The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-11 00:00:00

YACHTING.

The Daily News gives its readers an article on Yachting.
It warns those who will be tempted to go out to sea that
it does not profess to convert the luxurious landsman
whose soul has often sickened o'er that atrocious middl°
passage between Dover and Calais to a belief
in as
pleasures of sea life, for it has not the slightest hesitation
in laying down as a fundamental law, that no one tidos
stomach is not absolutely sea proof should be admitted on
board a yacht. Sea-sickness may be an infirmity on board
a public vessel—on board a yacht it is a sin against
good manners, we had almost said a crime. "IV°
have always regretted not consigning inc°°.
tinently to the deep a friend (how we hated him
who lay for twelve hours casting up his accounts in 3
jollyboat on a cutter's deck, and entreated us td
him overboard. But we do protest against the suspicion
of monotony on board a yacht whose owner knows WY
to live at sea. In cruising on the home stations, a 3'acil,t'
if not becalmed, may put her nose into some snug
harbour or other at least once every twenty-four Lour`,
Suppose you are becalmed, you have all the comforts an'
resources of a country house, without the fuss of enter'taming a select mob of indifferent guests. you I'a°
chat, books, whist, chess, the foils, or the single-sticks;
piano or a guitar, if happily you can play or sing;
pistol-shooting at a mark hung out from a yard o'll
or rifle-shooting at a target if you are well off the lan
and there is no other sail in sight (or even gun practice I'
you are large enough to carry a pocket " ~Yhitsvoith'' °r
two) ; boat races and mutual morning and evening COIIF4
and an exchange of invitations to breakfast or dinner,
you are sailing in company ; deep sea fishing ; and wbel:
you are tired of all these things, a dreamy doze under the
shade of a sail (not unwelcome, perhaps, after the 13°
hours and hot rooms and incessant clatter of a Lol3ar:
season), when you wake perhaps to find that
catspaw for which the man at the helm
whistling just now has freshened into a breeze'
and the little lady is talking to it as she gathers
e
way upon her, and bends and curtseys to the caressl%
water under the swelling bosom of her sails. SuPP°s,t
the dogwatch finds you still becalmed. Dinner is
over and the word is passed for coffee and cigars on dee ;
Meanwhile all hands are skylarking, or tripping it t° a
fiddle ; or there is a song with a rattling chorus; °I.,
yarn, broken now and again with burst of II0nler;
laughter. Then the sunset and the moonrise--a°-
tacle unsurpassed by Grieve, Telbin, or Beverli
and to be seen without paying for a stall and
tening to worn-out singers and the silly chatter°,
your neighbours, and without the obligation of stamen
at three rows of meagre fairy figurantes.
the glass of grog, and the serious and tender confldelle%
of friend to friend and heart to heart, as you pace the clecg'
together or lie cosily under the bulwarks, with that cleile
old parish lantern looking down on you so motherly a° she
old
lights you on your noiseless way ! The yacht all on°o
under easy sail for the night, you turn in, and give nrdi,,s,
to be called at sunrise. How's the windand the west-eS
captain?' `Dead against us, sir, and a goodish bit n'sl:-0
on (` I should say so from her antics !'), and the on I°°l,
all for wind.' Up comes the glorious sun, sure 0109 g;
full of fight ; and the little' lady, who at midnight :4
bending gracefully to a light wind abeam under a cloua's,
sky, is now closehauled and with two reefs down. Monotos)of
indeed ! to the genuine yachtsman his sea life is a 5°,11°,4,
incessant change and infinite variety. To him the ciftitbo
the log, the making and shortening sail, the fair an the
foul wind, the calm and the storm, the heating and tiso
bearing up, the hauling to and the easing away' tilt
reaching and the tacking, the standing off and on; do
getting underway and the shaping a course, and tis
working up to an anchorage in the quiet bay, wheli
all
night is as dark as a pocket, and the sea all aflame t 9
these and many more of the familiar phases and ineu;os
of a cruiser's experience have for the yachtsman svh° °os)
a touch of the happy-go-lucky in his nature, and an
for the romantic and the picturesque, all the waYw3l."
wilful charm of a continual surprise."