was the only representative of a nation famous for the use of the rifle, and naturally felt that it would not do for me to make an unsuccessful shot. and I was on my feet prepared for another shot. But the smoke hung low for what seemed a long time, and when I did get a clear view neither of the chamois was in sight. I was being tortured with doubt as to my success, and had even begun to think how I could explain matters to the rest of the party, who would assuredly know of my failure, when I heard an exultant shout at my left and not far away. Later appeared my nearest neighbor in the hunt, who clapped his hands and poured out such a stream of mellifluous eloquence that I could only conclude that my shot had taken effect, and that he knew it. And so it proved. For, leaving his rifle with me, he bounded away with almost the agility of the chamois itself, and returned with the game. But I had not long to think about it, for suddenly, as if they had sprung, Minerva-like, into existence, two fullgrown chamois came into view on the edge of a cliff some four hundred yards to the right and above me. They stopped for an instant only, and then disappeared as quickly as though the earth had swallowed them. I kept my eyes riveted to the spot for perhaps five minutes, at the end of which time the wary creatures came in sight again. This time they stood close together, half facing in my direction, and somewhat nearer than before, on a gigantic bowlder. Evidently they had chosen this position that they might the more read- I had no other chance to test my skill ily discover whether they had enemies for the day, and perhaps, as in the fain front as well as behind them. As mous case of Henry Clay, who drove a they stood there with heads high in air nail home at the first shot and declined they formed a picture worth traveling to shoot again until some one had done far to see. For a moment I was affected better, it may have been well that I did by it, and quite unable to shoot. But I not. Other members of the party were soon remembered that the reputation of successful, too, for on returning to the American sportsmen was at stake, and hotel we found we had secured three that but once in a lifetime did one have fine specimens of what is, perhaps, more such an opportunity. Then my nerves be- difficult to successfully hunt than any came like steel, and with a steadier hand other sort of game. than I have sometimes held a rifle on nobler game, I sent the leaden messenger on its errand. An instant later That night we had a grand dinner with chamois served à l'Italienne, and with an American as the guest of honor. T THE MODERN SINGLE-HAND CRUISER. SCARECROW." BY C. BOWYER VAUX. 'HE term "single-hand," when applied to a sail-boat, simply means that she may be easily managed by one man. A single-hand cruiser is a sail-boat suitable for cruising-that is, living on board for days at a time, while journeying about from one place to another-and capable of being managed by one man, under all ordinary circumstances. It does not mean that the boat will hold only one person; on the contrary, single-handers are always designed to carry two or more; and for ordinary afternoon sailing, may often accommodate four or five quite comfortably. There has been an ever increasing demand of late years for small, safe, inexpensive and fast sail-boats. This demand has been only partially met by the boats put on the market, or built to order. The problem, "what is the best single-hander?" has not been solved yet. The object in view in this article is to state some of the questions involved, and indicate briefly what has been done to solve them by designers and builders, amateur and professional. The cruising canoe is, of course, a single-hander; but the term is not used ordinarily to cover these boats. For river and small inland lake cruising, the canoe is nearly perfect in its way, and is in common use, especially in Canada. Canoes of larger size than the standard (16x30) have been built and used for cruising with a crew of one or two. These boats are not comfortable for open water cruising, as they are very wet in rough water, and on long reaches the crew is much cramped by sitting practically in one position all the time. They have one great merit, howevercheapness. A first-class canoe, fully rigged, can be had for $150 or less. Canoe cruising may be made very enjoyable, even on open waters, when several cruisers sail in company, each in his own boat, all camping on shore at night, and having time enough at their disposal to choose their sailing weather, remaining on shore when the elements are against them. The ideal single-hander is a boat large enough to allow the crew to move about in the cockpit and on deck without danger of upsetting. It must be easy to get under way and moor, so that little time will be lost when an afternoon sail is in order. Therefore, the rig must be simple and light. The main points to be considered are size, safety, cost, rig and lines, the two last having to do with the speed. Taking them in their order, size may first be considered. A sail-boat, to be handled by one man, must be comparatively smallcertainly not over twenty feet on the water line. The most convenient boats are between fourteen and eighteen feet on the water line. The beam may vary according to model and other factors of the problem. The draught should be light-not over one foot-as a deep draught boat is very unhandy in cruising where shoal water is often encountered unless a small tender is constantly kept towing astern. size is also governed by the amount of cash available; every foot in length, of course, adding to the expense of hull and rig. The hull should be strong and built of suitable materials. For use in salt water, no iron should be employed in the construction, as it rusts badly, develops ugly stains and rots the wood. The boat, to be safe, must be nonsinkable when capsized or full of water; an end easily attained by providing water-tight sections sufficient to float her at all times and under all circumstances. A life-boat differs from an ordinary row-boat in one essential particular-it has air-tight compartments of metal at bow and stern. These compartments are of sufficient size to displace enough water to float the boat and crew when the open part of the boat is full of water, and therefore she is non-sinkable. If she is swamped or upset, she can be righted and bailed out. The large ocean steamers are now built with many such water-tight compartments, so that, in case of an accident resulting in a bad leak, the water that enters the hold is confined to a comparatively small space and does not endanger the safety of the ship. Sailing canoes have for many years been built with water-tight bulkheads in each end, and consequently are lifeboats pure and simple. In the last year or two the tendency has been toward enlarging the air spaces, until now, in the crack racing canoes, there is practically no open section worth mentioning. The cockpit in the prize winners is only large enough to contain the feet of the skipper. In a boat so built an upset is of little or no consequence, as only a gallon or two of water can find lodgment in the cockpit, and the only delay caused by an upset is the very limited amount of time it takes to right the canoe and trim sheets. Another point of safety in a singlehander is to build the floor of the cockpit above the water line, and by provid ing drainage tubes or scuppers, any water that finds its way in over the deck runs out of itself, thus making the boat self-bailing--of course the floor and siding of the cockpit must be practicably water tight. The air compartments in the ends are utilized, by means of deck hatches, for stowage purposes. Such a boat can not have a cabin, being too small and shallow; therefore sleeping accommodations are provided by setting up a tent over the cockpit, or camping on shore as canoemen do. The cost of a single-hander depends on the size of the boat, its model, fittings and rig; and may be as low as $50, if a man is ingenious enough to build it himself, only paying for the materials, or as high as $1,000, if the boat is yachtbuilt, with lead or fin keel, and rigged with silk sails, hollow spars, handsome metal fittings and all the luxuries that delight the heart of the well-to-do sailor man. The rig is a very important item, since on its simplicity depends very largely the general handiness of the boat. The sloop-rig-jib and mainsail-is better than a single sail like the cat, which is very awkward to manage when running free or when reefed down in a blow. The yawl-rig has some advantages over the sloop, since it will work well under LA GLORIA." J jib and mizzen without the mainsail; or, the mainsail may be set alone, full or reefed. The cat-yawl rig, so called, is in effect the canoe-rig of two sails, a mainsail forward and mizzen aft, lacking the jib that characterizes the full yawl. Cruising in small sail-boats has become quite a popular way of taking an outing. All kinds of craft have been pressed into the service boats not specially built or designed for this use. The cat-boat is the commonest type met with on these Eastern waters. It is in many respects a poor boat for cruising, and it cannot be said to be very safe as ordinarily built and rigged, owing to the great length of the boom, which has a propensity either to drag in the water, or to "kick up" at every favorable opportunity. The sneak-box has many desirable cruising qualities-safety, light draft, handiness and has been quite extensively used for this purpose, and very charmingly written about by the late Mr. Soulé, better known as "Seneca." It is very cheap to build and rig, but it cannot be said that it is either fast or pretty, as compared with more ship-shape models. A modification of the sneakbox idea is the sixteen-foot cruiser with a plumb stern, designed by Mr. W. P. Stephens, and built several years ago. It has proved to be a very satisfactory cruising boat, and is now owned and used by Mr. Alfred Dolge. Another type of single-hander, in use four or five years ago, was a small yacht deep of draught and full cutter-rigged. This was a comfortable boat in many ways, but usually slow and clumsy to handle, and expensive to build and rig. Nearly all of the canoe-builders have at one time or another taken a hand at canoe-yawl building, and some of these boats have made capital cruisers. They are built like canoes, to a length of eighteen feet, and are four or five feet wide, and much deeper than a canoe, so as to give them more free-board. The canoe-yawl has, in fact, up to this time been the best small cruising boat. It is safe, fast and moderately comfortable, and easily handled by one man at all times. Such a boat can be had fully rigged for about $200. The St. Lawrence River skiff is another type of single-hander, used on inland waters to good advantage. This boat has developed great speed as a racing machine in the hands of experts, and has been made eminently safe by the adoption of the life-boat idea in construction-namely, the building in of water-tight bulkheads at each end of the small cockpit. The boat is too narrow for its length (four feet wide by twenty to twenty-two feet long) for comfortable cruising, and is too light in construction for rough work on open water. The problem that confronts us, then, is to devise a boat that will have all, or most, of the good points of the above types and none of their weak points. Can this be done? Let us see. Mr. W. P. Stephens designed a new type of cruiser last year, La Gloria, which was sailed by her owner, Mr. M. T. Bennett, of New York, all last summer-time enough to get at her good points, and she has many. The midship section and bottom are like those of the sneak-box. An overhanging and tapering stern gives a decidedly yachty appearance-something all other singlehanders lack. The bow, instead of being the spoon-shaped affair seen sneak-boxes, is what may be termed, for want of a better title, Glorianesque. La Gloria draws about six inches of water, is twenty feet over all, with an extreme beam of four feet six inches, and is yawl-rigged-the mainsail and mizzen being leg-o'-mutton in shape, from designs by Mr. C. J. Stevens, who, in common with many other canoemen, has successfully used this sail on his canoes for several years. on This fifteen-foot water-line cruiser proved to be a very comfortable boat for two to cruise in; fast, safe, easy for one to manage, and fairly low in cost for so good a boat, $250 being the total expense of hull and rig. The centerboard is of galvanized iron, quite thin and light (60 lbs.). No ballast was put in, and yet the craft proved to be very stiff under sail. La Gloria handles to perfection, being very quick in stays, and easy off the wind. The boat will hold four comfortably for afternoon sailing. Her principal fault is that she is wet in a sea-way, though she rarely ships solid water. The passengers and crew come in for a wetting, unless they wear their oilers. The overhanging bow does away with the need of a bowsprit, which is a good point gained, the jib being attached to the stem-head. The overhangs fore and aft give more deck-room than a sixteenfooter usually has, which is certainly a great advantage. Scarecrow is the name of a somewhat similar boat, designed last fall by Mr. W. P. Stephens, and embodying the ideas of the owner, Mr. C. J. Stevens. She is now completed and ready for the season of 1893. This boat has a waterline length of eighteen feet, and is twenty-five feet over all, with an extreme beam of five feet six inches. The free-board is one foot, and draught nine inches. She is a much larger, abler, and will probably be a dryer boat than La Gloria. The cockpit is amidships, quite small, and self-bailing into the open centerboard trunk, which is flush with the floor. There is only one mast, carrying a jib and leg-o'-mutton mainsail, which has two sets of reef points. Three jibs have been made for the boat: one to be set with the full mainsail, one when a reef is turned in, and one for a double-reefed mainsail. The jibs are set flying, and consequently no forestay is needed. The mast, boom and yard are hollow, and therefore light in weight. A yard is of course unnecessary with a muttonleg sail, but there are several advantages in its use. A yard and short mast are stiffer for the same weight than a mast alone; long enough to carry the sail. The use of a yard tells when the mainsail is reefed, as there is no bare pole above the sail to look homely and exert its useless top weight in heeling the boat, as is always the case with a mast the full height of the sail. Mr. Stevens' sails are made of Union silk, and the standing rigging and mainsail halyards are bronze wire ropes of small size. The most peculiar feature of the boat is the center-plate, which is in effect a sliding fin-keel of most pronounced type, weighing about 600 about 600 pounds. It is perhaps needless to say that the board is intended to be kept lowered most of the time. The fin is of Tobin bronze, one-quarter inch thick, six feet long on upper edge, and four feet on lower edge, three feet three inches deep, and it carries on its lower edge a weight of 400 pounds of lead, cigar-shaped and securely bolted to the center-plate. The fin is fitted with special lifting gear, by which it may be raised in a short time, when the boat is to be hauled out, or in the event of a sudden emergency, The cockpit floor is three inches above the waterline, and the centerboard comes up through it. Other boats besides Scarecrow have been built from these lines, but they do not include the expensive center-plate here described, and therefore give a better idea of the average cost of such boats. It is safe to put the price of this cruiser, simply rigged and fitted up, at a minimum of $325, which is a very reasonable figure, when it is considered how much boat one is getting for the money, compared with other models of the same size, power and accommodations. It is certainly destined to be a popular type of cruiser. This boat seems to be better than anything heretofore produced for purely single-hand cruising purposes, and there is no reason to suppose it would not make a fair showing in a race if rigged for racing. But its true purpose in life is as a cruiser. It seems to fill all the requirements of a small singlehander-comfort, safety, speed, moderate in cost and thoroughly seaworthy. The matter of lines has hardly been touched upon here, as that is a technical subject and out of place in such an article. There is no reason why boats of the Bouncer type-designed by Thomas Clapham - should not be modified into very handy cruisers similar to the one described above. The main point to insist on should be safety. It is so simple to make a sailboat reasonably safe, that there is no excuse for the many fatal accidents that are reported in the newspapers every summer. Every pleasure boat should have water-tight compartments in it, be it a canoe, shell, skiff, cat, paddling, rowing or sail-boat. Boat sailing is a manly sport, healthful, exciting, and a delightful recreation during five months of the year. Whatever tends to make it safer, cheaper and more social is a distinct gain, and therefore the designer of a new type of cruiser deserves the thanks of all who love water sports. |