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In our engraving we have several cutter-rigged yachts sailing with a light side wind, with main-sail, gaff, fore-sail, and jib set. This is the most elegant and, for small craft, the most manageable vessel that floats. Its proportions are more agreeable to the eye than those of any other species of craft, and its rig is in favour with owners of yachts, especially with those whose yachts are large.
Captain John listened very politely, or seemed to, and nodded his head at the right time; but he couldn't help being a bit absent-minded. Fact was, he expected a cargo home that very evening, and didn't feel so easy about it as usual. Up to now he had always run his stuff in goodish-sized vessels luggers or cutter-rigged craft running up to fifty or sixty tons as we should reckon now.
In the end, when the afternoon was waxing late, the sternward vessel stood up so that every detail of her loomed plain. She was full cutter-rigged, spreading hundreds of feet of canvas. Every working sail was set, and every light air cloth that could catch a puff of air. The slanting sun rays glittered on her white paint and glossy varnish, struck flashing on bits of polished brass.
She was a cutter-rigged vessel, painted a greyish-white, and of about fifty tons burden. She was probably a Government vessel possibly the Claud Hamilton, a South Australian revenue boat stationed at Port Darwin as she flew the British ensign at the mast-head; whereas a pearler would have flown it at the peak. The moment we caught sight of that ship I am afraid we lost our heads.
But if I were to say all that I could say in praise of yachts, I should never advance with my narrative. I shall therefore drink a bumper to the health of Admiral Lord Yarborough and the Yacht Club, and proceed. You observe that this yacht is cutter-rigged, and that she sits gracefully on the smooth water.
The relative dimensions of the boat would be governed to a considerable extent by her rig. A cutter-rigged craft is more powerful than any other, but it is open to the objection that the mainsail the cutter's most important sail is an awkward sail to handle in a sudden emergency, if the craft happens to be short-handed, as we should be.
Ours was a twenty-ton, half-decked, cutter-rigged sort of thing, built for nothing in particular, and always used for everything. It was lucky for me we took Tim Brady's boat instead of the coracle, or I'd be now where where poor Barney is. Oh, Barney, Barney! How'll I ever get over it? Why did ye never learn to swim, so fond of the water as ye were?
She was cutter-rigged, might have been of forty tons burthen, was so neatly constructed and painted as to have something of the air of a vessel of war, though entirely without quarters, and rigged and sparred with so scrupulous a regard to proportions and beauty, as well as fitness and judgment, as to give her an appearance that even Mabel at once distinguished to be gallant and trim.
"It will turn out one of those dry nor'easters, Jack." "I shouldn't wonder, sir. I wish she was cutter-rigged, sir. A boat has no business to be any other rig but cutter; there ought to be a nact o' parliam't against these outlandish rigs." "I don't know; I have seen wonders done with this lateen rig in the Pacific." "The lugger forereaches on us, sir."
It sank like a pillow if we tried to climb it: it rolled us over in the brine; it allowed us no moment for a backward glance. I spied a small cutter-rigged craft tacking towards us, a mile and more to leeward, and wondered if the captain of the brig had left our rescue to it. He had not. I heard a shout behind us; a rattle of oars as the bowmen shipped them; and a hand gripped my collar.
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