From a Drawing By W.L. Wyllie, A.R.A.
PUNT: SEA MAIDEN.
At last came the happy day for launching, when a cart was brought up from the farm filled with straw, and pulled up close under the door of the loft, the punt being lowered away carefully on the top. In procession we followed down the old road to the brickfields, the little girl[1] bringing up the rear in her chair. When the cart had been backed as close down the river as possible, Sweet Pet dashed her bottle of wine against the boat's side, and with a little excited shriek, called out good luck to Sea Maiden, as the punt plunged into the water.
That same evening, Sea Maiden's sail plan was calculated, and drawn out. We have very strong ideas of our own on the sit of a sail, and had proved by many experiments that a sail that sits dead flat is a mistake, but to make sure, we made one more trial with a lot of little paper vanes stuck on pins, and setting our sail, pinned these right across, shifting them time after time as we sailed about. Then we came to the conclusion that there should be a fairly flat after-leach curving very gradually to the luff, and that seams carried across the sail in the direction of the wind, caused less deflection than the usual seams up and down. Now the carpet was rolled up in the drawing-room, and our union silk cut and ruled with the greatest care, each seam with half-an-inch curve towards the luff over-lapping to form pockets for the light ash battens, and a nice round after-leach and foot. Then came the machining, which was simple enough, and fell to my lot, and in time the sail was bundled up and sent off to be roped, with strict injunctions that it was to be sewn loosely to the rope, especially the luff. When it came home it was set between a tree and a fence, where through the early spring it flapped gently up and down whenever there was a light breeze, stretching and improving itself in the sun. Sailing was then started in real earnest, so that we might learn the ways of the boat, and get all the gear to work with the least amount of trouble, before the racing came on. Our balance-jib looked after itself, being laced to a light ash boom. In going to windward the sheet was always fast, and when off the wind it could be goosewinged in a second by letting the sheet run, and pulling on the lee-guy, so that what little we lost in the size of the sail was counteracted by the speed with which we could handle it.
Drawn by W. L. Wyllie, A.R.A. For The Sportswoman's Library.
PUNTS RACING.
(THE RACE.)