"VALKYRIE."
Valkyrie is not such a metallic boat as Defender. She is of the composite type. Her stem and stern are of wood, and she is planked on the outside with American elm below water and spruce on top. This elm is an excellent wood for yacht construction. It will not decay if kept under water, but spoils if allowed to be wet and dry by turns. It is used a great deal in England, and yet, strange as this may seem, it cannot be bought in the New York lumber market. It is scarcely known here. It comes from Canada, in the neighborhood of Quebec, and the whole supply is shipped to England. In Canada the elms are grown in plantations, and cultivated so that they are straighter and taller than those we have in the United States. Here elm is seldom used in the construction of ships except for knees. It is also a favorite wood for the hubs of wheels. But this elm is the common elm, not the American elm of the English market, which, as I have said, is hardly ever seen on this coast.
But although Valkyrie's hull and stern are of wood, her frames are of nickel steel strapped together with steel ribbons running at an angle. Thus, before her planking was put on, she must have looked like a huge steel basket.
The masts of both yachts are of Oregon pine. And with regard to this Oregon pine another peculiar feature of the Atlantic coast lumber market becomes apparent. Ten years ago Oregon pine was not known here. Ship-builders did not use it. But the Britishers did, and all the Oregon pine that could be purchased used to be shipped to England in sailing-vessels that went around Cape Horn from Puget Sound. When our ship-builders finally discovered that this pine was about the best that could be had for masts and spars, they tried to buy some, but they found they had to go to English markets to get it. Within the past few years, however, more and more Oregon pine has been offered for sale on this coast, and it is probable that Defender's mast was not imported from England. The first boom of Defender was also of Oregon pine. This boom cost nearly $2000, and was built like a barrel, or rather like two barrels—one on the outside of the other. This was to give additional strength. The inner boom was hooped together with steel bands, and then the outer layer of pine staves was fitted on and hooped with brass rings. But when Valkyrie appeared in dry dock here and began to put on her racing togs, the Defender syndicate saw the Britisher's steel boom, and forthwith set about to build one like it. Valkyrie's boom is the first of the kind ever seen in this country, and probably the first of the kind ever made. Some of the big sailing ships of commerce have had steel yards, and racing-boats abroad have sometimes been fitted with spars of drawn steel; but nothing like this boom of Valkyrie had ever before been attempted. It is hollow, of course, and although of steel, is about one ton lighter than the pine boom that Defender first carried. The American yacht's steel boom is now a counterpart of her rival's. It is made in sections that are riveted together through flanges that project on the outer side. It is built on the plan of an elevated railroad pillar, and looks very much like one, being of about the same thickness, only round instead of square, and about twice as long as the average elevated-road pillar is high.
The sails of the racers are probably the most wonderful part of their whole make up. Defender, when she has her mainsail, her jib, her jib topsail, her staysail, and her working topsail up, carries 12,000 square feet of canvas. And when she substitutes for these working-sails her balloon jib, her club topsail, and puts out her spinnaker she almost doubles that area. These sails cost thousands of dollars, because there must be several of each in case of accident to one or another, and for use in the different kinds of wind that may prevail in a race. There is a heavy mainsail for strong winds, of sea-island cotton or Egyptian cotton or ramie cloth, while the jibs are made of lighter grades of the same material, until they come down to the constituency of a coarse pocket-handkerchief. One of Defender's spinnakers is of Scotch linen. In 1893 it was reported that one of Valkyrie II.'s big spinnakers was of silk, but it was not; it was of exceedingly fine Irish linen.
Taking all these matters into account, and considering that each boat must have from forty to fifty sailors to man her, it becomes evident that the building and maintaining of such a yacht is a matter of no small expense. Mr. George Gould spent no less than $40,000 to put Vigilant in condition to race with Defender in the preliminary trials this year. The crew has to be engaged and trained for weeks before the racer is put into commission, and kept at work for a couple of months before the great contests for the Cup are held. These sailors, of course, cannot live on the yacht, since there is no room for bunks or lockers or a galley on the modern racing-machine. Therefore both Defender and Valkyrie have steam-tenders.
There is really something humorous about a crew of sailors leaving their hollow unbunked boat every evening to go to bed in a tender near by. At meal-time, too, the gallant tars have to seek their floating hotel. When Defender was with the New York Yacht Squadron on this summer's cruise she reached port one evening ahead of most of the fleet, and of her slow consort. She was too deep of draught to get far into the harbor, and being a "racer" she had nothing aboard but men and sails, a small anchor, and a small dinghy. Consequently the crew sat on the deck for several hours, with their legs hanging over the sides, waiting for the Hattie Palmer to come along and give them their supper.
A great number of Americans—and I am one of them—would have preferred to see Defender built on the American centreboard plan, all of American material, and without borrowing British ideas, especially as to the boom. They were sorry to hear that Mr. Gould last year wanted Mr. Ratsey, Valkyrie's sail-maker, to make Vigilant's sails, and they were very glad when the loyal and patriotic Ratsey (credit be to him for it!) refused to take the order. But, after all, this great number of Americans has nothing to say in the matter, and all they—and I—want is to see Defender win by fair means the matches she was built to race in, and the Cup she was built to defend.