BIG RAGING YACHTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 70, 19 September 1936, Page 16

BIG RAGING YACHTS

THEIR DAY MASSING? REACTION FROM SEA MACHINE CRUISER IN FAVOUR Cowes Week this year saw only four . of the biggest-class yachts competing' in ttte Solent, says a writer in the' "Manchester Guardian." The champions who restored the prestige of the great cutters in the early post-war years have all'slipped from the scene—Britannia, White Heather, Lulworlh, Candida, Cambria, and Shamrock. This year the battle was between the two Endeavours, Velsheda, and Astra.. There must be' a reason for this, and a large section of the yachting world is convinced that the present-day "J"-class design and the regulations which govern it are all wrong. It is being said frankly that the regulations require complete revision, and the introduction of a new and smaller type of cutter is advocated. . •■■..' An indication of this trend of opinion was given some time back when the suggestion was made to' the New York Yacht Club that a smaller type should be engaged in the next races for the America Cup. The American authorities were not able to accept the suggestion, and their attitude was a reminder.that yacht-racing is nowadays so much an international • affair thatthe opinion of British yachting men cannot be the sole arbiter of design. COSTLY TO MAINTAIN.

The trouble with the "J" class is delicacy. They are seaworthy enough. They are fast enough. They, are habitable enough. But they are expensive to maintain, and when repairs are necessary the cost is a heavy item. The accident to the Velsheda and Endeavour a few weeks back, when both lost their masts in the same squall,. must have involved their owners in considerable expenditure. Moreover, the pre-sent-day owners, though men of wealth, are not men of leisure, and consequently there is a tendency for them to enter the yachts only at those south coast regattas which. they can personally attend. The Clyde,, for example, has been entirely abandoned for some years past by the "J" class, for the business preoccupations of men like Mr. T. O. M. Sopwith and Mr. Stephenson do not permit them to be absent from London for the length of time necessary if they are to take part in the racing during the Clyde Fortnight. ■. ' '; • This "delicacy" of the big cutters is a well-known factor. Rough weather, of which Britannia made nothing, is to them a source of constant . anxiety. The conditions that have obtained so far this year, even on the south coast, have been definitely worrying to those responsible for the yachts. It is probably fair to say that none of the four now racing would be expected to come scatheless through such a squall as hit the big class in Cowes Roads during racing one day in the regatta of 1927. Shamrock lay down so flat that it seemed impossible she could ever recover. Britannia, too, heeled to an angle that gave everyone a fright, and White Heather for a moment or two was completely blotted from view in the mist of spindrift. But nothing carried away.jn. any. of them. NOT STORM-PROOF.

Designers have given us a type Of: big cutter that is definitely faster than theearlier craft They are probably eight seconds per mile faster. Their rig, however, which gives them the speed, is not as stormproof as was that under which cutters sailed iri the nineties," nor does it stand up to stresses, in the same way. The Satanita, for example, once did an average of 13.7 knots for 50 miles. To drive a modern "J"-class boat under such pressure would wrench the mast out of her. An average of 11.7 knots is about as hard as anyone would care to drive her. The "J" class, in fact, are racing machines, with all the attendant characteristics of such specialised designs. They have not the hardiness of the true yacht. One symptom of the revolt of yachting opinion has been the revival of interest in the true cruisers and in the sport of ocean racing. The entries for the Cowes-St. Malo race, for the Benodet-Santander, the Fastnet, and the Channel races have all gone up year by year. In these one sees the beamy, ocean-going craft competing, vessels built originally perhaps for pilotage work or for deep-sea fishing. Even in the Little Ship Club we get this demand for real sea-going work, and their Brightlingsea-Ostend course, some ninety-two miles in length, sees at least thirty craft of from 25ft to/45ft in length merrily battling. The Channel race saw nearly forty vessels crossing the starting line, bent on covering the 220 miles to Le Havre and back whatever the weather. BOUND UP TOGETHER. The racing machine is not designed for that sort of /work, and yet the whole sport of yachting is fundamentally bound up with real seafaring. Admittedly the old hands of 1893 condemned the Britannia and Valkyrie II as hideous machines, a description that few of the present generation would ever have applied to the King's'yacht, but those old hands were instinctively right. "Machines" .was to be the right word for the. big class for the next forty years. Your true yachting man is not enamoured of machines, even though he does accept the motor-engine as an auxiliary. There. are plenty of yachting men who believe that the day of the racing machine is nearly over. If this is so, yachting as a spectacle will lose one of_ its few attractions for the uninitiated. For there can be no question that the sight of five or six of the "J" class bowling along at ten knots close inshore past Egypt Point in a dust of foam is one that stirs the pulse even of those who do not know the difference between a lee gunwale and a weather backstay. But yachting is not a public spectacle. It is one of the few sports one can call to mind which has not fallen into the clutches of the commercial "promoters," the only one that is entirely free from gate money. Its devotees can please themselves what types of craft shall take part in the sport. The two trends of opinion today are both away from the "J" class—the one towards the small racing. craft, the other towards the ocean-going, hard-weather cruiser.