A RACING CANOE.
LEG-OF-MUTTON.
The sails most commonly used on canoes are the leg-of-mutton sail and the standing lug. On racing canoes you usually see the bat sails—but racing canoes are mere machines that are not good things to have or to imitate, and the better element among canoeing sportsmen to-day are frowning them down. A leg-of-mutton sail requires a tall mast, which some canoeists regard as a serious objection. The sail, however, runs to such a small point aloft that there is really very little surface exposed to the wind, and very little weight up there. It is the most simple form of sail, too, and can be easily raised and lowered, or reefed, and is, I believe, the safest kind of a sail for a canoe. It can be used to very good advantage on a boat of the "Nautilus" type.
STANDING LUG.
For a canoe of the "Peterborough" type the best kind of a sail is the standing lug. It is very nearly square (and if you want to manufacture one yourself you can make it square), and very good for running before the wind. It is easily managed, and serves admirably as a tent or awning when you are camping with your canoe turned up for shelter.
One of the greatest pleasures of canoeing is that the impressions you get are so vivid and real. All the world seems so big and strong. Your craft is so tiny that everything else appears to be very large. A breeze that would be welcome to a yacht is a gale to a canoe, and what are moderate waves to a sail-boat of ordinary size are heavy seas to a "Peterborough." And then, in a canoe, you are your own captain and your own crew. You can go as close in-shore as you wish, and the panorama that passes by you is so near that you almost feel you can touch the fields and hills, or pick up the cows from the pastures and put them down again. And then the expense of canoeing is so moderate. You can live on your voyages at the rate of about fifty cents a day. You carry your house along with you; your only expenses are for provisions. I should be glad to give more space to the subject, but while I believe that a great many of the readers of these columns are interested in canoes—or would be if they had ever tried one—I realize, too, that there are others who are just as eager for bicycling and cat-boat sailing and mountain climbing and hunting and fishing. And to them I shall talk later. But if there is anything about canoes that any reader of the Round Table desires to know, I shall be glad to reply to his questions.
Football practice has begun in California. The school term opens in August on the Coast, and the football men of the Academic Athletic League are already on the gridiron. The Oakland High-School eleven promises to be a strong one again this year in spite of losses by graduation. Lynch will probably fill McConnell's place at tackle, and Walton will no doubt play half-back. Russ, the clever half-miler, is trying for quarter. He is not particularly apt at the game, and is too good a track athlete to risk his legs in a scrimmage. If the O.H.-S. Captain can find another man for the position, it will be best for the general welfare of the school's sport to keep Russ on the cinder track. Chickering will be on the end again, and Guppy is pretty sure to hold the other flank.
Captain Anderson will keep his old position at full-back. He has speed, endurance, and pluck; he runs low, uses good judgment, and plays hard all the time.