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THIS chapter is for "land-lubbers" and country folks. It cannot have much interest for yachtsmen, who are recommended to steer entirely clear of it, for it contains little about their favorite sport which they do not know. However, there are comparatively few persons, even of those living on the sea-coast, who have any correct notion of the number or cost of the "Pleasure Navies of the World," and it is for such that these facts are collected.

Yachting, whether in cruise or regatta, is an amusement which perhaps no two persons enjoy in precisely the same way or in the same degree. There are few sports in which men take such lively interest, and in which they are at the same time so content to be mere spectators, leaving to others the action. and the labor. With many, sailing is the embodiment of all that is enjoyable in fresh air, vigorous exercise, and rapid motion; to a great many others it suggests only general discomfort and innumerable annoyances. Some take to it voluntarily, as a VOL. IV.-25

delightful not less than an invigorating exercise; others with wry faces, as so much necessary but nevertheless nauseating medicine. While some look upon the yacht afloat as the perfection of freedom, a great many more agree with Lord Chesterfield's Respectable Hottentot (who was never out of sight of land in his life, notwithstanding his boasts at his London club that he had been on the Atlantic in an open boat) in thinking that "no man will go in a ship who has ingenuity enough to break into jail." The same gentle craft has often borne on the same trip the most delighted and the most dejected of creatures. sional yachtsmen enjoy the sport differently. Yachting, and more especially yacht-racing, is not merely exciting but dangerous. It demands not merely nerve and courage, which come by nature, but that patience and coolness which only experience and long training attain. It calls forth in the highest degree the qualities of courage, resolution,

Even profes

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decision, and perseverance; the powers of endurance, quickness of eye and delicacy of touch, not less than strength in handling the tiller. To many yachtsmen the excitement of the race is essential. They are sportsmen in precisely the same sense that trainers of fast horses, who seldom enjoy riding, are not in that truer and finer sense which gentlemen who train animals for the pure love of driving feel with the reins in their hands. The healthful exercise, the bracing air, the intense yet soothing pleasure of the swift gliding motion are in large measure lost to the "sporting yachtsman,"-impaired by a morbid desire to own the fastest boat or to win the greatest number of cups. They sail too often less for their own satisfaction than to destroy by defeat the pleasure of their rivals. There are other yachtsmen whose quieter tastes lead them to long summer cruises-genuine lovers of sailing, who occasionally enlist in regattas, as country gentlemen exhihit their best breeds at agricultural fairs, less for personal gratification and the sake of rivalry than to maintain the ancient reputation and glory of their associations. Both these classes of yachtsmen have their uses. It is the last-named who have built and who maintain our pleasurefleets, but the former class has done all that has been accomplished toward popularizing

yachting, until it has become, as far as a costly pleasure can become, a national sport of America as it is of England.

It is due also to the "sporting yachtsmen" that so many American yacht-owners are practical yachtsmen, capable of sailing their own vessels in any sea, a qualification in which every real aquatic sportsman ought to feel proud to excel. Unfortunately, the amateur yachtsman seldom sails his own craft any more than he drives his own carriage; and a skipper is as necessary to his enjoyment afloat as the coachman is to his pleasures ashore. The first class made yachting a luxury; it is owing to the latter that yachting has come to be regarded here as in England-"the manliest and most useful of all sports." While, therefore, the luxury of proprietorship remains to the few, the sport is enjoyed by the many, and regattas command the attention of thousands where dozens were concerned in yachting ten years ago. The "sporting yachtsman" in America is found almost exclusively in New York bay; the pleasure-seeker hails from Massachusetts bay. Annually both classes meet in cruise at Newport, which is the great rendezvous for American yachts, as Cowes is the anchoring-ground of the English fleets; and to Newport in the summer and fall one must resort if he wishes to see the beauty and

perfection of American yacht models.

And to see also the most costly yachts in the world. It is something to be a little ashamed of that we build the most costly pleasure-vessels of any country. Many of the American yachts cost each more than some first-class city residences, and are valued at more than the average farms in the Middle and Western Statesland, stock, lumber, and crops included. They are maintained at a yearly cost greater than the expenses of thousands of large households, and are of ten fitted up in a style of luxuriance unknown on shore. Many of

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them contain under the quarter-deck spa- | cious saloons in which the tallest seaman can stand erect. They are almost invariably paneled in ebony, maple, or like costly woods, and upholstered and carpeted in velvet. Large mirrors, ample sofas, enticing lounges, and inviting easy-chairs form the furniture. State-rooms, several in number, furnished in equal elegance, accommodate ten or twelve guests. Pantries, store-rooms, closets, patented cooking ranges designed especially for yachts by a firm which makes yacht-furnishing a specialty, electric bells communicating between the cabin and forecastle, and latterly even gas (produced by passing a current of air through a small box containing chemicals), are among the modern improvements of the model yachts of the day. And, to complete all, the larders and wine-closets are usually filled with food fit for princes.

It is estimated by yachtsmen of prominence and experience that the pleasure-yachts of the New York Club alone must have cost nearly $2,000,000, while the fleets of the whole country cost about $5,000,000. The yachts of the Brooklyn Club cost $350,000; Atlantic, $400,000, and all others in New York bay about $300,000. The Eastern Club of Boston Harbor is very wealthy, owning yachts valued at $400,000. The best class of these vessels cannot be built and equip

THE SAPPHO.

ped for less than $150 a ton, or about $5,000 for a sloop of 35 tons, the smallest craft which can be constructed with due regard to comfort and convenience in a cruise. Yacht-builders declare that a roomy cabin, large enough to accommodate the average grown person, cannot be attained in vessels of smaller tonnage. A crew of five men is necessary to man such a yacht, and these cost, during the summer cruise of four months, at least $150 a month. It is necessary to employ one of the crew as steward during the whole year, in order that the yacht may be taken care of. The expenses for food are to be added to all this, so that the amusement is dearly bought. But as the yacht at the same original outlay will accommodate say from seven to ten guests, the cost does not compare unfavorably with expenses at a crowded hotel at the Springs or sea-side, and the accommodations of the yacht are immeasurably superior to those of the hotel in the season.

These figures give only an indistinct idea of the cost of larger yachts. The famous Henrietta was sold, after her triumph in 1866, when quite an old vessel, having seen rough service in the civil war, for $15,000. Her former owner, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., immediately bought the Fleetwing, one of the vessels which he had beaten in the famous dead-of-winter ocean race, for $65,000,

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and rechristened her the Dauntless. was this magnificent vessel which was beaten in the ocean race of 1870 by the Englishbuilt Cambria, which was sold the same year for $30,000. The Resolute of Mr. A. S. Hatch, the smallest and one of the most elegant of the schooner-yachts of the New York Club, being 110 tons burden, cost $30,000-but she was built in war-times. The largest schooner-yacht in the country, the Sappho of Mr. Douglass, cost much less than this, proportionately. Yachts built in the excellent stanch style of these endure for many years. They may grow out of fashion, or may be excelled by new models, for the art of yacht-building improves with each year, but they never rot if cared for. The English yacht Pearl, built in 1818 by the Marquis of Anglesea, has outlived her famous master and all his family except one son, Lord Alfred Paget. This young nobleman, inheriting the taste of his father (who, in spite of his great qualities as a cavalryman, was, to use his own expression, "the most thorough-bred yachtsman in England"), has lately abandoned his old love for a new steamyacht, and the Pearl lies rotting in ordinary. There are several very old yachts in the American fleet, the America itself having now attained a generation of years without losing any part of the vigor of youth.

The extravagance of American yacht-owners has led of late years to a degeneracy in yacht-building, and it is a reproach that many of our swiftest and most beautiful yachts are really unseaworthy. During the

out-to-sea races in October, 1871, between the New York yachts and the Livonia of Mr. Ashbury, the Columbia and Dauntless, two of the finest and most elegantly-equipped yachts in America, were disabled in the heavy winds they encountered, while their stancher-built English rival came in without a spar broken or a sheet tattered.

There are, of course, smaller yachts in practical use than any named, and persons living in the sea-coast cities with a taste for the sport can engage them for short cruises. At several points on the South Side Railroad of Long Island, and indeed in every bay on its coast and that of New Jersey, there are fleets of these, ranging from ten to twenty tons, owned by fishermen, who let their yachts and themselves much as a coachman lets his hackney-coach for an excursion. And the yacht is the cheaper vehicle of the two. Yachts of twenty tons, as long as the double-parlors of a fashionable residence and twice the width. of its halls, not extravagantly decorated, yet not lacking in comfortable cushions and sheltering cabins, can be hired at from seven to ten dollars a day by sailing parties of from two to ten in number. For the real enjoyment of sailing, these small yachts are preferable in short cruises to the larger ones, and just as safe if well handled. Long cruises are frequently undertaken by English and American yachts of the very smallest tonnage. During the Crimean war an English yacht named the Pet, of only 8 tons, described by her owner as "about as long as a moderatesized drawing-room and scarcely so wide as a

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four-post bed," made the cruise of the Baltic Sea safely, meeting with no mishaps other than those resulting from the state of siege then prevailing, and the suspicion under which she labored of being a sort of amphibious spy.

It must not be supposed that no good. comes from the heavy expenditure for pleasure-ships which has been noticed. To man them many thousands of seamen are. employed at unusually high wages. England over 6,000, and in this country about 2,500 men are employed during the four yachting months at an expenditure of about $1,250,000.

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In

S.REYNOLDS

BUILDING STEAM YAWLS AT THE NAVY YARD.

The crews of yachts are generally composed of men engaged for the greater part of the year in fishing and piloting, and usually very familiar with the principal bays and harbors in which they are to cruise. The construction of yacht-models has become, under the encouragement of extravagant yachtsmen, a special branch of ship-building, and has led to changes in naval architecture of greatest importance and benefit. "What does the water like?" is a question which ship-builders will doubtless be forever asking themselves, but it may be safely said that Americans have come nearer answering it by their yacht-models than any other nation by any other designs. Model-makers have devoted more time, ingenuity, skill, and enthusiastic study to the construction of fast yachts than to any other class of vessels. In Great Britain the yacht-clubs have practically proven naval schools, from which, indirectly, the British service has been in times past recruited. Twenty years ago the yacht squadrons of England were called "a nursery for bringing up our national naval spirit to a respectable and well-grown maturity." The English clubs have authority to grant admiralty warrants to yachtsmen. It should not be forgotten, in enumerating the advantages of this sport, that in the late war our own volunteer naval service was largely recruited from the

masters and crews of merchantmen, fishing fleets, and not a little from among those of the yacht squadron. In one or two instances the services of master, crew, and yacht were freely tendered to the government. The Maria, America, and Henrietta, the three most famous of American yachts, saw service during the war, and one, the America, fell captive to the enemy and was sunk in Cape Fear river to obstruct its passage, but was subsequently raised. The most natural effect of the declaration of war between this country and any other naval power would be to send half our yachtsmen to sea in command of privateers or men-of-war. Is not this a practical argument for the organization, better discipline, the increase, and recognition and encouragement (not support) by government of yacht clubs and yachtsmen?

Yachting has ever been and must always remain, for the most part, an aristocratic sport. The cost of building and maintaining even the smallest sloop-yachts, places the regular enjoyment of the sea beyond the financial resources of the great multitude. From time immemorial the yacht has been the exclusive toy of the wealthy. The rich merchants of Tyre, of whom the Prophet Ezekiel wrote, maintained their private galleys, with "benches of ivory" and masts of 'cedar from Lebanon ;" and spread forth

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