat

Another bad practice of builders is to put stationary seats around a cockpit with lockers beneath them. This never should be done. You cannot keep them tight, the wood being constantly subject to water and sun. Never put lockers of any kind in a boat with outboard openings. Another bad practice is that of putting in low companion thresholds. The threshold of the companion should be as high or higher than the side of the boat, and should on no account, no matter how high the cockpit floor is, be on a level with it. The usual manner of constructing companion doors is also open to objection. The new method in which the door slides down into a recess through a rubber-packed joint is far better than the old way of closing. Such a door can be made absolutely water-tight, and can be opened without being opened. This enables you to see into the cabin or out of it without running the slide back or risking getting a wash below by opening the doors. These may seem trivial details, but it is the neglect of such to whose account the loss of the majority of seagoing vessels must be placed. Poor hatches and low, badly protected engine room skylights are responsible for nearly all the steamships that go to sea, and are never heard of again. Keep the water out and you can live out anything in the way of sea or wind. Let it get in and everything that before made your craft seaworthy will be an aid to your ending. Your ballast will be a weight to sink you, and the empty space that gave you buoyancy so much room to quickly fill with water.

After this, look to your pump. Where is it? In most yachts directly amidships, drawing out of a well over the lowest part of the keel. Where should it be? In the place where it can be used when most wanted—the bilge. You must have a means of drawing from the center, so you can pump out when at anchor or sailing upright. But all pumps should have a bilge intake. It would be a very simple matter to make such a connection with a cock to cut off the other intakes. How often, when he least wants to, has a man to let his boat up, so as to get the water amidships for the purpose of pumping it out. If he could pump from the bilges this coming up would be unnecessary. To kill a boat's way in a heavy beam or head sea, so as to get her on her keel, is a dangerous artifice; but it must be done with the pump amidships, if you want to get the water out, and keep a dry cabin. Every seagoing small yacht should have at least two fixed pumps, and a movable one. The fixed pumps should be constantly looked to, and the limbers kept clean. Never stow inside weight alongside of or over the intake, and never allow rubbish to be swept into the spaces between the floors. With a good pump a man can keep down all the water that will work into a tight boat through her bottom, topsides and deck.

All seagoing yachts should have the rudder post boxed up and carried well above the water line. The neglect of this is the cause of much leakage. She should also have in her rudder blade a boring or rod in which to make fast emergency lines or chains. In craft that have their rudders well under them a rod must be used, but in shallow boats with broad blades a hole bored through the outer edge will do. These lines are extremely useful when anchored in a sea way; by hauling them taut over either quarter you can relieve the strain on the head of the post and gear attached to it. In case of a breakdown of the quadrant, wheel or post head, you can at once take control of the rudder and keep the boat under command.

No boat should go into rough water for a long run unless she have ringbolts aft for the purpose of passing boom lashings, and also a fixed boom crotch, or at least one that can be made immovable. There is no other way of keeping a boom steady when the sail is lowered down. You cannot by any possible means do so with lashings, unless you can horn it in a crotch. A loose boom is a constant menace. Provision also should be made for the trysail sheets, and for body lashings for the crew, and lashings for the boat, even if you have davits. The principal weak spot in the rigging of a boat that is to be driven in heavy water is the bobstay. That piece of rigging is often carried away in a sea than any other, and usually it is the bolt that goes. Look to it, and look to it well; for if it parts, most likely you will lose your mast. The only safeguard lies in rigging a preventer stay that will set up with a tackle, the fall leading inboard. The stay should be of wire rope properly and strongly secured to the stem. Use either a gun tackle or luff tackle—the latter is preferable—and be sure to give it plenty of drift. When in use, set it up just scant of the strain, so that if the bobstay parts it will catch the strain before the spar gets a good spring. In boats that have a forestay set up to the stem head there is less likelihood of this accident happening; but it is always best to have a preventer fitted. Make the fall fast around the bitts or mast where you can readily get at it, and hold a turn to set it up. Seagoing boats should have two shrouds on a side and set up with lanyards in preference to rigging screws. If you fit the latter, have them about twice the size of those ordinarily put on by riggers. She should also have a heavy set of masthead runners and duplicate eyes to set them up to, one pair being placed well aft. Our modern full-bowed boats are very hard on their rigging and spars when in a sea way, and need to be heavily ironed.

Outside of her ordinary sails a seagoing yacht needs a trysail, a small square sail, and a small jib or staysail, all made of heavy canvas. Particular attention should be paid to the roping and clews of these sails. It is of no use using heavy canvas if the clew irons are frail and the rope light. A gaff-headed trysail is better than a jib-headed, but it is more bother to set. Care should be taken to see that the cleat or ringbolt for the trysail sheet is in such a position as will allow the sail to be properly sheeted, for a trysail when used for riding must set flat, or else it will bang itself to pieces.

In seagoing craft looks don't count, and therefore be not afraid to make all your rigging heavy and strong, and wherever possible have a fitting or tackle that can be instantly made to take the place of one that carries away. Always when in rough water or in heavy weather keep a vang or down-haul on the peak of the gaff. It is sometimes the only thing that will bring the sail down, and it gives you command of the spar, especially when the yacht is rolling heavily. The chafing of gear when in a sea way is constant and ruinous. To prevent it a close watch must be kept on all ropes where they pass through blocks or lie against spars or other ropes. If your halliards and sheet remain long in one place they must be canvased or armored with some sort of chafing stuff.

One more important thing. Whenever you get far from land, lash the oars and rudder in the dingey. Then put in a good long coil of light line, a bucket, a jug or breaker of water, and enough food to last for a day or two. Lash these in so they cannot get out. Many a life has been lost and many a man has suffered horribly because these simple precautions have been neglected. Something suddenly happens to the yacht; it is a case of boat at once. The crew throw the boat over and jump in. Too late they find that the oars are gone or that there is no water or food. The bucket and rope are for use as a sea anchor.