Ducklings—Victoria Park—Yachtsmen—Cowes—Floating family—The ‘Zara’—Lifeboats—Wrecked—Mop—An odd story—The law of anchors—Experiments—The Royal yacht.

Medina Dock is the place to see all sorts of ships and boats for steam, sailing, or rowing, lifeboats, rafts, and models. The basin is full of broken-backed men-of-war whose old black bones are being disjointed and dragged asunder here to make strong knees again, just because they are black and well seasoned. Alongside the quay we had seen the three American yachts, which came across the Atlantic amid many English cheers for the vessels of two hundred tons crossing from New York, while we scarcely record the voyages of our own hundred-ton vessels that have often sailed to Australia.

In Mr. White’s garden there are Chinese junks and catamarans afloat in a pond, and even the walls around are not allowed to be quite of dry land, being painted with sea soundings and charts of the neighbouring coasts. This may indeed be called the Admiralty of the yacht fleet, and Cowes is its Portsmouth.

“Nauta nascitur non fit,” which is in English, “British boys are ducklings born to the water.”

Now many of these have affectionate parents not web-footed, and the filial duty of a little duck to the motherly hen is a very difficult question of conscience when a pond is near; but then there is no positive need to boat, while there is a positive command to obey. This ought to solve the question with all brave loving boys, who are manly enough to obey the woman dearest on earth to them.

A little vessel two feet long may be called a toy ship, but it is a toy that can teach much to an Admiral, and I should not like to have as my comrade on a voyage the man of forty who can pass the Serpentine without a glance at the little ragged urchin there, who is half in the water himself while he reaches with a twig his tiny lugger after its long voyage across the lake among ducks, and row-boats, and billows two inches high.

Victoria Park, again, has a feast of nauticalities now and then for boys who love boats, when the Model Yacht Club sails its liliputian squadron for a half-crown cup.

The competing yachts first lie on the green grass for inspection. They are made in “off hours” by working men, who sail as well as build them. Wife or a school-girl daughter has sewed the sails, and the paint on the hull is gorgeous. Crowds of all classes and ages are at the starting-post, and when the pistol fires the cheers begin. Each favourite in the fleet has its admirers, who run alongside, and the Secretary alone has a grave face, as of a man on important duty. Who can say what sailors’ seedlings may be watered in that pond, and to grow up in manhood afterwards as hearts of oak?

And if a boy is too young, or lazy, or clumsy-fingered to make a boat for himself, let him go along Fleet Street till he comes to the spot where he can turn his back upon St. Dunstan’s church. Depend upon it he will cross over to the Model Dockyard there, and after buttoning his jacket over his watch-chain, and a good shove down to his pocket-handkerchief, if he has one, let him wriggle in by elbow and knees till he gets a good place among the crowd at the window.

Even when it is time to go home he will not have seen half the naval stores here, or the little sailors—from Cork—all waiting to be engaged; but if he buys the Illustrated Handibook inside from the civil shopman, to con at home, perhaps at his next visit he may be admitted up-stairs to a delicious treat, where he can gloat over the more hidden fleet of the future.

Some, perhaps many, people keep yachts who do not enjoy sailing. We have sometimes seen a yacht-owner who could not steer his own dingey. There are others whose chief anxiety when once on board is for their speedy arrival at the next port. To have the best yacht of the year is no sign of its owner being a good sailor. The horse that wins the Derby would most likely not be first if he carried his owner, and a man may have a good carriage who cannot himself “handle the ribbons.”

It is no discredit to anybody that he is not able to ride a race, or steer a schooner, or drive a drag; but it is well to remember more than we do whose is the skill that wins in each of these exercises.

At Cowes one perceives very soon that a good deal of yachtomania is fed upon the good meat and drink afloat, and balls and promenades ashore, and the pomp and bustle of getting from one to the other, not to forget the brass buttons which fasten more vulgar minds to some Clubs.

Leaving aside all these in peace, provided they play with the thing as they have a right to do, and as openly as now, so that none can mistake them, we have still to admire a splendid set of fellows, yes, and of women too, who really love the sea. We know a hardy canoeist who said he would not marry anybody unless she could “pull bow oar,” and it certainly is an addition to the family hearth when the tender help-meet can “mind her luff.”

In the regatta week the tide of a congregation coming out of the pretty church at Cowes is thoroughly aquatic. Fine stalwart men with handsome faces, girls with chignons as big as a topsail bunt, yacht skippers of bronze hue and anxious eye, well fed sailors with cerulean Jerseys, children with hat ribbons and neckties labelled with yacht names. There were 150 yachts on the water here, and the Rob Roy anchored close to the Hotel, from which the sight was magnificent at night, when each mast-light was hung, and the whole made a brilliant crescent reflected in calm sea, while excellent music played softly on shore, and at each half-hour the bell of every vessel tolled the time, the Rob Roy adding her note to the jingle by so many thumps on an iron pot.

Near the yawl was a strange little cutter of five tons, as remarkable for the number of people on board it as mine was for having so few. There was the grey-haired hearty papa, and when we had noticed him taking observations with a sextant, we knew he was “a character.” Then there was his active son, and a younger brother, and a sister in bright red, and a sailor boy. They looked even more numerous, because they kept for ever moving out of sight, and then appearing in new costume, under and above the awning, which like a large umbrella, was spread on their boom.

It was a treat to lunch with this kind hale yachtsman, and to see the one minute cabin full of mirrors, pictures, statuettes, crockery, and furniture. To make room for the visitor two of the inhabitants ate their share of a huge pie in the punt alongside.

Then, to rise at once to the largest yacht of them all, there was the beautiful ‘Zara,’ a schooner of 315 tons, fitted out for a Mediterranean cruise, but making her first voyage from Cowes to Southampton, convoyed by the Rob Roy, and as her reefing topsails and her Flemish horse got entangled aloft by new stiff ropes, she drifted against another fine schooner; but with cool heads and smart hands on board of each of them, the pretty craft were softly eased away from a too rough embrace, and no damage was done.

About twenty of the yachts were steamers, and at least as many besides had steam-launches, a new adjunct rapidly becoming popular, and which soon will be almost a necessary for every yacht of 200 tons. All of these that I saw were lifeboats, built on “Lamb and White’s” principle, that is, with air chambers along the sides, so that they decline to upset, and if they are filled by the sea, they are not only still floating but steady also.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution build boats with ballast below and with air-chambers so disposed at the ends and in the bottom as to cause the boat to right itself when it has been overturned, while Mr. S. White’s boats are constructed so as rather to prevent a capsize than to right the boat afterwards.

During an experimental trial in a heavy sea, one of these side-chamber boats was intentionally overturned, and it then kept steadily floating bottom upwards, so that the crew clambered up safely on the keel, where the handles provided for the purpose enabled them to hold on. Of the fourteen men, however, only thirteen could be counted, and so it was found that “Jem” was missing; but when he was called, Jem answered from the inside of the boat, “All right!” “What! Are you inside?” “Yes, I’m looking for my cap.” He was safe enough in the vacant space between the water and the floor, upturned over him, and there was room for several more of the crew inside.

The two rival systems then seem to represent (1) a boat which will speedily right, of which the men, if upset, may float outside until she rights, or may keep inside, and cling to the thwarts and trust to be soon righted; and (2) a boat which will upset only under strongest pressure, but the men can either stop inside, or if cast out can cling to the keel.

To decide between the merits of these lifeboats would require actual experiment outside and inside of each by the judge, who ought to look at all sides of the question; but my opinion is, at present, in favour of the side-chamber plan, for ships’ boats, and of course for steam-launches; while the evidence in favour of the other plan for pure lifeboat service in rough water is convincing.

Whatever may be finally settled as to the best position of the air-cases in lifeboats—and the best men in the world for these matters are engaged in earnest upon the subject [206]—it certainly is prudent for all who care not to be drowned, that the boat they sail in should be so built as not to go down bodily when a mere hole is knocked in her, and this may be insured by dividing her into water-tight compartments.

Some years ago I had a sharp lesson on this point. It was in Dublin Bay, where I was sailing entirely alone in an iron cutter-yacht, very small, yet far too large to be managed by me, then a boy. The throat parrell suddenly broke, and the mainsail jammed at once, so that she would not stay. Then I tried to wear ship, but the running sea poured in over the counter at each plunge, and baling was impossible, for it ran fore and aft. As the water got deeper inside she settled down, for she had no compartments, and, being of iron, of course she must speedily sink. A yacht had humanely come out, seeing my distress, and she rounded to and dropped a boy on board me with a strong rope; but when the boy set foot on my bows they plunged deep under water, and with a loud cry he hauled himself back on board the other yacht.

The captain instantly tacked and came again, and cast the rope to me, which I fastened securely to my mast, and then got safely aboard the preserver’s vessel, while mine sunk down, but suspended still by the rope, until we towed it into shallow water.

This sort of thing was fully provided against in the Rob Roy by the water-tight compartments, three in number, besides the air-chambers, so that if she was filled in any one, she could yet sail on, and if all three compartments had been entirely full of water, she would still float with her air-chambers, and with five hundredweight to spare. [208]

The buoyancy of the yawl was very remarkable. She easily carried twenty men, and in the same space one could accommodate five ladies of reasonable circumference.

A boat’s mop is, of course, well known to be always fair spoil to him who can take it, and whatever other article the yachtsman leaves loose on an unguarded deck, he never omits to hide or lock up the mop, for a mop is winged like an umbrella, it strays, but seldom returns. The usual protection of mops is their extreme badness, and it is on this account, no doubt, that you never can find a good mop to buy. The Rob Roy’s mop was the only bad article on board, and I left it out loose in perfect confidence. Often and often it had evidently been turned over, but on examination it was found supremely bad, worse than the thief’s own mop, and not worth stealing. At last, however, and in Cowes, too, the focus of yachting, if not of honesty, my mop was stolen. The man who took it is to be pitied, for, clearly, before he coveted a bad mop, he must have been long enduring a worse one.

Nor is the property in boats’ anchors quite free from the legal subtleties which allow but a dim sort of ownership in things that are attached to the soil.

When, indeed, your boat is at one end of the cable, you will scarcely fear that the anchor should be stolen from the other end. But when necessity or convenience causes you to slip anchor and sail away, you must recollect that though the anchor is the emblem of hope, it does not warrant any expectation that on returning you will find the anchor acknowledged to be yours. It has now passed into the category of “found anchors,” and it is not yet decided how the rights to these are best determined. However, I may here mention one mode of settling the matter.

A gentleman we shall call N., sailing from a port on the Thames, had to slip his anchor, and he said to the lad ashore—“You see I am leaving my anchor here, and be good enough to tell your father to get it when the tide falls, and to carry it to where my yacht is, and when I return here to-morrow I will give him half-a-crown.”

After his sailing was over, N. came back and said to the father, “Well, have you got my anchor?” “I have found an anchor,” he answered. “Yes, that is mine, and I told your son I would give you half-a-crown if you brought it here.” “I have found an anchor, and I’ll not give it up under five shillings,” said the man; and their argument and remonstrance gradually enveloped the subject in a hazy abstruseness, while the usual knot of idlers listened all round. At length N. said, “Come, now, we really must settle this matter. I’ll fight you as to whether I am to pay five shillings or nothing for the anchor,” and he took off his coat and waistcoat, so it was plain he was in earnest. The other man stripped too, a ring was formed, and after N., worsted at first, had well thrashed his opponent, the latter gave up the anchor. Here, perhaps, we might think the case had ended, but N. had still a point to be settled, saying to the man, “Your bargain was not only to give up the anchor, but to bring it here;” and as the fellow refused to do this, the valiant N. cut the second discussion short by saying, “Well, then, I’ll fight you again as to who shall carry it up,” and it need scarcely be said that the anchor was not carried up by N.

Is there any other country but England where two men can pummel each other in hard earnest, and yet with less passion at the time, and less grudge afterwards than often exists for years between two combatants who battle with their tongues, or even fight with their pens and post-stamps?

As anchors are important parts of one’s equipment, I had begun early to experiment at once with mine, and the small one had been tried once as a kedge. With the first heave it broke off short; the stock had snapped in the place which ought to be the strongest, but which is really made the weakest, by the present faulty construction of anchor-stocks. The memo in my log-book was, “Invent a proper anchor;” and even at Cowes I could not find any plan that met this need. [211]

Before the end of my voyage, a score of minutiÆ as well as things of some importance were marked as lines for great improvement, when a nautico-mechanical brain shall be brought to bear upon them. The mental consideration of such points afforded varied subjects for many weeks’ thought. Indeed all the fittings of a sailing-boat seem open to much improvement. Meanwhile we have laid down the large Trotman as moorings in the Medina, while we range about the bays of the island with the smaller anchor duly repaired.

Of course the dingey had its Sunday voyage at Cowes, and was everywhere received with kindness. It went to the Royal Yacht here, as it had done to the Emperor’s yacht at St. Cloud, and the sailors were grateful for books to read, for they have plenty of time on Sundays. When I went afterwards with my canoe to the Nile, my next neighbour at the hotel dinner in Port Said was the owner of an English yacht, who gratefully expressed his thanks for books given to his crew at Cowes.

It did not appear to be the fashion at Cowes to work the crews for pleasure sailing seven days a week; indeed, we saw only one yacht sail in on Sunday, and she was arriving after a night’s voyage.