The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1893-11-01
STOPPING PENSIONS.
NOT ALL PLEASURE.
Even the Sport Of Yachting Has
It's Drawbacks.
There Il No Place 80 Fot rs . Ships
Deck and Nothing So Exaspor-
atlng as an .Inexpe-
rienced Crow.

One commonly thinks Of yachting as !
the most delightful of summer pas
times, says the Boston Transcript, and
the very word calls up visions Of a
"wet sheet, and flowing seq, and q !
wind that follows fast" smells OF salt |
things, and whistlings through the
rigging, blue sky, white caps, driving
clouds and all that sort of thing, 10 say
nothing of the possibilities of delight
full companionship and tho delicious
unconventionality Of meeting ones
fellow men and women with all the
formality and restraints of on-shore
life thrown off; no making talk or any
thing Of that kind, but knocking about
carelessly and easily In flannel suits
and having "a real good time" Or,
again, racing, with all its excitements,
and cruising, with all of its possibili-
ties of adventure, to Bar Harbor. Such
Is the popular and accepted view OF
Yachting, but there is another and
gloomy side to the picture which the
writer, who Is sometimes inclined to
prowl, can set forth clearly in three
distinct statements, with an open chal-
lenge to contradiction-hrst, that to
'po and take sail" in a small boat
belonging to some one else and TO sail
aimlessly about on the open sea is ian
awful bore;" secondly, that to go as
amateur crew" on a rowing yacht
under sixty feet long Is not only a
bore, but n hardship, and on yachts
over sixty feet in length 1t is not Gus
tomary to have an amateur crew."
unless IN occasional and almost always
useless passenger can be considered
such: and, lastly, that cruising is a
lottery absolutely dependent on the
weather. Fogs, calms, storms and
head winds are quite as usual as free
winds and sunshine.
Observe that nothing has been said
about seasickness, which makes yacht
ing impossible to so many.
There is no place on earth where the
sun can strike down out Of the sky and
bleach and blister and sizzle as 1t car
upon a Yachts deck. There is no place
that can be hotter or more stuffy ol
more uncomfortable than n yachts
cabin on a hot day, when there is NJ
> wind or when the wind is dead aft, ant
when It Is rough, and the water is driv
ing across the yachts deck in sheet o
white foam. and the crew are all hud
died behind the shrouds, into which
/ old oil skins have been stuffed to maxi
: n screen and the man at the wheel ha
: life lines running from the main shee
TO the main shrouds on either side o
!" him TO keep him flom being washe
= overheard, and the oil bags are hung +
y windward to keep the water fror
breaking, and the fire is out in tn
c galley, and the cook has been scaldc
n by the soup stock jumping out of tn
y boiler, and the barometer is droppin
Il like mad, and the slylight leaks &
u that every wave which comes aboar
&c sends buclSetfuls of swash down int
c the cabin. and when every now an
20 then a wave comes aboard and pounc
le down on her deck like load OF pi
ii iron, and those below are shaken abol
- like corn in a pepper, and those
deck simply hold on and duck the
,e heads-when such is the condition I
NJ affairs yachting would not be consi
u cred pastime.
VI The delights of being 'amate'
IL crew" can be briefly summed up. Th'
=, Oi consist in lying fiat on your face eth
IL in a hot sun or pouring rain, and
II, you turn over having the owner sho'
u, at you: keep still! Do you thir
40 that you're a wild elephant? "
nc jarred her all over that time" Furthe
ca more, all yachts are not rugged alik
ea and IL the amateur crew Is told at
CT critical point in the race-say just b
aS fore rounding the leeward mark
lui' let go the spinnaker halyards and
~ the balloon jib halyards go instead,
IA that the whole sail goes over to Ii
nc ward, the remarks which will be ma
Or 10 him will be unfit for publication