From its position the harbour suffers from uncertain winds, but should there be a clear sky and a hard north-easter there need be no fear that the racing will not prove of the very best. The regatta course forms an obtuse-angled triangle, and as a short stretch has to be taken across the mouth of the harbour, it not infrequently happens that a very uncomfortable sea has to be negotiated before the second buoy can be rounded for the run home. Hobson's Bay is a much larger tract of water, being close upon ninety miles in circumference. It is not, however, navigable in all parts owing to extensive shoals. These, though very much in the way of navigation, help to form a kind of breakwater to the anchorages off Sandridge and Williamstown, which are open to southerly and south-westerly winds, and would accordingly, but for them, be often swept by very heavy seas. The principal yacht club is the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria, established at Melbourne; but there are numerous small yacht and boat clubs scattered about the colony at various towns, such as Sandhurst, Bendigo and Ballarat, where there are lagoons or lakes varying in size from three to many miles in circumference. The Albert Park Yacht Club, at Melbourne, is a good type of one of these inland institutions. The yachts or boats employed on the Albert and Ballarat lagoons range from 14 feet to 30 feet over all, They have great beam, and because the depth of water is as a rule shallow, have rarely over 4 feet to 5 feet draught. Good sport is obtained out of them, and races are continually taking place. At Geelong, which is a fine natural harbour about forty miles from Melbourne, and off the open anchorages of St. Kilda and Brighton, yachts are moored during the season, and at these places are to be found any number of yachting enthusiasts. The club course is a very good one for trying the respective merits of competing yachts, and many an exciting race has been sailed over it. Intercolonial regattas have been held, which have proved great successes, and for these, owners of yachts of 40 tons and under think nothing of working their way from port to port over an expanse of a thousand miles or so of ocean. The yachts built in the colony are framed and planked with the wood of the red gum-tree, which is, in fact, the only wood the colony produces that is of any real value for the yacht-builder's use. It takes the place of larch or pitch-pine with us.