Indeed, many of these Gloucester schooners are far more entitled to be called yachts than any other name. I have watched them turning up the Hudson in the winter, threading their way through the ice-blocks and the crowd of fussy tugs and mammoth liners in New York harbour with the handiness of a small rater. The most modern example of this ideal ship is that seen in Fig. 90. She is only a 53-tonner with an overall length of under 70 feet, and is fitted with a 25-horse-power motor. But in many cases the internal combustion engine has been adopted by the American sailing ships only to be rejected as not worth while. [Illustration: FIG. 89. GLOUCESTER SCHOONER, A.D. 1901.] [Illustration: FIG. 90. GLOUCESTER SCHOONER, A.D. 1906.] The coasting trade of the United States of America is not done in the ketches and topsail schooners and barquentines that we use. It is done exclusively, where sailing ships are used, in fore-and-aft schooners which have arisen directly or indirectly from Gloucester. Two masts have become three, three have become five, and even as many as seven have been used. Perhaps the most notable of these was the seven-masted _Thomas W. Lawson_, which foundered off the Scillies on December 14, 1907. Remarkable for the ease with which it can be handled, a three-masted schooner of about 400 tons requires only a dozen hands aboard. In tacking, a couple of hands work the head-sheets, and these with a man at the wheel can work her in and out of narrow channels, for which the rig is more suited than any modification of the squaresail. For labour-saving “gadgets” the American schooner has reached the furthest limit. Thus the anchor and sails are raised by steam force; there is steam steering gear as well as steam capstan, and the biggest ships of all have been fitted even with electric light. The illustration in Fig. 91 of a four-master will give one some idea of the extent to which the American schooner has developed. [Illustration: FIG. 91. AN AMERICAN FOUR-MASTED SCHOONER.]