Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1895 — The Great Sails of Racing Yachts. [ARTICLE]

The Great Sails of Racing Yachts.

The sails of the racers are probably the most wonderful part of their whole make up. Defender, when she has her mainsail, her jib, her jib topsail, her staysail, and 1 her working topsail up, carries 12,000 square

feet of canvas. And when she substitutes for these working-sails her balloon jib, her club topsail, and pats out her spinnaker she almost doubles that area. These sails cost thousands of dollars, because there must be several of each in case of accident to one or another, and for use in the different kinds of wind that may prevail in the race. There is a heavy mainsail for strong winds, of sea-island cotton or Egyptian cotton or ramie cloth, while the jibs are made of lighter grades of the same material, until they come down to the constituency of a coarse pockethandkerchief. One of Defender’s spinnaker’s is of Scotch linen. In 1893 it was reported that one of Valkyrie Il’s, big spinnakers was of silk, but it was npt; it was of exceedingly fine Irish linen. Taking all these matters into account, and considering that each boat must have from forty to fifty saildrs to man her, it becomes evident that the building and maintaining of such a yacht is a matter of no small expense. Mr. George Gould spent no less that S4O,OCX) to put Vigilant in condition to race with Defender in the preliminary trials this year. Ths crew has to be engaged and trained for weeks before the racer is put into commission, and kept at work for a couple of months before the great contests for the cup are held. These sailors, of course, cannot live on the yacht, since there is no room for bunks or lockers or a galley on the modern racing machine. Therefore both Defender an I Valkyrie had steam-ten-ders.'