But beam was now steadily increasing, as untaxed dimensions are apt to
do, while extreme draught also increased, and these two giving ample
stability, displacement was more and more cut down. Length still had
to be got somehow, but length ran up wet surface, and in the 'classes'
for every foot of length a considerable amount of sail-area had to be
given, making, as it were, a direct and indirect tax thereon. With an
ordinary form of profile, the longer yachts would have been clogged up
with wet surface; so profiles first imitated 'Jullanar' and then
'Evolution,' while displacement was cut down to a minimum, to give an
easily driven form, and stability got in another way, by lengthening
the righting lever of the ballast, by giving immense draft of water,
and in the smaller classes concentrating this ballast in the form of a
bulb, as in the altered 'Evolution.' With the shallow body, overhang
has of course increased, the flat section carrying out naturally into
overhangs forward and aft, which almost double the water-line length
of the boat on deck. That such a type of boat sails fast for a given
sail-area and water-line length is beyond dispute, but this exhausts
almost all that can be said in its favour. For 1/2-raters, 1-raters,
and 2-1/2-raters, the type is perhaps suitable enough, as these are
only used as day boats, and extended cruising was never contemplated
in them. But from 5-up to 40-rating the type is nothing like so good
as that of the boats built prior to 1890. Expensive to build,
expensive to handle, without head-room, or indeed room of any kind
inside, they would thrash themselves to pieces in any sea but for the
admirable manner in which they have been put together. A season, or at
most two, sees the end of their success as racers; then they must be
broken up, or sold for a mere song, as they are quite useless for
cruising. So strongly was this felt by the various yacht-builders and
designers, that in the autumn of 1891 they, in response to the
invitation of the Yacht Racing Association, addressed a joint circular
to that body, and, with I think exceptional abnegation of what looked
to be their more immediate interests, pointed out the undesirability
of the present type of yacht, in the following letter:--
Langham Hotel, London: October 6, 1892.
We (C. P. Clayton, William Fife, jun., Charles Nicholson,
Arthur E. Payne, H. W. Ridsdale, Joseph Soper, and G. L.
Watson) have met for the consideration of the questions put
before us in the circular of the Council of the Yacht Racing
Association, dated September 27, 1892.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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