The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-28 00:00:00

be quite certain that she will not be forced by stress
of weather into another port, in either of which
cases the deserted owner is the victim of a painful
situation. Seriously, however, it is an unhappy fact
that in England yachts are, as a rule, kept for the
mere purpose of ostentation. and not by any means
with the object of indulging that love for the sea,
or of exercising practically that knowledge of nau-
tical affairs to which the taste for yachting is con-
ventionally supposed to be referable. It is pleasing,
therefore, to come across instances in which the pur-
suit is put to its proper and legitimate use, and which
shows that there are at least some owners of yachts
who are not positively afraid or ignorant of that for
which they profess to have a special affection. Such
an instance is certainly met with now and then.
There is the well-remembered case of the little
Spider, which crazed the Atlantic, and quite re-
cently an English gentleman has returned from a
cruise round the world ; but the latest achievement
in this way, and the most remarkable of all, is that
which has just been accomplished by our cousins
across the water, and which is nothing les,; tha n
yaclit r..ce al.T.:;s the Atlantic. Before this the
annual regatta inside the Isle of Wight becomes
contemptible, and even the sea race to Cherbourg,
of which so much was thought at the time,
fades into insignificance. At one o'clock on Tues-
day, Dec. 11, there started from New York, bound
for Cowes, three yachts—the Henrietta, the Fleet-
wing, and the Vesta—the largest of which was only
204 tons burthen, the other two being of nearly the
same size. The Henrietta reached Cowes at half-
past five o'clock on Christmas-day, having per-
formed the passage of over 3,000 miles in the incre-
dibly short time of fourteen days and four hours,
while the Fleetwing arrived only eight hours, and
the Vesta not more than ten hours, after. The fact
of their having all performed the passage so very
nearly in the same time, and that so short a time,
shows what fine craft they must be, and how well
they must have been sailed, and it will behove our
yacht-builders and navigators to ask themselves if
they can turn out craft capable of such a perform-
ance, or so handle them as to have any chance
against any one of these three vessels. At present
it is much to be doubted whether anybody will be
found in England ready to accept the challenge
which, it is said, the Henrietta offers for another
ocean race ; and it is probable that, with all our
boasted knowledge of naval architecture and sea-
manship, we shall again, as we did when the America
first came over and took the conceit out of us, have
to recognise our inferiority in these matters to our
acute transatlantic cousins, and to set about making
such improvements as may be suggested by what
they have done. The log of the Henrietta shows
that a race across the Atlantic at this time of year
is no child's play. Throughout the passage she ap-
pears to have met with strong winds and heavy
squalls, which necessitated much work in setting and
taking in sail. On Wednesday, the 19th, she en-
countered a heavy gale of wind from the southward
and westward, but was still premed on under a close-
reefed foresail until she was struck by " a heavy sea,
completely burying us, filling the forecastle and
staving the boat," when she was for the first time
hove to, and so continued for 10 hours. Notwith-
standing this, however, the average distance run per
day was as much as 218 miles, and on one occasion
she actually did 280 miles in 24 hours. The other
two yachts appear also to have had their share of
foul weather; and in the same gale as that which
delayed the Henrietta, the Fleetwing was struck by
a sea which unfortunately carried no less than six
men overboard, an event which casts a gloom over
what would else have been a most prosperous un-
dertaking. The Vesta, too, felt the gale, but does
not appear to have been so much delayed by it as
either of the others, and but for a blunder of her
pilot, who unaccountably mistook St. Katherine's
Light for the Needles, would probably have been
second instead of third in arriving. The value of
what has been accomplished, as showing what can
be done with small craft by good handling, is
great, and there is in it a lesson which is to be com-
mended not only to yachtsmen, but to navigators
in general, and which, if well learnt and properly
applied, may avail to prevent the perpetuation of
manylgunders, both in the construction of vessels
and im their management.

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