One of the objects of the Royal Yacht Squadron, when it was originally founded, was to encourage seamanship, and, as steam was supposed to destroy seamanship, steamers were not admitted into the Club; and the Royal Yacht Squadron was right. Steam does destroy seamanship; a steamship hand is certainly not half a sailor. Now more than half the tonnage of the Club is in steamers. I think it is a pity, and they are such steamers too! 800 tons, 1,000 tons, 1,500 tons. I do not see where they are to stop; but, I believe that in this, as in most things, we have run into excess. I cannot believe that the largest steam yacht afloat, with all the luxury and cost that upholsterers and cabinet-makers can devise, will ever give a man who is fond of the sea and seafaring matters a tithe of the gratification that a 100-ton sailing vessel will afford; one is a floating hotel, the other is a floating cottage. I prefer the cottage. The worry of maintaining discipline in a crew of forty or fifty men, amongst whom there is sure to be one or two black sheep, the smoke, the smell of oil, the vibration, the noise, even the monotony, destroy pleasure. Personally, the game seems to me not worth the candle. Thirty or forty years ago, yachting men with their sixty or hundred tonners went on year after year, fitting out, and cruising about the coast, as part of their yearly life. When their vessel was wearing out, they would sell her, and buy or build another; they seldom parted with her for any other reason. Now a man builds a floating palace or hotel at a fabulous cost; but as a general rule in about two years he wants to sell her and to retire from yachting life. A sailing vessel and a steamer are different articles; you get attached to a sailing vessel as you do to anything animate, to your horse, or your dog; but I defy anyone to get attached to a smoky, oily steamer. There is an individuality about the sailing vessel; none about the steamer. When the seven wise men of Greece delivered the oracular dictum that there were only two beautiful things in the world, women and roses, and only two good things, women and wine, they spoke according to their limited experience--they had never seen the new type of racing yacht under sail. Of course the perfection of animate beauty is represented by women, but certainly inanimate nature can show nothing more beautiful than 'Britannia,' 'Navahoe,' 'Valkyrie,' 'Satanita,' their sails well filled, the sun shining on them, streaking along twelve or thirteen knots an hour, apparently without an effort, scarcely raising a ripple. And then a yacht is so exceedingly feminine in her ways. One day everything goes right with her--she will not only do all she is asked to do, but a great deal more than her greatest admirers ever thought she could do: the next day everything goes wrong with her--she will not do anything she is asked, and indeed will not do what her admirers know she can do without an effort.