Continental sailors—Mal de mer—Steam-launches—Punt chase—The ladies—Fireworks—Catastrophe—Impudence—Drifting yachts—Tool chest—Spectre ship—Where am I?—Canoe v. yawl—Selfish—Risk and toil—Ridicule.

The regatta days opened with wind and rain; but even at the best of times, the sight of a sailing match from on shore is like that of a stag hunt from on foot,—very pretty at the start, and then very little more to see. It is different if you sail about among the competing yachts. Then you feel the same tide and wind, and see the same marks and buoys, and dread the same shoals and rocks as they do, and at every turn of every vessel you have something to learn.

No one can satisfactorily distribute the verdict “victor” or “vanquished” in a sailing-match between the designer, the builder, the rigger, and the course, the weather, the rules, the sailor of each craft, and chance; though each of these will conduce in part to the success or failure in every match. Still there is this advantage, that the loser can always blame, and the winner can always praise, which of these elements he finds most convenient. But if a sailing-match has little in it quite intelligible, even when you see it, the account of a past regatta is well worth keeping out of print—so be it then with this one, the best held at Cowes for many years.

The large crowds that attended, and their obstinate standing in heavy rain, were in marked contrast to the phlegmatic and meagre interest of the few French who came to the regatta at St. Cloud. But it is such occasions that remind us of England being a land of seamen, while continental sailors are at best of the land, except in northern nations.

Once it was my lot to sail in a small screw-steamer along the coast of Calabria. Of the four passengers one was a Neapolitan officer, who embarked in full uniform; and with light tight boots and spurs, and clanging sword, he stalked the quarter-deck, that is, he took three steps, and was at the end, and three steps back.

In going out of Messina I saw we should have a tough bit of sea outside, and was soon prepared accordingly. He did not so, and the first bursting wave wet him through in a moment, and down he went below. Some hours afterwards I descended too, and a melancholy sight was there, with very lugubrious sounds.

In the cabin was a huge tub full of water, and the officer (spurs, boots, and all) was sitting in it with his legs out of one end and his head groaning and bellowing from the other. This was his specific for sea-sickness, and for three days he behaved about as well as a fractious child who sadly wants a good whipping. It is no discredit to a man to be sea-sick. Nelson, we are told, was so far human. But it is somewhat unmanly for an officer to whine and blubber like a baby, and yet we have several times seen this phenomenon abroad. When we came into Naples this lachrymose hero was again in full feather, boots, spurs, and sword, stalking the quarter-deck as if no tub and tears had intervened.

Some excellent rowing-matches, after the Regatta in Cowes, were varied by a “punt chase,”—an amusement thoroughly English; when one man in a punt is chased by four in a low-boat, who have to catch both him and his boat within ten minutes.

Of course his path is devious and tortuous on the water, his resort being quick turns, while the chasers gain in speed. After numerous close escapes he leaps into the water. Then if the pursuers catch and hold his boat it clogs them in following him, and if they follow him while his boat is left free, he manages to escape round some tangled mass of shipping, and so regains his boat for a new start.

This is the sort of thing that tries both swimming and pluck in the water, as well as mere muscle or wind in rowing. It is to racing proper what a hunt is to a flat race. Rowing is only one small part of boating, and it is apt to monopolise our favour chiefly because many can row for one that can boat.

In one of these punt chases at Cowes the punter had several times plunged into the sea, and amid shouts and cheers he was always closely followed by one of his chasers who swam almost equally well.

At length the brave punter swam over to the ‘Alberta,’ one of the Queen’s steam-yachts, which had several of the royal Princesses and others on board, who kindly thus patronized the races, and their presence was thoroughly appreciated by us all. The hardy sailor scaled the yacht, and actually ran among the ladies,—who doubtless were much amused, and indeed they tittered vastly. Then he mounted the lofty paddle-box, closely followed by his resolute pursuer, who would not be shaken off. With one moment of hesitation the punter took a splendid “header” into the sea, and as he was thus descending from the paddle-box the gun filed, showing that the ten minutes had expired. The pursuer could then, of course, have given up the chase as done. He had lost and could not win now. But there was still in him that fine free boldness which superadds brave deed to stern duty, and, amid a burst of cheers, he too leaped down into the sea.

The Punt Chase

The first diver, however, had heard the wished-for gun as he fell and so he claimed his prize when he came up, all red and watery, and both had well gained the applause of the spectators.

It is not for one who has rowed fifty races with pleasure to underrate, far less to disparage, mere rowing; but still we maintain that for the encouragement of pure manliness, and the varied capacities useful in a sailor’s life, one punt chase is far better than ten of the others.

The rapid introduction of steam-launches into use for our large English yachts adds quite a new feature to every grand regatta. Here again, however, the French navy led the way, and England follows somewhat tardily. The French fleet at the Cherbourg review, some years ago had a swarm of these fussy little creatures buzzing about the great anchored iron-clads. English steam-launches were built to carry each a gun, and so they are bluff and slow. Our Admiralty declined to allow a race between these and the French launches in Paris, else, no doubt, the superior speed of the French boats would have astonished John Bull. All this has lately changed, so that launches and torpedo boats in England can steam twenty miles an hour.

The “voyage alone” had culminated at Cowes when the splendid exhibition of fireworks closed the grand show of British yachting. It was a beautiful sight those whizzing rockets speeding from wave to sky, and scattering bright gems above to fall softly from the black heaven; those glares of red or green that painted all the wide crescent of beauteous hulls, and dim, tall masts with a glow of ardent colour, and the “bouquets” of fantastic form and hue, with noise that rattled aloft, while thousands of paled faces cheered loud below. To this day the deck of the Rob Roy (which is now in Australia) bears marks of the fire-shower falling quietly, gently down, but still with a red scar burned in black at the last.

Luggage is all on board again, and our tiny “Blue Peter” flies at the fore, for the Rob Roy will weigh anchor now for her homeward voyage. The Ryde Regatta was well worth seeing, and she stopped there in an uneasy night, but we need not copy the log of another set of sailing matches.

Thus in a fine evening, when the sun sank ruddy and the breeze blew soft, we turned again to Brading harbour, and, just perhaps because we had come safely once before, there was listless incaution now, as if Bembridge reef could not be cruel on such a fine evening as this.

Various and doubtless most true directions had been given to me as to entering this narrow channel:—“Keep the tree in a line with the monument; that’s your mark.” But when you come there and see the monument, there are twenty trees; and which then is the tree to guide by? Here, therefore, and in mundane things on land too it is alike, the misapprehension of a rule was worse than the chance mistake of undirected mother-wit. A horrid crash brought us suddenly to rest; the Rob Roy had struck on a rock. Though I was lax at the time, and lolling and lazy, yet presence of mind remained. Down came the sails, out leaped the anchor, and shoving, and hauling, and rowing did their best; but no, she was firmly berthed on one of the north-west rocks. Presently a malicious wave lifted her stern round and the rudder soon bumped on another sharp ledge, until by sounding and patience I at last got her free, and rowed out through a channel unconscionably narrow, and then ran the sails up, and the yawl was safe again, sailing smoothly, with a deep sigh of deliverance.

A sailing-boat had put off from the shore to help, seeing the catastrophe, but I signalled to her, “Thanks—all right now,” and she went back.

Soon another boat that had rowed out came near, and the man in her determined to be a salvor whether or no, and leaped on board the yawl. I made him get off to his boat; I had not invited him, nor had he asked permission to board me. He could see it was the other man’s job, and he ought to have obeyed the signal, as the other did. Grumbling heavily, he at length asked me to tow him in. “Well,” I said, “why, yes, I will give you a tow, though you have been very impudent.” But the moment he came near he jumped on board again, resolved “to save me,” though I might protest ever so hard. Once more, then, I bundled him into his boat, and this time rather by deeds than words. He kept up a volley of abuse all the way to the shore, and there I gave my yawl in charge of the first man, who had acted right both in coming out and in going back when signalled. A hospitable Captain R.N. offered me his moorings (as a good bed for my yawl), and asked me to breakfast next day, which was accepted, “subject to the wind,” especially as the entertainer was of the clan “Mac,” like his guest.

Calm night falls on the Rob Roy, in a little inland lake, profoundly still, more quiet indeed, in respect of current, tide, or wind, or human being than any night of the voyage. It was very difficult to turn in below with such a moon above, and water quite unruffled. So there was a long lean-to on propped elbows, and reverie reeled off by the yard.

Daybreak grey, with a westerly breeze, at once dissolved the breakfast engagement, and carried the Rob Roy to sea, with her own kettle briskly boiling; and now we are fairly started on our voyage to the Thames again. But the glowing sun also took its morning meal, and greedily ate up the wind; and so the yachts from Ryde could be seen far off, looking farther off in a misty curtain, all only drifting with the tide, while they raced their hardest for a cup. Yet there is science and skill in drifting well. If the skipper has no wind to show his prowess in with sails, he must win by his knowledge of current, tide, and channel, while he seems perhaps to be carried along helplessly. One after another the pretty racers slowly rounded the Warner light-ship, and then each sunk back, as it were, into the gauzy distance, until they seemed like white pearls dotted on grey satin, and the Rob Roy was alone again, while the fog thickened more. Land was shut out, then sky, then every single thing, and the glazed sea seemed to stiffen as if it had set flat and smooth for ever.

To know that this state of thing was to last for hours would make it intolerable, but the expectancy of every moment buoys up the mind in hope, and every past moment is buried as you reach thus forward to the next coming.

Then the inexorable tide turned dead against me, and down went my anchor; for, at any rate, we must not be floated backwards. Tool-chest opened, and hammer and saw are instantly at work, for there are still “things to be done” on board, and when all improvements shall have been completed then vacant hours like these will be tedious enough; but never fear, there is no finality in a sailing-boat, if the brain keeps inventing and the fingers respond.

Out of the thick creamy fog a huge object slowly loomed, with a grand air of majesty, and a low but strenuous sound as it came nearer and clearer to eye and ear. It was an enormous Atlantic Steamer, and it went circling round and round in ample bends, but never too far to be unexpected again. Sometimes her great paddles moved with a measured plash, but slow, until she dissolved before my eyes into a faded vision. Again, when hidden, there would still come a deep moaning from her hoarse fog-whistle out of the impenetrable whiteness, and she again towered up suddenly behind, ever wheeling, gliding on, vapour and water so commingled that you could not say she floated, but was somehow faintly present like the dim picture on a canvas screen from a magic lantern half in focus. She was searching in the fog for the ‘Nab’ light-ship, thence to take new bearings and cleave the mist in a straight course at half-speed for Southampton. When she found the ‘Nab’ she vanished finally, and I was glad and sorry she was gone.

After long waiting, the faintest zephyr now at last dallied with my light flag for a minute, and the anchor was instantly raised. A schooner, also outward bound, soon gently burst its way through the cloudy barrier, and I tried to follow her, but she too melted into dimness, and left me in a noiseless, sightless vacancy, except when the distant gong of the light-ship told that they also had a fog there.

How did the ancients by any possibility manage to sail in a fog without a compass? In those days, too, they had no charts; yes, and there was no “Wreck chart,” to tell at the year’s end all the havoc strewn at the bottom of the sea.

Well, we sailed on and on, always seeming to sail on into pure cotton-wool, which blushed a little with an evening tint as the sun tired down, and so here was a long day told off and ending; but where exactly am I now as darkness falls?

You will say, “Why, the chart tells that, of course;” and so it does, if you have anything like sure reckoning to indicate what part of the mazy groups of figures on it to look for as your probable place; otherwise a dozen different places in it will all suit your soundings, and eleven of them are wrong.

Consider the data, for our calculation. The Rob Roy had been carried by two tides; one this way, the other that. She had sailed on three different tacks, that is, in various angular directions, and with different speeds, and these complicating forces had acted for times very uncertain. Where is she now? an all-important question for settling the start point in a night cruise, and on a dangerous coast.

The last time I was sailing in fog was on the Baltic, in my canoe, where, just at the nick of time, a look-out man was descried on a high ladder far overlooking the low rocky islands of the Swedish coast, and he speedily showed me that my bow was then pointed exactly wrong for the desired haven.

This may be the time, perhaps, to compare the canoe voyages with the yawl cruise, even if we cannot settle the question so often put to me, “Which was the most agreeable?”

A canoe voyage can be enjoyed by several men, each in a separate boat, and yet all in a combined party; that is, with distinct responsibility but united companionship. The yawl cruise devolves both toil and care on one alone, but he also has all the pleasure, and so it might be pronounced at once to be more selfish than the other voyage. But after a score of tours, in large and small parties, I see that selfishness is quite independent of the number concerned. A man who is pleasing his wife or his children in a tour I do not count at all; for everything that delights or benefits them is of course a pleasure to him. Or again, he may journey with ten companions, and his travelling circle will indeed be larger, but the centre of it may be after all the same.

Of the thousand tourists who rush out over the Continent each summer there is little check on selfishness by meeting people in trains, steamers, and hotels for a temporary acquaintance which is speedily dissolved as soon as the interests or the likings of the companions are not coincident.

Unselfishness appears to consist in doing good when it is not exactly pleasant to do it, and to people who are not in our own groove, or in “our set,” but like the people invited in the feast prescribed by Christ, and for whom we work as a duty, whether it is immediately agreeable or not. It is giving up our own will to God’s command and obeying this ungrudgingly: and yet our own pleasure may be most in giving others pleasure, and we can be lavish of labour for others while we are selfish at the core. Thus it seems to be very difficult ever to be unselfish in the sense that it is often absurdly insisted upon; namely, that others are everything and yourself nothing. Nevertheless, after all casuistry, we know what is meant by “selfish,” as an undue regard. But the result of an action is to be looked at, and it does not become selfish because we alone do one part of it. A man who steps out from a crowd to pluck flowers alone on the edge of the cliff may bring back a bouquet that will give fragrant pleasure to them all, while another who stays in the group of gatherers may gather none at all or may be very selfish about his handful. Our lonely labour may, in fact, be useful for other people in the end.

The anxieties of the canoe trip are more varied and less heavy than in a sailing cruise.

In the yawl I was always sure of food and lodging, but then in the canoe one does not fear wind, wave, calm, and fog; for, at any rate, one can at the worst take the canoe ashore. The risk of a total loss of the canoe is only fifteen pounds gone, but the other shipwreck risks ten times as much, and whereas each canoe danger can usually be avoided, those met in sailing at sea are often to be encountered without any escape.

The physical endurance required in a canoe is more under control of a previous arrangement. The muscular exertion with the paddle is generally voluntary, while that in the yawl was often hardest when one wanted most to rest. You need scarcely be forced, in canoeing, to go on two days and two nights without sleep, as will presently be seen was my fate in the yawl.

The scenery in traversing land and water in a canoe is of course more varied than in sailing always at sea, but the perils of the deep have a grandeur and wideness that seem to rouse far more the inner soul and with more profound emotions. The thoughts during a night storm at sea are of a higher strain than those in passing the rapids in a river.

Finally, there is at first a sense of incongruity in the appearance of a canoe when in a cart, on a train, or in a house, and you have often to meet an inexplicable but evident smile at the whole affair, which perhaps comes from pity, certainly from ignorance, and it may be from contempt; whereas a sailing-boat crossing the deep is doing what people in ports and ships know very well about, and if your boat keeps on doing it successfully they cannot despise the deed because the boat that does it is small. A man who comes to the “meet” on a little pony will not be laughed at if he is always well in at the death.

Perhaps the voyage alone in a yawl will not be so often repeated by other people as that in a canoe, but this last manner of touring became popular at once.

One of the members of the Royal Canoe Club (The late Hon. J. Gordon), a distinguished University oar and Wimbledon Prizeman, sailed [240] at night across the Channel from Dover to Boulogne, paddled through France and sailed to Marseilles, and thence from Nice to Genoa, through the Italian lakes, the Swiss lakes, and by the Reuss to the Rhine home again. A second coasted along England, and paddled across the Channel from the French side in a ‘Rob Roy’ made with his own hands. A third crossed from Scotland to Ireland in his ‘Rob Roy.’ A critic complacently denied, a few months before these voyages, that a canoe could cross a bay eight miles wide. The canoes of our Members have paddled over thousands of miles in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, including China and Japan, besides cruises in Australia, New Zealand, and many groups of islands far away.