The Savannah morning news., 1904-06-26
FRILLS AND FURBELOWS OF YACHTING
The Pomp and Circumstance of a Modern Life
on the Ocean Wave
BY A. B. H., MASTER.

There is a story that the old-timers
among yachtsmen-old, old fellows,
who can remember yachting as it was
ten nd fifteen years ACCUSED to tell
with a chuckle. 1t was about one of
the most famous of the commodores of
a great American yacht club, and it
told how this amiable, but slightly
pompous sailorman was driven frantic
in one cruise by a guest who came
aboard in hired rowboat, climbed
heavily up the port gangway, present.
ed himself on deck with an umbrella
under his arm, and said Hello,
Capt.
Having thus combined all the un-
pardonable offenses against yachting
etiqutte that a man could very well
commit in the short operation of COM
ing aboard, the guest added still deep
er injury and insult by habitually re-
ferring to below as downstairs"
and calling the deck" the roof"
The commodore was so overcome
with the gaucheries of his guest that
he never forgave him. And, although
they had ben partners in many
Juicy business deal, the results of
which were shown in the gorgeous
fittings of the big yacht, the relations
became so strained that the guest left
the vessel at the first port, or, as he
expressed it, got off the contraption,
and went ashore in the yachts cutter,
foully misnamed ''rowboat" by him.
His final blow at marine etiquette was
to confide to the mate on his way
ashore that old was getting so
blamed childish about monkey play
on that boat of his that there was no
living with him.
It was a pet story in those dim, DID,
simple days when folk used to turn
around to stare at a passing million
aire, and when most of the yachts
men of the clubs sailed the rocking
chair fleet if they didn't happen to
have an invitation to board yacht.
But now, when millionaires can be seen
in financial districts in Swarms, and
when it is impossible to go anywhere
along any American coast, fresh or
salt, without seeing steam and sail
yachts as regular, commonplace Tea
lures of the scene, yachting etiquette
has become too sacred to be made the
subject of Jest; and the man who
doesn't know how to board and dwell
on a big yacht as well as he does how
to enter and behave in drawing
room is a social outcast.
Intending Guests Must Go to School.
The man who has never been a guest
of a yacht actually needs to take les
sons in the art, if he gets an invita-
ton. The daily life, in everything
from shoes to conversation, is govern
ed by rules nicer and more rigid than
those of a man -of-war under the most
notorious of martinets.
Even the language is different. Half
the things to be mentioned must be
mentioned by names which the SIM
pIe dweller on shore never hears.
Pomp and circumstance that awe
the simple landsman, nowadays per-
meate even the sailing schooner sailed
by the salty veteran owner himself.
Though he may swear that he is
simple, bluff, old dog, the green guest
will find his soul burdened by the
naval etiquette aboard until he is
afraid to look a sailor of the crew in
the face for fear of reading in it that
he has made another "break."
And if the more simple vessels are
SO ceremonious, what are the leaders
of the heets-the huge, crulser-nke
steam yachts and the steel and alumni