_2-1/2-rater (Mr. H. Allen). Designed by Nat. Herreshoff, 1893._] In designing a small yacht there are matters that have to be considered which scarcely affect larger vessels except when comparing them, again, with larger vessels still. One of these points almost makes it worth while looking back at the reasons why certain types of small yachts have become so prominent and so much sought after and believed in. The great American designer, Mr. Herreshoff, and our own clever yacht architects here, are taking the canoe of the savage as their model; and as this is the case, it may be interesting to see how, starting from the canoe, all yachts have taken their form (no matter how deep or beamy they may have been), and perhaps, too, by so doing, it will be easier to discern and arrive at the kind of form best suited to meet special requirements, apart from the trammels of the rules, measurements, or ratings such as are or have been laid down for yachtsmen and yacht-owners by the Royal Thames, the Yacht Racing Association, the American and French yacht clubs, or other societies and authorities. The canoe of the South Seas or the kyak of the Greenlander could not have been better chosen, had they been worked out on the most scientific principles, for the work they have to do. The shape is that best adapted for speed, lightness (which means light displacement), and, under certain conditions, for sea-going qualities. Those conditions are, of course, smooth water or big ocean rollers, which seldom if ever break, and a propulsion easy, strong, and yet not exaggerated, longitudinal and not transverse in its tendency (as in propulsion by sail). Now if this model be taken, which invariably possesses a U-shaped section, there will be no great difficulty in understanding the whys and wherefores of the several transformations it has undergone.