EXAMINATION OF THE YACHT.
Elevma decided upon the size of the yacht, the next step will be to find a suitable one of that size. If the intending purchaser advertises his wants, he is certain to have a great many vessels offered him, and all will be highly recommended by the agents of the vendors ; each vessel will be the best sea boat of her tonnage, the strongest built, the best found, and the handsomest; and, moreover, the present owner is almost certain to have recently spent several hundred or thousand pounds upon her reconstruction or redecoration. The intending purchaser will be delighted ; and, after having got through particulars of the yachts which have been offered for sale, something like bewilderment will naturally follow, and the task of making a final selection will be a little difficult. The best plan will be to begin with treating all the answers as mere information of vessels for sale. Find out when they were built, and by whom, from Lloyd's Register,* and if those that seem unobjectionable, so far as age is concerned, are suitable also in price, go to see them. Then, if one appears to be in every way a desirable craft, bid for her, " subject to a survey and inspection of inventory, showing her hull and equipment to be in a seaworthy and thoroughly satis factory condition." It will always be necessary to have a vessel surveyed before completing a purchase, unless it is found by Lloyd's Register that the yacht is quite new, or has recently been surveyed. If a survey be required it will be performed upon application by one of Lloyd's surveyors, or by a yacht builder; but if a builder be employed, it will be well not to have the one that built the vessel, as he may not unnaturally incline towards making a more favourable report on her condition than the circumstances may warrant. The fee for surveying will probably be five guineas, with travelling expenses.
A man may perhaps desire to act as his own surveyor ; if he does, he will act very unwisely, as it is only by long experience, and a perfect knowledge of the construction of vessels and of the strains they are subject to, that a man can become competent for such surveys. Nevertheless, as the yachtsman who takes to the sport enthusiastically, and with a resolve to be " thorough," will necessarily want to know in a general kind of way the " marks" to distinguish a good vessel from a bad one, some instruction must be given him.
In the first place as to age. Speaking generally, a yacht should not be more than twenty years old ; we do not mean that all yachts upwards of that age should be broken up or sold into the coasting, or fishing, or piloting trade ; but that yachts so old as twenty years should be put through a very searching survey. Yachts seldom are broken up,
and their fate is to lie year after year in mud docks for sale, and till they are far on the shady side of thirty. Do not be tempted by cheap ness into buying one of these ; it would certainly end in mortification and disappointment. If the vessel were merely patched up with oakum and paint, she would be a perpetual trouble and expense ; and if repaired or renewed as she ought to be, a new vessel had much better be built, as it would be cheaper in the end.
Therefore do not buy a thirty-year old vessel, and one so old as twenty years should only be selected with very great caution ; the condition of such an old craft will depend upon the way she has been used and " kept up," and upon the amount of repairs and " renewing " she has undergone. For instance, some vessels at the end of fifteen years are stripped, newly planked, and decked, and all doubtful timbers and beams replaced by new ; such a craft would be good for another ten years without further outlay, and she might be bought with as much confidence as a perfectly new vessel. Or if the yacht was originally well built in the best manner by one of the best builders she may at the end of fifteen years require neither new plank nor new frames, but if she has seen much service she is almost certain to require new decks. The condition of a yacht at the end of fifteen years will very greatly depend upon the quality of the materials used in her construction, upon the sizes of the timbers and their disposition, and upon the thickness of the planking, and upon the strength of the fastenings. Some idea of what these should be can be gleaned from the tables (given farther on)* compiled from the practice of the best builders of yachts. The timbers (called also frames, and first, second, and third futtocks, where the lengths of the frames are in two, three, or more pieces) will be " double," that is, two timbers will be placed close together, or nearly close together, and act as one frame. Then there will be a space, and hence " timber and space " means the distance from the centre of one double frame to the centre of another. Some builders do not place the timbers of a double frame quite close together, as some ventilation is considered a good thing; but greater strength is obtained if the timbers of each double frame are close together, and the general practice is to so place them close together.