a part of the sport as the actual sailing. Models are constructed of some light, seasoned wood—such as pine (preferably white), white cedar or mahogany—free from knots. The hull may either be hollowed out of a solid block of wood, or cut from layers of planks in the so-called “bread-and-butter” style, or planked over a frame of keel and cross-sections. The first two methods are used in constructing “dug-out” models. Hollowing out from the solid block entails a great deal of labour and has therefore fallen into disfavour. In the “bread-and-butter” style a number of planks, which have been shaped to the horizontal sections of the model and from which the middle has been sawn out, are glued together and then cut down to the exact lines of the design, templates being used to test the precision of the curves. In the planked, or “built-up” model, which is generally chosen by more expert builders, the planks are tacked to the frame, as in the construction of large vessels. Models now are generally exaggerated cutters, so far as their under-bodies are concerned, or, more often, are fitted with fin-keels weighted with lead, after the manner of full-sized yachts. They may have any rig, but schooner and sloop rigs are most common, the latter being the favourite for racing on account of its simplicity. Two kinds of steering-gear are used, the weighted swinging rudder and the “main-sheet balance gear,” the object of both being to keep the model on a true course, either before or against the wind. Models are often sailed without rudders, but though a perfectly built boat will sail readily against the wind without steering-gear, it is almost impossible to keep it on its course before the wind without some contrivance to check divergence. This is accomplished by the weighted rudder, which falls over when the vessel heels and tends to counteract the force of the breeze. There are two varieties of the weighted rudder, in the first of which the weight, usually lead, is fixed to the edge of the rudder, while in the second the weight, usually a ball of lead, is made to run on the tiller above the deck, so that it can be placed further forward or aft, according to the force needed to overcome the influence of the wind. While the weighted rudder is almost universal in the British Isles, the chief model-yachtsmen in America use the “main-sheet balance gear,” in which the boom is connected with the tiller in such a manner that, when it swings out with a pressure of wind, the rudder is automatically pulled round sufficiently to keep the yacht in its course. This apparatus is particularly efficient in sailing before the wind.
Model-yacht regattas are very different from the toy-boat matches indulged in by children from one side of a pond to the other. They take place upon sufficiently large bodies of water to allow a course at least a quarter of a mile in length, which is generally sailed twice or three times over to windward and backward. Triangular courses are also sailed. Racing rules correspond generally to those controlling regattas of large boats, and there is full scope to exhibit all the proofs of good seamanship. The yachts are followed in light skiffs, and may not be touched more than a certain number of times during a race, on penalty of a handicap. Racing measurements differ in the various clubs, but all are based upon length and sail-area. In Great Britain the regular Yacht Racing Association rule has been generally adopted, and handicaps deducted from it. In America models are divided into a single schooner with a maximum load water-line of 63 in., and three classes of sloops, the first class including yachts with water-lines between 48 and 53 in., the second class those between 42 and 48 in. and the third and smallest class those between 35 and 42 in. A yacht with a shorter water-line than 35 in. must race in the third class. It has been found that yachts of smaller dimensions possess too little resistance to the wind.
See Model Sailing Yachts, in Marshall’s Practical Manuals series, 1905; and How to Build a Model Yacht, by Herbert Fisher (New York, 1902).
MODENA (ancient Mutina), one of the principal cities of
Emilia, Italy, the chief town of the province of Modena and the
seat of an archbishop, 31 m. E.S.E. of Parma by rail. Pop.
(1906), 26,847 (town); 66,762 (commune). It is situated in a
damp, low plain in the open country in the south side of the valley
of the Po, between the Secchia to the west and the Panaro to the
east. Some of its main streets (as their names indicate) follow
the lines of canals, which still (though now covered) traverse
the city in various directions. The observatory stands 135 ft.
above the level of the sea. Dismantled since 1816, and now
largely converted into promenades, the fortifications give the
city an irregular pentagonal contour, modified at the north-west
corner by the addition of a citadel also pentagonal. Within this
circuit there are various open areas—the spacious Ippodromo
in front of the citadel, the public gardens in the north-east of
the city, the Piazza Grande in front of the cathedral, and the
Piazza Reale to the south of the palace. The Via Aemilia
passes obliquely right through the heart of the city, from the
Bologna Gate in the east to that of Sant' Agostino in the west.
Begun by the Countess Matilda of Tuscany in 1099, after the designs of Lanfranc, and consecrated in 1184, the Romanesque cathedral (S Geminiano) is a low, but handsome building, with a lofty crypt, under the choir (characteristic of the Tuscan Romanesque architecture), three eastern apses, and a façade still preserving some curious sculptures of the 12th century. The interior was restored in 1897. The graceful bell-tower, erected in 1224–1319, named La Ghirlandina from the bronze garland surrounding the weathercock, is 335 ft. high; in the basement may be seen the wooden bucket captured by the Modenese from the Bolognese in the affray at Zappolino (1325), and rendered famous by Tassoni’s Secchia Rapita. Of the other churches in Modena, the church of S. Giovanni Decollato contains a Pieta in painted terra-cotta by Guido Mazzoni (1450–1518). The so-called Pantheon Estense (the church of S. Agostino, containing works of sculpture in honour of the house of Este) is a baroque building by Bibbiena; it also contains the tombs of Sigonio and Muratori. San Pietro and San Francesco have terra-cottas by Begarelli (1498–1565). The old ducal palace, begun by Duke Francis I. in 1635 from the designs of Avanzini, and finished by Francis Ferdinand V., is an extensive building with a fine courtyard, and now contains the military school and the observatory. The Albergo d’Arti, built by Duke Francis III., accommodates the civic collections, comprising the Museo Lapidario (Roman inscriptions, &c.); the valuable archives, the Biblioteca Estense, with 90,000 volumes and 3000 MSS.; the Museo Civico, with large and good palaeo-ethnological and archaeological collections; a fine collection of textile fabrics, and the picture gallery, a good representative collection presented to the city by Francis V. and since augmented by the addition of the collection of the Marchese Campori. Many of the best pictures in the ducal collection were sold in the 18th century and found their way to Dresden. The town hall is a noteworthy building, with arcades dating from 1194, but in part rebuilt in 1826. The university of Modena, originally founded in 1683 by Francis II., is mainly a medical and legal school, but has also a faculty of physical and mathematical science. The old academy of the Dissonanti, dating from 1684, was restored in 1814, and now forms the flourishing Royal Academy of Science and Art. In industrial enterprise silk and linen goods and iron wares are almost the only products of any note. Commerce is chiefly agricultural and is stimulated by a good position in the railway system, and by a canal which opens a water-way by the Panaro and the Po to the Adriatic. Modena is the point at which the railway to Mantua and Verona diverges from that between Milan and Bologna, and has several steam tramways to neighbouring places. It is also the starting-point of a once important road over the Apennines to Pistoia by the Abetone Pass.
Modena is the ancient Mutina in the territory of the Boii, which came into the possession of the Romans probably in the war of 215–212 B.C. In 183 B.C. Mutina became the seat of a Roman colony. The Roman town lay immediately to the south-east of the modern; its north-western wall is marked by the modern Corso Umberto I. (formerly Canal Grande). It appears to have been a place of importance under the empire, but none of its buildings is now to be seen. The Roman level, indeed.
