B = extreme beam in linear units.
„ G =girth in linear units.
„ d = girth difference in linear units.
F =freeboard in linear units.
The length L for the formula was the length on the water-line, with the addition (I) of the difference between the girth, covering board to covering-board, at the bow water-line ending, and twice the freeboard at that point, and (2) one-fifth of the difference between the girth, covering-board to covering-board, at the stern water-line ending, and twice the freeboard at that point. The additions (I) and (2) penalize the full overhangs and the bow overhang in particular. The girth, G, was the chain girth measured at that part of the yacht at which the measurement is greatest, less twice the freeboard at the same station, but there were certain provisions allowing the measurement of girth generally to be taken 0.55 from the bow end of the water-line. The girth difference, d in the formula, was the difference between the chain girth, meas ured as above described, from covering-board to covering-board, and the skin girth between the same points, measured along the actual outline of the cross-section.
For racing the yachts were divided into 11 classes. Class A for schooners and yawls only, above 23 metres (75.4 ft.) of rating, with a time allowance of four seconds per metre per mile. All the yachts in this class were classed Al at Lloyd's. In racing, yawls sailed at their actual rating and schooners at 12% less than their actual rating. The other classes were ten separate classes for single masted vessels only in which there was no time allowance what ever.
Racing Yachts All Built to Fixed Scantlings.—Under the international rule the old trouble of ultra-light scantling in racing yachts was completely abolished, for all yachts were obliged to be built under the survey and classed with one of the classifica tion societies—Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping, Norsk Veritas, Germanischer Lloyd, or Bureau Veritas; and yachts of the international cutter classes so built were classed R, denoting that their scantlings are as required for their respective rating classes. The international rule for measurement and
classification fixing the scantlings was introduced on Jan. a, 1908; England, Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria Hungary, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain, Finland, Russia and the Argentine Republic agreed to adopt it until Dec. 31, 1917. Eng land adopted the new system a year before it formally became international.
The new rule produced the type of yacht desired—a vessel combining habitability with speed. Amongst the handsomest examples were the German emperor's schooner "Meteor" (1909), and the schooner "Germania" (1908), 40o tons or 311 metres measurement, Class A, both built by Krupp's at Kiel. German designed, German built and German rigged and manned, they demonstrated the wonderful strides made by Germany in yacht ing. A few years before there were not a dozen smart yachts in Germany, and, indeed, the Kaiserlicher Yacht Club at Kiel was only founded in 1887. The "Germania" holds the record over the old "Queen's course" at Cowes, having in 1908 sailed it a quarter of an hour faster than any other vessel. Her time over the distance of about 47 to 48 nautical miles was 3 hours 35 min. IT sec., or at the rate of 13.1 knots. In 1910 Herreshoff built in America a wonderful racing schooner of A class for the inter national rules called the "Westward," and in the races this clipper sailed at Cowes she proved the most weatherly schooner ever built.
The success of the international rule was remarkable. The following is a list of the racing yachts built under it in all coun tries from its foundation in 1907 to the outbreak of war in 1914.
This total does not include the big schooners of Class A, such as "Meteor IV.," "Meteor V.," "Germania," "Waterwitch," "West ward" and "Margherita," enormous vessels of 400 tons, and a number of small yachts built in Scandinavia and neutral countries early in the war, from 1915 to 1917, when the first international rule came to an end. There were thus upwards of Boo yachts built to this rule for international racing.