But among the yachts the old {L - B × B × (1/2 B)}/94 prevailed, and
gradually builders discovered that, by increasing draft and amount of
ballast, beam could be pared down, and a boat of nominally the same
tonnage made longer and to carry more sail than her predecessor. Lead
ballast was slowly introduced, despite all sorts of adverse prophecies
from old salts that it would strain the ship and would cause her to
plunge so heavily as to go under; and presently, when some unknown
genius first put lead outside, and from a timid hundredweight or two
this increased to tons, the veterans gave the new type up altogether
as past praying for, and left them to their well-merited fate. I have
been unable to get any definite information as to the first
application of outside ballasts, but in 1834 Messrs. Steele built the
'Wave' for Mr. John Cross Buchanan, and on this vessel a metal keel
was fixed. There may, however, have been earlier instances of this in
the South. But Providence was on the side of the heavy lead keels, and
each year yachts got longer, and deeper, and narrower, and had more
and more lead outside, until there was none left inside at all, while
they more and more nearly approached Euclid's definition of a line as
having length but no breadth. _A propos_ of these proportions, a good,
and it may possibly be true, story is told of an enthusiastic
cutter-man on the other side of the Atlantic, who, intensely
prejudiced against the fine broad ships of America, asked a friend
here to buy, and have sent across to him, a typical British 5-ton
cutter, stipulating only that she should be fast, and at least as
narrow as anything of her class. The little craft was safely brought
across and put in the water in New York Bay, and after a trial sail
the owner invited one or two friends to come off for a day's
pleasuring in the new ship, with the object of showing the advantages
of five feet of beam against ten. But, on coming alongside, the first
to get out of the dinghy took hold of the runner, and taking a nice
wide step, so as to get well into the centre of the boat, stepped
clean into the water on the other side.
But long before the advantage of substituting untaxed depth for the
heavily taxed beam was discovered, and about 1850 Mr. Wanhill, of
Poole, introduced the raking sternpost, thus getting, on a given
length of keel, a much longer water-line. But even this device was
used in moderation, 50° to 60° being the utmost rake given, with the
sternpost showing at the water-line, and such vessels as our modern
cutaway fives, tens, twenties, or forties, with the keel a fourth of
their over-all length, were as yet unthought of, though the direct
inducement to build them was far stronger then than now.
[Illustration: 'Cygnet' cutter, 35 tons. Built by Wanhill, of Poole,
in 1846.]
[Illustration: Midship section.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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