“Kariad” (originally the “Distant Shore,” previously mentioned)
and the same designer’s 90-foot yawl “Sybarita.” It was blowing a gale of wind, and the yachts raced from Rothesay round Ailsa Craig and back, a distance of 75 m., averaging 12.3 knots, with closed reefed sails, housed topmasts and in a mountainous sea. Several steam yachts attempted to accompany them, but all put back owing to the roaring sea that was running near the Craig. The yawl had the advantage of being the larger vessel, and “Sybarita” on this occasion won one of the greatest races ever recorded in Scottish waters.
Class Racing, Handicapping and Cruiser Racing.—Yacht racing may be subdivided under these three heads. Yacht racing by rating measurement or tonnage, when either the first yacht to finish is the winner, or the yacht saving her time by a fixed scale of time allowance in proportion to the rating of the vessel and the length of the course, is called class racing, and it obviously tends to encourage the fastest possible vessel under the current rating rule to be produced. It has always been regarded as the highest form of the sport. It is naturally, however, the most expensive form, because only the most up-to-date and perfectly equipped vessels can keep in the first flight.
From time to time, chiefly from about the years 1884 and 1885 onwards, handicaps framed according to merits have been fashionable amongst yachtsmen. They were originally devised to afford amusement and sport to out-classed racers and cruisers, but they obviously did nothing to encourage owners to build very fast vessels, nor to stimulate improvement in design. When a handicap is allotted to each vessel according to her assumed speed, the slowest and most ill-designed craft should have an equal chance with the best. Nevertheless, owing to the expense of class racing, handicap racing thrived greatly during the period of the first and second Girth Rules. During these periods, too, the third style of yacht racing came into vogue, namely cruiser racing; either very fast cruisers were built specially for the purpose of handicap racing, or a number of yachts of exactly similar design were built specially to the owner’s orders for the purpose of racing in a class together. The fast handicap cruisers had the great advantage over class racers from 1896 up to 1906, inasmuch as they were much more strongly built. “Valdora” (107 tons), “Brynhild” (160 tons), “Leander,” “Namara,” “Rosamond,” “Merrymaid” and many others were yachts of the former type. In form they did not differ vastly from the racers of their period, but in scantling of hull, fittings, bulwarks and rig they were more comfortable and better vessels than their class-racing sisters. It was obvious in the larger classes that many yacht-owners were not prepared to put up with the discomfort of the thin-skinned racers. During the whole period of the Girth Rules (1896 to 1906), while the class racers developed a good enough form of body—they were latterly yachts with plenty of cabin room—they were necessarily built in the lightest possible manner, the lightest steel frames being covered with the thinnest planking and decks for the sake of saving weight. The light scantling began to tell severely upon large yacht racing. Meanwhile, in the small classes, the Solent one-design class. South Coast one-design class, numerous Belfast one-design classes. Redwings, Whitewings and a host of others, show how an inexpensive form of cruiser racing had usurped the place of class racing and competitive designing. Many yachtsmen felt that if handicap racing and one-design racing were to usurp the place of the higher form of class racing the whole sport of yachting must soon deteriorate. It was obvious that had handicap racing and the one-design principle been seriously introduced in 1880 or 1886 and obtained a strong hold on yachtsmen such improved types as the modern cruisers of 1906 would never have been evolved. For all the best cruisers, even the “Valdora” and the ketches “Cariad I.” and “Cariad II.,” are but modified types evolved from the crack racers. Hence yachtsmen began to give careful attention —during the early period of the Second Linear Rating rule—to suggestions that in the future every class-racing yacht should be built according to a fixed table of scantlings, so that her hull should be as strong as a bona fide cruiser.
Yachts Built under the Second Linear Rating Rule.—Few large vessels were built expressly for racing under this rule; indeed the Fife 65-footer “Zinita” (1904) was the only light-scantling yacht of any importance. However, two very handsome first-class vessels were constructed to the rule: “White Heather I.” by Fife in 1904, and “Nyria” by Nicholson in 1906; they were some 12 ft. shorter than the great cutters of “Britannia’s” year and altogether smaller, having less beam and draught and some 1700 sq. ft. less sail area. The growing dissatisfaction of yacht-owners at the extreme light scantling of modern racing yachts was strongly demonstrated by the fact that both “White Heather I.” and “Nyria” were specially ordered to be of heavy scantling, and they were classed A1 at Lloyd’s. They were therefore of the semi-cruiser type. “Nyria,” however, was the extreme type of a yacht of her period in shape, although heavy in construction. The only conspicuous fault to be found with the form of the racing yachts under the rule was a skimping of the mean draught and an exaggeration of the full pram-shaped overhanging bow.
The 52-footers were a very popular class. Fife made a great advance in yacht architecture with a 52-foot cutter called the “Klagdalen” (1901). All the other successful vessels under the rule—“Camellia” (Payne), “Lucida” and “Maymon” (Fife), “Moyana” and “Britomart” (Mylne), and the first-class cutter “Nyria”—followed her closely in type. An interesting trial took place in 1906, when the first-class cutter “Kariad” (1900) was brought out to compete with “Nyria” and “White Heather I.,” and decidedly out-sailed,—showing that yacht architecture had steadily improved in the past six seasons.
International Rules Introduced.—In April 1904 Mr Heckstall Smith drew the attention of German, French and British yachtsmen to the fact that the yacht measurement rules (then different in the various countries) were generally due to terminate about the end of 1907, and suggested that many advantages would accrue if an international rule could be agreed upon. The Yacht-Racing Association agreed to take the matter up, and at two International Conferences, held in London in January and June 1906, an international rule of yacht measurement and rating was unanimously agreed to by all the nations of Europe. America alone refused to attend the Conference. Mr R. E. Froude struck the keynote of the object of the Conference by a statement that the ideal yacht should be a vessel combining “habitability with speed.” The truth of this axiom was generally accepted. Old plank-on-edge types under the tonnage rules were habitable but slow. Skimming-dishes attained the maximum speed, but were uninhabitable. Neither therefore attained the ideal type. A good form was attained in 1901 with “Magdalen,” but since that year the bane of light construction had become harmful to yachting. Hence the conference aimed at a rule which would produce a yacht combining habitability with speed. They adopted a form of linear rating comprising certain penalties upon hollow mid-ship section (i.e. Benzon’s d tax) and also upon full pram bows. The following was adopted as the rule by which all racing yachts in Europe are rated:—
L+B+12G+3d+13√S − F2=Rating in linear units, i.e. either ft. or metres.
| Where | L.= Length in linear units. |
| „ | B = Extreme beam in linear units. |
| „ | G = Girth in linear units. |
| „ | d = Girth difference in linear units. |
| „ | S = Sail area in square units. |
| „ | F = Freeboard in linear units. |
The length L for the formula is the length on the water-line, with the addition (1) of the difference between the girth, covering-board to covering-board, at the bow water-line ending, and twice the freeboard at that point, and (2) one-fifth of the difference between the girth, covering-board to covering-board, at the stern water-line ending, and twice the freeboard at that point. The additions (1) and (2) penalize the full overhangs and the bow overhang in particular. The girth, G, is the chain girth measured at that part of the yacht at which the measurement is greatest, less twice the freeboard at the same station, but there are certain provisions allowing the measurement of girth generally to be taken 0.55 from the bow end of the water-line. The girth difference, d in the formula, is the difference between the chain girth, measured as above described, from covering-board to covering-board, and the skin girth between the same points, measured along the actual outline of the cross section.
For racing the yachts are divided into eleven classes. Class A is for schooners and yawls only, above 23 metres (75.4 ft.) of rating, with a time allowance of four seconds per metre per mile. All the yachts in this class must be classed A1. In racing, yawls sail at their actual rating and schooners at 12% less than their actual rating. The other classes are the ten
