Yachts and Yachting: With Over One Hundred and Ten Illustrations

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 Excerpt: …That the Mohawk was lying off Stapleton, Staten Island, with all after canvas set, even to her enormous club top-sail. The owner, Mr. William T. Garner, was on board, with his wife and a few friends. The yacht was just getting under way, her chain had been hove short, and her jibs had been run up, in order that, as she gathered way, she might break out the anchor from its hold on the bottom, the capstan being of insufficient power. The helm was a-weather, when a hard squall from the north-west struck the yacht, as she lay without way, and without the possibility of gathering way, and she went down until she filled and sank. Mr. Garner was drowned while trying to rescue his wife from the cabin. Some ballast had shifted and pinned her fast, so that the effort was unsuccessful, and she also lost her life. Much unmerited criticism was made upon the Mohawk's model, and upon center-board yachts generally, and a check was given to the sport from which it did not recover for years. In point of fact, the Mohawk was as safe a vessel as ever floated. She was lost through the grossest carelessness, and in consequence of the over-confidence felt in her stability. There has been no vessel yet built in this world that cannot be wrecked by careless handling, and that the Mohawk upset was in no wise due to any defect of model. Properly handled, she was more than ordinarily safe. The third race for the Brcnton's Reef Challenge Cup, afterwards happily carried away to Europe by the cutter Genesta, was sailed July 27 to 29, 1876. It was one of the four offered by Mr. Bennett when vicecommodore of the N.Y.V.C., in 1872, the other three being the challenge cups for schooners and sloops over the regular course of the club, and the Cape May Challenge Cup, also captured later on by …