If it is desired that a small boat should keep the sea, the nearer she approaches to the canoe form, as far as is compatible with the limited requirements, the better able will she be to cope with the difficulties which she ought, under the circumstances, to be ready to encounter. Hence it is that those men who make great ocean voyages, as, for instance, across the Atlantic, in boats about 15 feet or thereabouts, always have their boats built as round and floaty in form as it is possible to design them, taking into account that they must be decked, have sufficient depth of hold to allow of stowage for provision and water, which act as the greater part of the ballast, with the addition of just sufficient room for lying down at full length under deck covering: 2 ft. 6 in. to 3 feet is the outside depth under the deck of any of these diminutive ocean cruisers. The entrance given to such boats is always full and buoyant, though not bluff. Rarely do they have a vertical stem, but one rather rounded up, with a slight overhang. The after-body is generally whale-shaped, with the sternpost at a somewhat less angle than the stem. Both stem and stern-posts have this inclination given them, not with the idea of making them quick in stays, but rather for the purpose of meeting and throwing off head or following seas, and adding buoyancy to both ends. The main principle in these boats is to obtain buoyancy and speed, while great sail-carrying power for driving at abnormal speeds does not so much as receive a thought. This is why it so seldom occurs that any of these little vessels fail in reaching their destination. They go over the seas and not through them, owing to lack of weight and want of power. Their worst experiences during their long, uninteresting, and perilous voyages generally begin on nearing our shores and the chops of the Channel, where the seas begin to assume a broken, short, uneven, or at the best a deep ridge and furrow, shape. These boats may be considered the first remove from the early canoe form. The general requirements, however, in a yacht are speed, accommodation, sail-carrying power, and weight. This latter property means, in other words, the ability to drive through a sea which, from its wall-sidedness, makes it an impracticable barrier to get over. When a vessel has not the weight or power to meet such a sea, as a rule, it spells disaster, or, to say the least, very disagreeable consequences; whereas if she can climb a part of the way up and then send her nose through the top, all is sure to end well.