Catboat

“ Fig. 151.—The balance lug.
First, the great sail is very heavy and difficult to hoist and reef. Second, in going before the wind there is constant danger of jibing, with serious results. Third, the catboat has a very bad habit of rolling when sailing before the wind, and each time the boat [113] rolls from side to side she is liable to dip the end of her heavy boom in the water and "trip herself up." When a boat trips up she does not necessarily go down, but she is likely to upset, placing the young sailors in an unenviable, if not a dangerous, position. ”

“ CHAPTER VII SOME SMALL, SAIL BOATS THAT CAN BE MADE IN THE WINTER, OR THAT CAN BE BOUGHT WITHOUT MUCH MONEY There is no small boat so popular or so generally useful as the American catboat. The cat can sail into the very eye of the wind, while before the wind she is a flier, and yet she is not the best sail boat for a beginner. ”

“ But the next short tack seemed to bring the boat no nearer than before, and the long leg carried it so far away that it was no more use shouting to the orange sail than to a stupid old herring-gull.
“Could you wave for a bit, Chris?” Jerry said. “My arms are off.”
So I took the shirt and waved it by its sleeves, and the catboat began another short tack. It was just then that we saw something black flap-flapping against the sail.
“They’ve tied a coat or something to the flag halyard, and they’re running it up and down,” Jerry said. “They’re trying to get here, but they have to tack. ”

“ If you are obliged to run ashore or to pull your boat upon a rocky or sandy beach select a flat-bottomed craft which can be hauled out readily without injury; while, if you want a boat for general utility, to use in bays and harbors and in sheltered waters and yet capable of standing any reasonable seas and ordinary storms, select a fairly deep, beamy, round-bottomed hull such as the Cape Cod or Block Island catboat, or a similar model. ”

“ For single-handed cruising its worth has long been recognized. The sails are so divided that they are small and easy to handle, but this division of sail inevitably decreases the speed and also the weatherly qualities of the boat. If we take a catboat and change her into a yawl rig she will not be nearly so fast, nor will she point so close to the wind. There are fathoms of scientific reasons for this with which I will not bother my readers. ”

“ There was nothing left upon the raft that could be of any use to them on their boat-voyage; and after the mast and sail had been removed, the Catamaran appeared completely dismantled.
As they undid the lashings,—which during the transfer had confined her to the gig,—a feeling of sadness pervaded the minds of her former crew. They had grown to feel for that embarkation,—frail and grotesque as it was,—a sort of attachment; such as one may have for a loved home. ”

“ As to the number of the crew, the average cat-boat of, let us say, eighteen or twenty feet will require a helmsman, usually Captain, sheet-tender, centreboard-tender, and a man to look after the halyards. If your boat is so small as not to have so many men allotted to it, the centreboard and halyards may be tended by one man. If, on the contrary, more men than the requisite number are allowed, take the extra men, if the day is windy, as ballast only, or if movable ballast is permitted, as shifters. ”

“ So again while a pull is being taken on each halyard in its turn, the steersman luffs up, thereby relieving the sail of the pressure of the wind, but without stopping the vessel’s way.
And now we approach our moorings; the tide and wind are both with us. We lower our head sails, steer the yacht so that she takes a sweep round into the wind, and we haul in the mainsheet as she comes up. We bring her up head to wind, and she loses her way just as we are alongside the mooring buoy. A hand forward picks up the buoy rope with a boat hook and secures it. ”

“ CATRAIA. The catraia of Lisbon and Oporto, or pilot surf-boats, are about 56 feet long, by 15 feet beam, impelled by sixteen oars.
CAT-RIG. A rig which in smooth water surpasses every other, but, being utterly unsuited for sea or heavy weather, is only applicable to pleasure-boats who can choose their weather. It allows one sail only—an enormous fore-and-aft main-sail, spread by a gaff at the head and a boom at the foot, hoisted on a stout mast, which is stepped close to the stem. ”

“ A few sailors seized the keel of the upturned boat, but again and again they were dashed from their hold by the heavy breakers, others seized the oars, and the captain struck out for the shore, followed by a few of his men. On the beach the people were helpless; but, seeing the captain swimming towards them, some of the strongest men joined hands, and waded out into the sea to meet him. One brave man, famous for miles round on account of his great strength, threw off his coat, and, followed by several others, dashed into the surf, determined to rescue at least one of the perishing sailors. ”

“ Well, with a few changes your ice-boat is to become a catamaran.
In the first place, you must unrig her. Take off the mast bench, side boards, floor, and stern pieces, and also the runners and rudder; then unfasten the runner plank, and move it back one foot six inches, and bolt it to the keel. Now call on your friend the carpenter, and get a plank of the same dimensions as the runner plank. Bolt that to the keel at the extreme end (one bolt will do) . Have cut two pieces of pine plank five feet nine inches long, four inches wide, and one and a half inches thick; place them as in the plan. ”

“ In cruising, if the weather is threatening it is well to carry a single reef in the mainsail until it clears up, for a yawl works well under such a sail with jib and mizzen furled. In such trim the yacht is as a cat-boat with a small sail, and as her main boom is shorter than a cat-boat's or a sloop's she can be worked in a very heavy sea with her boom's end well above the rollers. ”

“ The sail is a big canvas kite, of which the boom, gaff, and masts are the kite-sticks. You must not understand by this that the sail goes soaring up in the air, for the weight of the hull prevents that; but if you make fast a large kite to the mast of a boat it would be a sail, and if you had a line long and strong enough, and should fasten any spread sail to it, there can be no doubt that the sail would fly. ”

“ We put the Pactolus through her paces, I can assure you; carried sail till all was blue. Luck sent us strong and favourable winds. In the dead of night I would often see the steamer's officers, dressed and wandering around the decks, or gathered in a group and holding low conversation; the ship would be scuppers under, the deck at a dangerous angle, masts and yards buckling and groaning, a spread of motionless canvas rising aloft as hard as a board; the whole hull humming like a top, as she raced through the water at a fourteen-knot clip. ”

“ We ran along by the mouth of the harbor, and saw a full-rigged brig going in. At two P.M. we again stood out to sea, leaving the land on our quarter, and at sundown it was out of sight. It was here that I first saw one of those singular things called catamarans. They are composed of logs lashed together upon the water, the men sitting with their feet in the water; have one large sail, are quite fast, and, strange as it may seem, are trusted as good sea boats. ”

“ How to Sail a Boat
If you fasten the bottom of a kite to the ground, you will find that the wind will do its best to blow the kite over, and if the kite is fastened to the mast of a toy boat, the wind will try to blow the boat over.
In sailing a boat the effort of the wind apparently has but one object, and that is the upsetting of the boat. The latter, being well balanced, is constantly endeavoring to sit upright on its keel, and you, as a sailor, are aiding the boat in the struggle, at the same time subverting the purpose of the wind to suit your own ideas. ”

“ By the time that the castaways on the great raft had once more headed their clumsy embarkation to the pursuit, they saw the more trim craft,—by her builders yclept the Catamaran—with her sails spread widely to the wind, gliding rapidly out of their reach, and “walking the water like a thing of life.” ”

“ She looks like a vessel that was about to sail with a cargo of boats: two on deck, one astern, one on each side of her. You observe that she is painted black, and all her boats are white. She is not such an elegant vessel as the yacht, and she is much more lumbered up.... Let us go on board. You observe the guns are iron, and painted black, and her bulwarks are painted red; it is not a very becoming colour, but then it lasts a long while, and the dockyard is not very generous on the score of paint—or lieutenants of the navy troubled with much spare cash. ”

“ Inasmuch as the whole balance of the boat depends upon the out-rigger, it would never do, of course, to have the large, heavy sail, bearing the weight of the wind, on the opposite side of the boat; consequently, when sailing up in the wind, where tacking is necessary, instead of putting about or jibing, the crew assemble and, lifting the mast with all the rigging, carry it bodily from the bow to the stern, where it is stepped anew; the stern then becomes the bow, and the man at the helm has to scramble quickly to the other end of the boat to find out which way he is going. ”

“ Often by sitting far out on the upper or weather edge of a boat, she may be sailed in safety through winds that would capsize her if you sat inside the cockpit. If a plank or board was extended out from the weather side and you perched upon that the boat would be still harder to upset and it is by such methods that the natives of the South Seas sail their catamarans and proas at terrific speed and with huge sails out of all proportion to the hulls. ”

“ It must also be freely admitted that for the pure comfort and pleasure of sailing, for an appreciation of the inspiriting motion, as well as for the comfort of increased deck and cabin room, nothing yet has exceeded the form of yacht now falling into disuse; and for the pleasure of sailing on the usually smooth waters of our sheltered bays, and wafted by the moderate breezes that are most frequently found, nothing can surpass for pure enjoyment the cat-boat of middle size, say about 25 ft. ”

“ In the forepart a stout stick some ten feet long stands up as a mast and supports a small sail, and amid-ships a short rail, supported on two uprights, enabled the two men who form the crew to hold on when much knocked about by the waves. A single paddle seems to serve as a rudder, but it is not easy to understand how such a rude substitute for a boat is able to work out to sea against the breeze which commonly sets towards the shore. ”

“ To an amateur nothing is more trying than coming to or getting away from moorings, especially if the wind is blowing strongly and the anchorage ground is crowded with other yachts, 45not to speak of vessels of commerce, bateaux, tugs and ferryboats. Under such circumstances it is no easy matter for any, save an expert, to work a sloop or cat-boat or schooner safety out through the crowded harbor or basin to the open water beyond; and it is all the more trying to a skipper if there is a strong tide running at the moment. ”

“ Also they “were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls,” so she was a vessel of considerable size. Then in the morning, having espied a snug little creek with a good shore for beaching, “when they had slipped their anchors they left them in the sea, at the same time loosing the rudder bands, hoisted up the artemon, and made towards the beach.” They had, no doubt long previously, learned the action which has saved many hundreds of ships, at all times of the world’s history, from foundering, by detaching the cable from the ship and not waiting to heave up the anchor. ”

“ Fig. 22, taken from an earthenware lamp in the British Museum, shows another ship of this period entering harbour. The sail is furled to the yard, there is a crew of six on board, one of whom is at the helm, one is at the stern blowing a trumpet announcing their approach—an incident that one often sees depicted in the early seals of English [84] ships—three men are engaged in furling the sails, and the man in the bows is standing by to let go the anchor. ”

“ The water was smooth, though a merry wind was blowing, and the little vessel under easy canvas lay softly leaning in the gloom, with the white water rippling and crisping past her sides in a hollow, brass-like tinkling. Starlight gives beauty even to a coalman; and I have known stump topgallant-masts and sails yawning upon sheets hard upon a fathom from the points in the yardarms through which they lead, make as dream-like and dainty a picture in the tender sobering shadows of the night as the tall and tapering rig of the handsomest yacht now afloat. ”

“ That she be strong, swift, stout-sided, able to carry her guns in all weathers, be seaworthy and stay well when boarding and turning on a wind. He advises that in order to make her sail well the ship should be given a long run forward and not sink into the water, but lie clear above it. He suggests, too, that her lowest tier of guns be four feet above water, and in order to be a good sea-boat she have a good draught of water and not be overcharged with towering poops, “which commonly the king’s ships are.” ”

“ As the correspondent paddled, he saw the captain let himself down to bottom and leave the boat. Then the correspondent performed his one little marvel of the voyage. A large wave caught him and flung him with ease and supreme speed completely over the boat and far beyond it. It struck him even then as an event in gymnastics, and a true miracle of the sea. An over-turned boat in the surf is not a plaything to a swimming man. ”