[Illustration: 'Kestrel,' 202 tons (Earl of Yarborough, Commodore R.Y.S.), 1839.] CHAPTER VI RECOLLECTIONS OF SCHOONER RACING BY LT.-COL. SIR GEORGE LEACH, K.C.B., VICE-PRESIDENT Y.R.A. Schooner racing has unfortunately for the present become a thing of the past; but the prominent position it at one time occupied makes it desirable to refer to the subject in any publication relating to yacht racing, for the purpose of reviving recollections of the times when races between the 'two-stickers,' or in which they took part, were considered a leading feature of the regattas of all the principal yacht clubs. The decadence of schooner racing was primarily due to the more extensive use of steam; wealthy men preferred steam yachts, in which they had better accommodation and could move with certainty from port to port, to sailing yachts, in which the accommodation was less spacious and the powers of locomotion were dependent on the winds and tides. But to the true lover of the world of waters the pleasures of steaming do not bear comparison with the pleasures of sailing. Another reason for schooners going out of fashion was no doubt due to the improvement of the speed of the cutters and yawls. Formerly schooners could compete with success in races open to all rigs, for though their powers of turning to windward were inferior to those of the single-stickers, their reaching powers, with the wind free, were generally superior, so that in mixed races they had always a fair chance of carrying off the prize. No schooner has yet been produced which could compete successfully with the cutters of the present day, even with the benefit of the large allowance of two-fifths of her tonnage made under the rules of the Yacht Racing Association for difference of rig. The last schooner of note which appeared under racing colours--the 'Amphitrite'--brought out in tiptop condition by her owner, with an able skipper in command, though she had some success, was not on a par with the best of the racing cutters of her day. Again, the building of large yachts for racing purposes has declined for some years past, owing to the great increase in the expense both of building and maintaining them, and because yachting men found that as much, if not more, pleasure was to be obtained in racing small vessels, in the handling of which they could take a large share, than in larger vessels which, as a rule, were sailed wholly by their skippers. Under all these circumstances, it is not surprising that schooner racing should, for the present, have passed away; though it is by no means impossible that it may hereafter be revived, especially if further experience shall show that the very large cutters which have been brought out this year, with sail-areas of over 10,000 square feet--about a quarter of an acre--are too large for the sometimes turbulent winds and waters round our coasts.