unless it is sufficiently stout the spar buckles, or bends, and the sail can no longer stand flat. The chief strain comes upon the centre of the boom, so that it is always made thicker in that part and is tapered away towards either end.
The weight of a cutter's boom, and the leverage of its great length always acting on the lee-side, and so diminishing the stability of the vessel, become a source of danger in a heavy sea, causing the vessel to labour and strain; one of the most serious accidents that can befall a cutter when combating a gale is for this unwieldy spar to get adrift, or carry away and 'take command,' when it is not unlikely to drive a hole through the vessel's side, or to sweep the crew off the deck. Thus it is that the prudent captain of the cutter in heavy weather stows his mainsail, lashes his boom amidships, and sails under his snug trysail.
With the object of reducing the weight of the boom as much as possible, while leaving it sufficiently stiff to resist the strain of the sail without buckling, hollow and built spars have been employed on large cutters. The prejudice that so long existed in England as to the undesirability of lacing the foot of the mainsail to the boom has almost disappeared. It has dawned upon us that this practice, universally adopted in America, does not necessarily destroy the springiness and liveliness of a vessel, and so make her a worse sea-boat and a slower sailer. That a mainsail stands flatter when bent to the
