of cruises in small yachts have a certain interest for all healthy Englishmen, whether their hobby be sailing or not; but small yachts that are under fifteen tons are necessarily limited in their choice of cruising-grounds. There is, however, one cruising-ground of fairly easy access, where there is plenty of room, plenty of variety, and which is markedly foreign in its appearance, and that is Holland and its great inland sea, the Zuyder Zee, bordered by its many ancient cities, each with a capital harbor, and with its islands, which are worlds of themselves, not satellites of the mainland. It is a favorite cruising-ground of mine, and the following is the log of a little yacht belonging to my wife and myself, which carried her joint owners a delightful cruise on Dutch waterways.
The Chrysalis (a name compounded of the names of her owners) is ten tons builders' measurement, and nine tons Y. R.A. She is forty feet long over all, and nine feet beam, with the moderate draught of four feet nine inches, but quite enough for Dutch canals and rivers. She is the fisherman's idea of a good sea-boat, having a “flat floor and two good ends,” ballasted with a lead keel. She is very snugly rigged as a yawl, is as handy as a Una boat, dry in a seaway, and fairly fast, The accommodation consists of a good forecastle with two cots, cooking-galley, pantry, lavatory, main cabin about eight feet square, and two bed berths on each side of a narrow well, over which hatches slide in bad weather.
We left Lowestoft harbor at noon on the 3d June. There was but a light air from the south-east – dead ahead, as our course was south-east – and we had to use our sweep to get out of the harbor. We tacked slowly down the Roads to the southward until we reached Pakefield Gat, when we stood out to sea, the wind having southered, so that we could lay our course. With all lower sail and jib-headed topsail set, the boat lay over and leapt through the waves, the wind freshening quickly and settling from the south-west. We had set the log at twelve o'clock at noon, and were fairly astart upon our voyage across the North Sea. Directly we got outside the sands we experienced a long ground-swell, caused, as it happened, by a strong blow of the day before in mid-sea. The glass was falling too rapidly to be reassuring, and we meant to hurry across as fast as we could, as the swell might, as far as we. knew, be a token of a coming gale, instead of a consequence of one that was past, so we sailed her with her lee-rail awash, and the tops of the waves now and then breaking over the fore-deck.
By three o'clock the land had entirely disappeared. We were also out of the track of coasting steamers and vessels, and there was not another sail in sight. We might expect now to be alone on the circle of the sea until we fell in with the North Sea fishing-fleet in the early morning. The wind freshening and the sea increasing, too much water was coming aboard over the bows, so we lowered the stay foresail, which is a very pressing sail on a small craft, while the jib is a lifting sail. The effect was marked. Although our speed was scarcely lessened, we went along perfectly dry over a bright blue translucent sea, with a surge of dazzling whiteness roaring away from our lee-bow.