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She was a tremendously beamy craft, flush-decked fore-and- aft, and was armed with ten twelve-pounders in her broadside batteries, with a thirty-two-pounder between her masts a truly formidable craft of her kind.

The cars were great and opulent, of impressive wheel-base, and fore-and- aft they were laden intricately with baggage: concave trunks fitting behind the tonneaus, thin trunks fastened upon the footboards, green, circular trunks adjusted to the spare tires, all deeply coated with dust.

Mellaire went for'ard with his watch to handle the fore-and main-braces. It was a pretty manoeuvre, a play of leverages, by which they cased the force of the wind on the after part of the Elsinore and used the force of the wind on the for'ard part. Captain West gave no orders whatever, and, to all intents, was quite oblivious of what was being done.

For this purpose we selected the larger of the two quarter boats, a very handsomely modelled craft of twenty-six feet long by six feet beam, with a keel nearly eight inches deep in midships, and rigged as a fore-and- aft schooner.

Then home came the topgallant sheets, and up went the yards, the royals following, and being set literally before the topgallant halliards were belayed. The fore-and- aft canvas was at the same time set, and the moment that the royals were at the mast-heads the yards were braced for casting the ship.

The fine art is being lost. The sailing and racing of yachts has developed a class of fore-and- aft sailors, men born and bred to the sea, fishing in winter and yachting in summer; men to whom the handling of that particular rig presents no mystery. It is their striving for victory that has elevated the sailing of pleasure craft to the dignity of a fine art in that special sense.

Reeling and staggering to the fore-rigging, I clutched at and hung on to a belaying-pin, and looked about me fore-and- aft.