A yawl is the favourite rig for the cruising 50-tonner; personally, I should prefer a ketch, the easiest vessel afloat to handle. A 50-ton ketch requires a very small crew indeed; a couple of men on deck can tackle any job that turns up. But a yawl is nearly as handy as the ketch. Two of us used to knock about for days at a time on the 'Alerte' in the South Atlantic, and she was a 56-ton yawl, with somewhat heavy spars. We never had any difficulty with her; but when we were short-handed, we used to employ 'un-yachty' methods. We could only hoist our mainsail by using our mast-winch, which we also employed for hauling out the reefing tackle when shortening sail. There are many little dodges that soon occur to a sailor, and I have no doubt that if one man who knew what he was about were left alone in mid ocean on such a vessel, he would have little difficulty in taking her into port.
There should, of course, be a good supply of sails on board, not omitting a stout storm trysail and a handy spinnaker. The latter should have a boom short enough to pass under the forestay when topped up, so that it has not to be unshipped for a gybe. Such a spinnaker will be more effective than a big one on an ocean cruise. It can be carried when the wind is strong and the sea high--an important matter; for how often one has seen a fore-and-after, that has been rolling gunwales under when running under mainsail and head-sail alone, skim along steadily with dry decks as soon as the little spinnaker is put on her to balance the other canvas? When we left England with the 'Alerte,' we had with us her racing spinnaker only. We soon discovered we had made a mistake. Short-handed as we were, we often refrained from using it when it would have been of service; for the unshipping of its mighty boom was a heavy bit of work. Then we had a small boom made, and used the balloon-foresail as the working spinnaker. One man could handle this, and it was seldom allowed to lie idle when the breeze was aft.
It is better thus to provide oneself with a sail that can serve both as balloon-foresail and spinnaker, according to how the wind may be, than to encumber oneself with a large square-sail, such as yachts were wont to carry, and such as one still sees on revenue cutters.[17] But there is a square-sail of another sort that should be found in the sail-locker of every little foreign cruiser; this is the small stout storm square-sail, a sail which would be seldom used, it is true, but which, on certain occasions, would prove of inestimable advantage.