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HOW A NINETY-FOOTER BE- HAVES IN AN OCEAN RACE.* Being a Short Account of the Perfor- mance of the Yawl Ailsa in the Race for the Kaiser's Cup Across the Atlantic in 1905. BY PAUL EVE STEVENSON, The British-built yawl Ailsa was, with one exception the smallest vessel that took part in this great race, her dimensions being 89 feet load water- line, 131 ft. over all, 26 ft. beam and 17 ft. draught, her gross tonnage amount- ing to 116. She was designed by Wil- liam Fife and built in Scotland in 1895. When she was first spoken of as a pos-' sible entrant for the race, there were many who considered it a preposterous conception and one that was worth hardly more than a passing thought.. "What, enter this 'crazy-eyed racing machine, this 'composite basket' in a race across the North Atlantic! Even if she was a Scotch-built boat, she came over originally in a slow canter; not under skittering racing sticks that she'll have to carry now to make any showing at all." In this manner these maritime Solons expelled their weighty views and shook their salty locks. Gradually, though, interest in the un- dertaking gathered energy, and when the fine performances were recalled of the Vigilant and Navahoe in their Ocean passages in fast time and with- out mishap, popular opinion among yachtsmen experienced a change of sentiment to a great degree and a lively interest was kindled among them when Ailsa was definitely entered in the great contest. This interest con- tinued to grow when the insignificant size of the boat compared with some of her big competitors was appreci- ated; and the experts reached the same conclusion, namely, that her only chance of winning lay under but one condition of weather, to wit, smooth seas and a head wind, or at least a close reach. Ailsa had left a very creditable record behind her after a long series of races with the Prince of Wales' Britannia, and if it should happen that we could find for her con- ditions favorable to her type, she stood a very good chance of finishing among the first three. No one thought of her as a possible winner in any other sort of weather, for in strong, fair winds her large antagonists would overpow- er her and in the event of heavy weather they would simply drown her out. Immediately prior to the start, Ailsa was overhauled as completely as pos- sible alow and aloft; she was entirely *Read at the annual meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. "TAE. Marine. REVIEW replanked in many places, and gener- ally strengthened so as to withstand the severe tests of a deep-water race. Among other preparations, five feet were clipped from her bowsprit, short as it was, till it seemed no more than the pointed end of a cigar jutting out of the stem, while the mizzen or jigger had been cut down to nothing but the pocket handkerchief of ancient tradi- tion. She carried, however, her racing mainmast and the mainsail itself was of the exact size for smooth-water rac- ing. She also carried an extra stout triangular storm t:ysail--the riding sail of the Grand Bankers--made of Irish flax, which was bent to the mast with toggles when required. A hooded slide was built over the forecastle hatchway and another one over the skipper's hatch immediately forward of the wheel; while wooden battens and strong canvas covers were fitted for the skylights fore and aft. The small boats carried in case of accident were fishermen's_ dories, lashed three in a nest just aft of amid- ships, the most wretched type of small boat imaginable in case of a quick exit, except in the hands of fishermen born and bred in them and who know every detestable humor of these craft. The writer's opinion on this subject may not be of monumental worth, but he has had a good deal of experience in them with the fishermen out of Mar- blehead and the Kennebec; and while it-ig true that on the Banks a dory carries a ton of fish and two men in a heavy jumble of sea, these men know what they are about and are not asked to jump unaccustomed into them, three or four. men to a -dory, in a heavy, breaking sea. If it should come to aban- doning the ship, this purpose being the » only excuse for their presence. on board, the result would be much too painful to contemplate. It is true that two large, strong boats secured amid- ships would have occupied more deck space than the nests of dories; but they would have possessed the incal- culable advantage of usefulness in a disaster. That the Yankee dory, strict- ly indigenous to New England, is the finest sea-boat of its size known to sailors when properly handled, is a fact beyond dispute; but one has to know them from the cradle upward to under- stand all their madness in a seaway. Several of the other racers also car- . ried dories as well as Ailsa; and only a providential immunity from an oc- casion to utilize them in heavy weather prevented what must have been a mis- erable loss of life. The notion of five or six men living in one of these lit- tle fourteen-foot boats in a breaking sea until picked up is unthinkable. 15 Because of our handiness as a rac- ing "machine" we were enabled to get away first across the line at the start, followed immediately by Hildegarde, Atlantic, Endymion, and Hamburg, the later being the only other pure racer in the fleet besides ourselves, though much larger and more power- ful. On board of us there were 28 per- sons all told, three of us aft in the cabin, while the ship's company in- cluded a skipper, two mates, steward, mess boy, two cooks, and 18 men be- fore the mast--precisely the comple- ment that handles a modern two-thous- and ton sailing ship with thirty-five hundred tons of cargo aboard. Our cabin had been cleared of all unneces- sary furniture and decorations and a large icebox had been built into the floor; and as a vasty hummock of storm canvas occupied the rest of it, locomotion below was not accom--- plished by the customary methods. No carpets were down to hold any water that might be shipped, though this was a vain precaution, for the only salt water that found its way below in the whole fortnight was a bucketful through the inadvertently opened com- panionway. From the beginning of the passage till we let go in South- ampton water, Ailsa leaked no more than could be pumped out in five min- utes each watch, even in heavy weath- | er that we ran into in mid-Atlantic-- a very different fulfillment of the dark prophecies that sprang from certain quarters before the start, when a bas- ket was too sound an article for com- parison with Ailsa's hull. It is also not unworthy of comment that only during the first six hours of the voy- age did we have a head wind; after dusk fell that first night at sea we held the Jersey coast aboard, while most of the others split tacks and went away along the Fire Island beach. About ten p. m. the wind shifted into the southward from E. N. E., and never again headed us during the three thousand miles--a first hand illustra- tration of the "brave west winds" of the Atlantic. For two or three days afterward, the . breeze held true and fresh from the southwest, and because it was fair we were able to carry all our kites, in- cluding the spinnaker until it split one afternoon, after the spinnaker boom . had soared up to the spreaders in a heavy roll and broke into three pieces. We fished this boom, however, but lost a twenty-foot section out of- the middle of it, and during the rest of the passage we utilized the balloon jibtop- sail as a spinnaker, as the original one would have been too large for the 'shortened boom. The sea had increased