HE variety of yachtingpossible to San Fran-ciscans is as great asthat which the New

Yorker and the New Englander enjoy,but yet so different that there is muchto explain.

In the first place, there are no sum-mer rains to speak of; and though thefogs and winds in the immediate vicin-ity of San Francisco may seem harsh toa yachtsman accustomed to the warmsummer nights on Casco Bay and offHarpswell, yet on the California coastsouth of Santa Barbara, and among the

lina, the nights are as perfect as thosepicturesque islands, such as Santa Cata-

of the Grecian Archipelago.Again, a veteran of the Maine coast

will be charmed with the steady sea-winds, the broad expanse of inlandwaters, sloughs, “creeks” and rivers,and the picturesque valleys and mount-ain ranges that are always in sight asone sails the “land-locked seas” of theimmense region open to the yachtsmanwithout “going outside.”

He will soon discover that the windsare much stronger than on the Eastcoast, sweeping in through the GoldenGate at the rate of from twenty to fortmiles an hour, and that there is a mul-titude of swift and perplexing currentsto educate the California yachtsman.The tides run five to six miles an hourin some places, with “calm spots” whereone can always get out of the wind andstreaks where sudden squalls are apt todiscomfit the unskilled yachtsman. Thewind sweeps strongly in, blowing all

Owing to the necessity for caution andthe character of the prevailing winds,every San Francisco yacht appears atfirst glance to be under-sparred andlight canvased, if not actually reefed as iffor an expected gale. The “channel” thatleads from the Golden Gate is like anopen sea; the whole plain and valleysystem of the central part of California,an area greater than the State of NewYork, receives its main air circulationthrough the Golden Gate and acrossSan Francisco, San Pablo and Suisunbays, which unite to form a chain of in-land waters. The general result, foryachting purposes, is not unlike whatwould happen if Chesapeake Bay wasthe only ocean outlet for a plain as largeas Ohio, and surrounded on all sides byhigh mountains. If the famous Chesa-peake were narrowed in two places soas to form a chain of three large bays,and if these bays were united by broadstraits with rocky shores, and extendedat Havre de Grace into a region of athousand square miles of swamp islands,divided by innumerable “sloughs,”“creeks” and bayous, which receivedthe Susquehanna and other great rivers,the parallel to the inland waters of Cali-fornia would begin to be evident.

The greatest difficulties about describ-ing the field open to California yachts-men are in the surprising extent of theseinland waters, and the unusual varietyof “climate and weather” that one canpick up on a short cruise. A yachtsman

summer up the Sacramento and San can sail about sixty miles from Alviso,Joaquin. The local “puffs and calms” at the southern point of San Franciscoare due to the conformation of the Marin Bay, a few miles from San José, to

and Contra Costa ranges, the peninsulabluffs and the larger islands of thebay.

O U T I N G F O R M A R C H .466

Petaluma Creek, in the Sonoma Hills;thence he can sail back into San Pablo,through the Carquinez to Suisun, andup the sloughs and rivers to Sacramento,the capital of the State, ninety miles byrail from San Francisco, and one hundredmiles or more by the water route. Hecan sail up the river, past the willowand cottonwood “bottoms,” as far asMarysville, about fifty miles farthernorth. Small yachts can sail to RedBluffs, two hundred miles by rail fromSan Francisco, and leagues more.

In the course ofa n “ a l l - r o u n d ”yachting trip oneha s s e ve r a l b ayclimates to beginwith; it is warmand mild south ofHunter’s P o in tand past the Coy-ote Hills, and sucho ld l and ings a sSan Lorenzo, Mt.Eden, Alvarado,V a l p e y , W a r mSprings and Al-viso; i t i s sharpand bracing in thewider parts of theharbor, and aboutAlcatraz, AngelI s l a n d a n d t h eshores of Marin.San Pablo is often“ t h e w i n d i e s tg a t e w a y o f t h eWes t , ” and thebo ld b lu f f s andgreat mountainsare swept by al-most incessant cur-rents. Past Car-quinez the coastc l ima te i s t em-pered amazingly

settled the district,d e e r w e r e v e r ynumerous he re ,and pioneers saythat bands of elkwere o f t en s eenswimming Carqui-nez Straits , Thefishing to be hadin every creek andbay is excel lent ,and, although theSac r amento ha slost its supremacyi n t h e m a t t e rof salmon, thereare still salmon

“frolic.”—c. h. harrison, owner.

is more attractive and requires moreskill than is usually implied in the phrase“inland waters.” The bays have theircurrents and the rivers have seasons ofgreat floods from the late-melted snowsof the Sierras, when the ordinary chan-nels are obscured. The surveys of theState of California name some hundredsof “sloughs” and as many islands—some reclaimed, some totally waste—that lie in the “tule region,” the mostpopular resort for wild-fowl shootingin California. When Americans first

by the warm interior valleys of Solanaand Contra Costa; and the heat becomesalmost tropic, even in June, as one goesfarther inland. The damp sea-fogs thatso often hang in the Golden Gate areleft behind as soon as the yachtsmanreaches the shelter of the Marin head-lands, Among the green tule islandsof the inland waters there are seldomother than blue skies and warm nights,and from April to October there is neverany rain.

Yachting on these bays and streams

enough left for anyreasonable fisher-man.

T h e “ o u t s i d eruns” that theyachtsman often-est takes are upthe coast to To-m a l e s B a y o rBodega, or evento Mendocino andH u m b o l d t , a n ddown the coast toSanta Cruz, Mon-terey, Santa Bar-bara Channel, thei s l ands , and the

beau t i fu l ha rbor o f San Diego . Afavorite extension of the southern tripis to the Coronado Islands and the coastof Baja California.

The greater yacht voyages sometimesundertaken from San Francisco are tothe South Seas, as when the Casco latelycarried Robert Louis Stevenson to lotos-land, or they are to Puget Sound and theAlaskan shores. To the Californian,Puget Sound is much the equivalentof the Maine coast to a New Yorker,and among the countless fir-covered

Y A C H T I N G A R O U N D S A N F R A N C I S C O B A Y . 467

islands of that magnificent “Mediter- and are now scattered far and wide.ranean of the Pacific” there will doubt- Some of them have gone into trade andless be some that will in time rival are pearl-fishers in the Gulf of California,the fame of Mount Desert. Alaska, or sail the Japanese seas, or have helpedfrom the Pacific coast view, may well to evade the Mexican revenue cutters, orstand for a larger and wilder Labra- occasionally carry opium across from thedor; the Hawaiian Islands, Tahiti and British Columbia side. Several haveSamoa, seem no harder for the Cali- been wrecked on reefs and shoals alongfornian yachtsman to reach than the the coast, and of these the veteransWest Indies to the New Yorker; and theCalifornian can, if he chooses, try a trip

remember the sloop Ariel, the LittleSweetheart and the schooner Cousins.

to the Galapagos Islands, off the South Three clubs now divide the yachts ofAmerican coast, and have his expe- the bay. The oldest, the San Francisco,rience of treasure-hunting for the six- contains the Chispa, Commodore Gutte;ty million dollars that tradition avers the Emerald, Vice-commodore Oliver;was buried on rocky Cocos by Don Be- the Pearl, F. B. Chandler; the Frolic, C.nito, the Captain Kidd of the Pacific. H. Harrison; the

Yachting on thePacific coast datesfrom about 1869,when the first club,the San Francisco,w a s o r g a n i z e d ,though a few smallplungers and sloopsh a d l o n g b e e nowned on the bay,and eight or tenr a c e s h a d t a k e nplace. But twenty-one years is a longtime, and even thenotable “first re-g a t t a ” o f 1 8 6 9 ,when the Emerald,t h e M i n n i e , t h ePeerless, the Lotos,t h e Z o e a n d t h eRaven competedfor the flag of thesquadron, is onlyremembered by afew of the veterans.The finest yacht ofthe period was Cap-tain Ogden’s Peer- “lurline” at anchor off saucelito.less, which after-

Senate, P. Sawyer;and the Sappho, W.McCarthy. T h ePacific Club comesnext in point of age,and contains Sam-uel Merritt’s fineseventy-two-tonschooner, the Cas-c o ; C o m m o d o r eCaduc ’ s f amoussloop, the Annie,well known in NewYork as the vesselin which WilliamM. Tweed escapedto Havana ; thefast Aggie, belong-ing to D. McFar-land, of Los An-geles, and her vic-torious rival, theL u r l i n e , o f t h eSpreckles B r o s . ,besides Newhall’sVirginia and oneor two small sloops.The CorinthianClub was organizedfive years ago, andr e p r e s e n t s t h e

ward became the property of the Kingof Samoa and was wrecked off Aus-tralia.

The Lotos, then sailed by Charles G.Yale, secretary of the first yacht club,and one of the leading yachtsmen of Cali-fornia, afterward fell into the hands ofthe notorious beach-comber and slave-trader of the South Seas, “Bully Hayes,”and had adventures enough to stock oneof Haggard’s novels. There were otherSan Francisco yachts of twenty yearsago that had many successive owners

young blood among the yachtsmen.The flagship is Captain Billing’s yawlRipple, and the vice-commodore is W.C. Harold, of the schooner Pollywog.Some of the other yachts of the fleetare Brook’s awl, Muggama Chudda;Peet’s sloop, Fawn; Okel’s cutter, FlyingFish; Coulter’s sloop, Lilian; Pennell’sOrca; Harrold ’s s loop, Windward;Moody’s Bonita; Johnson’s Rambler;also the Cyratta, Freda, Neva, Thetisand Dart. All three of the clubs arenow prosperous, though yachting has

468 O U T I N G F O R M A R C H .

pacific yacht club and saucelito.

been subject to many ebbs and flowsof interest since 1869, and it cannotyet be said to occupy as large a shareof public attention in California ason the Atlantic coast. The Pacific Clubopens its annual regatta always on Sep-tember 9th, the day of the admission ofCalifornia to the Union.

There is no more enthusiastic andskilled sailor on the bay than CaptainChittenden, of the White Wings, a boatbuilt for young Tevis, who afterwardhad the Halcyon built, and sold theWhite Wings . Chittenden has l ivedaboard of three or four yachts in succes-sion, and spends his winters with theCordelia Shooting Club, along the Suisunsloughs. One of the most notable of thenew yachts is the Jessie, of the San Fran-cisco Club. She was built by one of themost prominent yacht-builders of thePacific coast, Captain Turner, of Beni-cia, the designer of the Lurline, theNettie and the Chispa, all splendid flyersand excellent sea-craft. A few notesand statistics will probably prove of in-terest to Eastern yachtsmen: Lengthover all, 87 feet; water-line, 74.6 feet;beam, 24 feet; depth, 9 feet. She isschooner-rigged and has the handsomestpair of spars in single stick seen in thesewaters. Her mainmast is 93 feet; fore-mast, go feet each, 15 inches at part-ners and’ 111/8 inches at hounds. Her

bowsprit, over all, 36 feet; main-boom,55 feet 101/2 inches at slings; fore-boom,26 feet 8 inches at slings; main and foregaffs, each 23 feet 53/4 inches at slings.The sails measure as follows; Mainsailhoist 57 feet, foot 53 feet, leech 67 feet,head 23 feet; foresail hoist 56 feet, foot26 feet, leech 631/2 feet, head 22 feet;jib on stay 641/2 feet, foot 23 feet, leech54 feet; flying jibstay 75 feet, foot 31feet, leech 54 feet: area of sails: main.2,205 feet; fore 1,327 feet, jib 880 feet;flying jib 684 feet, gaff-topsail 365 feet,staysail 674 feet, outer jib 429 feet;total, 6,584 feet.

The first cutter in San Francisco Baywas launched by George Davidson, Jr.,the son of Professor Davidson, and builtafter a model by Burgess. The “littlemosquito fleet” on the bay is especiallyattractive, and each year it increases inextent. Men who build and sail theirown little yachts are the ones here, aselsewhere, who seem to take the mostsolid comfort out of the sport.

The cruising points that are mostlyfavored by San Francisco yachtsmenare Martinez, Antioch, Rio Vista andCollinsville, Benicia, Vallejo and theMare Island Navy Yards: Small yachtsgo up to Napa and Petaluma, to Stock-ton, or about the San Joaquin Islands,and explore innumerable old Spanishembarcaderos, where, forty years ago, the

Painted for Outing by Albert Hencke. master mariners’ regatta off black point.

OUTING FOR MARCH.470

“ripple.”—captain billings, owner.

pioneers brought thousands of sacks ofwheat from the new-broken plains ofthe great California valleys. One ofthese days a yachtsman will make a lit-erary sensation in London or New Yorkby an illustrated volume upon the his-tory, legendary lore and “aspects fromthe water side” of the group of lowlandcounties that form the heart of Califor-nia, and are as full of sea-ways as Hol-land, and as distinct in character fromthe rest of California as Belgium is fromSwitzerland. There is one California ofthe orchards and pastures and anotherof the forest-lands of the Sierras, bothof which have had their fame sent abroadin song and picture; but the level water-gate Of the whole realm, from Tehachipito Siskiyou—the region that in thesedays no one except the yachtsman ex-plores—is as vet unknown to literature.

The large yachts generally celebratethe Fourth of July by a run down thecoast to Santa Cruz. Sometimes theytake a fishing excursion to the rockyFarallones off the Golden Gate. Fivehundred miles south, eight hundredmiles north, their excursions can bemade along the American coast; if theygo past British Columbia to the Alaskanglaciers and the volcanoes of the Aleu-tians, they are farther west of San Fran-cisco than San Francisco is west of thecity of New York.

A s h a s a l r e a d ybeen intimated, thestrong winds thatsweep in from thePacific, place an ef-fectual embargo up-on the balloon jibsand enormous spin-nakers that are pos-s ib l e f o r Eas t e rnyachts in light sum-mer weather. Beau-fort’s Scale, which isaccepted as the stan-dard for sailing ves-sels the world over,treats with whole-some respect a windthat blows at the rateof twenty-five milesan hour . Of f SanFrancisco the sum-mer trades often reg-ister as high as thirtyto thirty-five miles.

In a few yearsmore, when the Pacific coast developsyachtsmen of sufficient means to buildlarge, deep-sea vessels, they will makemany voyages worthy of record, andperhaps add much to Pacific coast liter-ature. The great inland waters thatcenter at San Francisco Bay will then bethe “training-school” for the deep-seayachtsmen who, exploring the OkhutskSea, will write lotos-island stories onleaves of palm.

“chispa.”—commodore gutte, owner.