RIG FOR YACHTS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 112, 7 November 1935, Page 30

RIG FOR YACHTS

THE BERMUDA STYLE

TOO WEAK FOR GAtES

On two fine days at Dover recently the racing yachts lay at anchor. They were right; there was too much wind and sea for modern yachts to race (writes Major B. Heckstall-Smith in the "Daily Telegraph").

The great racing yachts of "J" class, beginning at Harwich, had eight races in their East Coast season. OZ these three were abandoned owing to rough weather.

That on two out of three of these days the old style of gaff mainsail cutters would have sailed their race is a fact that cannot be questioned. Nor is it possible altogether to disregard the criticism of the old-fashioned but knowledgable sailors, who declare that the new Bermudian rig of the. big yachts is an unseamanlike outfit.

It is not inspiring to see big racing yachts lying at anchor in harbour on a regatta day when there is a good breeze blowing.

Some forty years ago the great English cutters such as* the' Britannia, Valkyrie, Ailsa, and Kariad were of almost the same tonnage displacement as the present yachts and nearly the same sailing length, breadth, and depth. It is fair, therefore, to draw a comparison between them and the Yankee. Endeavour, and Velsheda.

The change that has taken place is not so much in the size or shape of vessels as in their rig. The size or area of the sails has been enormously reduced. The landsman might suppose this would make them better seaboats. It has had the opposite effect.

The sail area carried by the gaffrigged cutters in 1395 was 10,300 to 10,500 square feet, whilst that of a modern "J" class Bermudian yacht is 3000 feet less. The modern smaller sails are so scientifically planned that they will drive the hull much faster in light and moderate winds. The new Bermudian rig, moreover, is much more effective to windward, and this gives greater speed and more pleasure to the yachtsman upon the very point of sailing which is most enjoyable, and which tests both the boat's design and the sailing master's skill in the highest degree.

Here, then, we see the reason why scientific yachtsmen in modern times have evolved the Bermudian rig and abandoned the old gaff-rigged cutter.

Accompanying this evolution has been the invention of welded steel masts scientifically supported by fine steel spreaders and wires, various kinds of ''Park Avenue"' or flexible booms, and other mechanical contrivances, which were unknown in the old times. The architects have produced an altogether superior yacht for any purpose other than dirty weather.

Cleverly, indeed, have they devised a new rig 30 per cent, smaller than the old style, which in light or moderate winds will make the boat go "half as fast again." That, in itself, is a wonderful achievement.

But we must not disguise the fact that because of its delicacy, and particularly owing to the long period required for repair in case of breakage, this new rig is quite unsuitable for the strong breezes and rough seas which our cutters faced cheerfully thirty or forty years ago. The hull of the new yacht is as seaworthy as that of the old. It is superior in strength of structure. But not so the rig.

It is not altogether wise to decry the old English cutter rig as inefficient. True, in the gentle zephyrs of summer her unwieldy jackyard topsail, her broad gaff mainsail, with its ridiculously long boom, and her lowhoisted head sails were inefficient for their area if judged by the standards of modern aeronautical science.

The old cutters had eight spars made of solid timber—mast, topmast, bowsprit, jackyard, topsail-yard, gaff, boom, and spinnaker boom. The new Bcrmudian cutter has only three!— mast, boom, and a short spinnaker boom, tubes of steel or hollow wood.

The efficiency of the new rig for the small area it spreads is extraordinary. Its form is like the wing of the swiftest of bird, the falcon. In summer-like weather it is the best.

But when there is a slashing breeze and the white horses are prancing in the green Channel seas, it is a different story. Then, when "J" class vessels have (heir anchors on (he ground, with flio old-style cutter the seaman would reef his sail and pot the little jib-headed topsail, or would house his topma?t and set a storm jib. Then, with her solid timber spars she proved a stout craft. • and could sail a race through the flying spindrift that would gladden the heart of a sailor.