ITCHEN BOATS The boats of the Itchen Ferry fisherman have a very high reputation in the Solent, and no doubt they are of a superior model to many coast fishing craft. For many years match sailing amongst them has been an annual occurrence, and probably the contests on these occasions, combined with the true racing spirit which animates all the Itchen Ferry-men, have tended to produce and maintain a model adapted for speed ; and the nature of the work the boats are put to has happily prevented their sterling qualities as hard weather craft being in any way sacrificed to the exigencies of competitive sailing. The standard of value for competitive sailing, we believe, has always been simple length, and if the theoretical tendencies of such a rule is generally to produce mere skimming dishes, it has hitherto had no such effect on the Itchen boats. Of late years too, gentlemen fond of racing small craft, have built boats on the Itchen model, and these, although still competing under the " length rule," do not grow more beamy and shallow, but on the contrary (owing to considerations hereafter to be referred to) show signs of becoming less broad in the beam and deeper. The designs which we give represent these modern racing craft more than the fishing boats, but in a general way the hulls of both fishing and racing craft agree in model.
The design for the 30ft. boat, or 10-tonner (Plate XIX.), was made for a boat of 27ft. length by Mr. Shergold, a well-known draughtsman of Southampton, to compete in the 27ft. class of which Rayonette is such an ornament, but was not built from. The design has not been altered in any way, but a scale was made to correspond with a length on deck of 30ft. 4in. This gave a beam of 9ft. 6in. and a tonnage of 91-1- tons, or practically 10 tons.
The Rayonette, we might here say, was lengthened in the spring of 1877, and is now 29ft. 9in. long on deck, but her beam is only what it was when her length was 27ft., that is 9ft. The 30ft. design we give, has thus 6in. advantage in beam, 7in. in length, and is exactly 1 ton larger. There is no doubt that 6in. of beam is a very great advantage, so far as these boats are concerned, when they compete generally by length ; so also in sailing under the Y.R.A. rule, in the case of two boats of such proportions
as 29.7 x 9 and 30.3 x 9.5, we should expect to find the 6in. excess beam of more value than the time for 1 ton that would have to be conceded. However, the Rayonette is wonderfully stiff under canvas, and indeed would very well bear more. She has lft. less length of mast, lft. less boom, and 9in. less gaff than given in the table; she has 8cwt.* less weight of lead keel; but her total weight of ballast corresponds with that given in the table.
The Rayonette has very fairly figured in the 10-tons class, and in a good breeze is a match for most of the 10-tonners to windward, but fails in running and reaching, as an ordinary 10-tonner has about 9ft. more length. 30ft. is now the fashionable length for a 5-tonner, and when a 10-tonner has only 30ft. in length, it may be assumed that there is a wide difference in the proportion of breadth to length, and that con sequently the results of encounters on different points of sailing between a 10-tonner like Rayonette, 30ft. long, and one like Florence, 39ft. 9in. long, would very much vary. For instance, in a match of the Prince of Wales Yacht Club, sailed in June, 1877, in a good strong breeze, between Rayonette (9-tons), Lily (10-tons), Mildred (10-tons), Zephyr (10-tons), Alouette (5-tons) ; the Rayonette was the absolutely last reaching down the river to Southend ; being 12 minutes astern of Lily, which was leading. In the thrash back, with housed topmast, Rayonette passed all but Lily, and gained 4 minutes on that craft. This probably may be taken as a good example of what a boat like Rayonette can do,t and it is evident that what she loses in running and reaching, cannot be made up by what she might gain in beating, if her competitors happened to be any of the crack 10-tonners. Whether an addition of 6in. to the beam, such as given in the design now published, would improve such craft so as to enable them to compete successfully with the best of the 10-tonners is an open question, but at any rate, the extra 9ft. of length will always keep a good 10-tonner ahead when sailing off the wind.