CREWS.
Under the Y.R.A. rules, there is no restriction as to the number of hands a yacht may carry in a match, and this plan is found to work best, as no sailing master will carry more hands than are absolutely necessary, and if crews were limited, sails must be limited also, or a yacht would be frequently short handed. The only argument used in favour of limiting hands, is that a man with a lot of money and a disposition to spend it, would, by carrying a number of hands, get an advantage over a man with less money or differently disposed about spending it. The plain answer to this is that no sailing master ever dreams of carrying more than the necessary number of hands, and every yacht should be allowed to carry that number.
Attempts have been made to lay down a rule for so many hands for so many units of a yacht's tonnage, but any such rule fails, for the reason that although one man to every 5 tons may be a good proportion for a yacht of 100 tons, yet one man would not be sufficient for a 5-tonner. For match sailing, the following table will be found to accord pretty regularly with practice. The numbers include master, mate, and boatswain, but not pilot, cook, or steward.
The number of the ordinary standing crew given for a racing yacht is somewhat in excess of what a cruising yacht would carry, but as the spars, sails, and gear of a racing yacht are so much heavier, the crews must be heavier also.
For racing it will not matter what the rig is, whether cutter, schooner, or yawl, the same number of hands will be required. In a cutter, the sails, spars, and gear are heavier to handle than in a schooner, or yawl of similar tonnage, on the other hand, the number of sails and the extra gear of a schooner or yawl require more hands.
A sailing master will generally endeavour to make up a crew from men who have been in a racing yacht before ; this of course cannot always be done, and it follows that somebody must ship the green hands. However, excepting the circumstance that a hand who has been in a racing yacht is already " proved and rated," there is no disadvantage in having one or two green hands, as a couple of matches will make them perfect, if they have been trained as good yacht sailors in other respects. Men widely differ in their smartness and in their habits; and
a man may be tolerated in spite of his moral delinquencies and faults of temper, because he is a very smart seaman, but a sloven should be given a very wide berth, as he will not only be offensive to the rest of the crew, but in all probability no seaman. As a rule, the smartest men are the most cleanly in their habits, the most prompt in doing their work, and in obeying orders, and the most satisfied, not to say proud, of their lot. On the other hand, a sloven is dirty in his habits, indolent, slow in obeying orders, and an inveterate grumbler. He quarrels with the catering, with the work he has to do, with the liberty he gets, and with the places he visits. Such a man should find no berth in a racing yacht, and if a sailing-master unfortunately ships such a creature, and does not instantly unship him when his character is patent, that sailing-master will not be doing his duty to the owner, to himself, or to the rest of the crew. It is frequently said that the men who come from this place, or that place, are better or smarter than others ; but this is entirely a mistake. Good Cowes men are as good as good Southampton men; good Colne men are as good as either; and as there is no difference in the degrees of worth of the men, so is there no difference in the degrees of their badness. At Cowes, or Southampton, if a man is shipped who has never been in a yacht before, the probability is, that he will be no seaman at all. If such a one is shipped from the Colne, the probability is that he will know a great deal about seamanship as represented by a smacksman, but he will be a rough hand, and if he has to work upon rigging, or in any way assist in' fitting out, his work will be rough ; his manner will probably be rough also ; he will handle things roughly, and may possibly have a perpetual desire to smoke, and perhaps will expectorate on the deck, and show a partiality for the after part of the vessel. This man will never much improve in his habits, but he will be good at hauling, good at belaying, good at reefing, and good and trustworthy in bad weather.