Of course,
yacht racing is an organized pastime, a function of social idleness ministering to the vanity of certain wealthy inhabitants of these isles nearly as much as to their inborn love of the sea.
At the moment of his arrival a small
yacht was under trial in the bay; this
yacht had been built by order of an Englishman, who, having heard that the Genoese excelled all other builders along the shores of the Mediterranean in the construction of fast-sailing vessels, was desirous of possessing a specimen of their skill; the price agreed upon between the Englishman and the Genoese builder was forty thousand francs.
It appeared in the guise of a helpless
yacht loaded with seasick people, so we could hardly be expected to recognize it as the opportunity.
Our arrangements for the wedding tour included a cruise to the Mediterranean in a
yacht lent to Eustace by a friend.
By fine gradations, the airy veil of morning thinned in substance as it rose--thinned, till there dawned through it in the first rays of sunlight the tall white sails of a Schooner
Yacht.
You always want to have a
yacht to sail on the Round Pond, and in the end your uncle gives you one; and to carry it to the Pond the first day is splendid, also to talk about it to boys who have no uncle is splendid, but soon you like to leave it at home.
The
yacht, however, is entirely at your disposal, and I have written Captain Masterton to that effect.
The duke's attendants, since the previous evening, had traveled in advance, and now chartered a boat, for the purpose of joining the
yacht, which had been tacking about in sight, or bore broadside on, whenever it felt its white wings wearied, within cannon-shot of the jetty.
Little practised as he was in swimming, he swam with all his strength, whimpering in a sort of chant his eager love for Skipper who indubitably must be aboard the white
yacht half a mile away.
The harpooner was only nineteen years old (and I have never had anything but his own word that he was a harpooner); but he had been too shining and glorious a personality for me ever to address as I paddled around the
yacht at a wistful distance.
"I have come over with the Dalkeiths, ostensibly to see the
yacht races.
"I am wealth; I am respectability," the Fortune explained; "I am elegant houses, a
yacht, and a clean shirt every day.