It is only comparatively recently that yacht designers have made serious efforts to reduce weight aloft. Sometimes they have gone too far. I remember a 40-foot cutter, built to sail against the Scotch cutter Minerva. She was dismasted in a puff on the occasion of her first race, which was also her maiden sail. The same mishap befell her later on in a fine sailing breeze off Newport. I was on the committee boat which towed her into port. If she hadn't been well handled after being disabled some serious accident might have happened to her hull. The accident was ascribed to defective iron-*work.
It is of no benefit to stay the masts of pleasure vessels with rigging heavy enough for a great brig. A sense of proportion should be observed. Scientific men have calculated and tabulated the stress and strain that wood, metal, wire and hempen rope will bear, and these tables may be consulted by anybody able to read.
It is a fact that piano wire plays a leading part in the rigging of some of the down-to-date little racing freaks one meets nowadays, especially in fresh water where it is less exposed to corrosion. It is highly spoken of by those who have used it. Better, however, not to go to extremes and always to beware of a spider-web rig. Like flimsy construction it causes a yacht to come to grief.
