THE SUNDAY ORECxO'S'IAN. PORTLAND. MAY 11, 1913.
PLY
Portland
"Skbndish" Days Have Passed and Real Yachts Sail Up and Down the River One
Real Challenger Will Co After High Yachting Honors.
TIE establishment of Portland as
the home of the speediest sailing;
craft on the Pacific Coast and the
center of yachting In the Pacific
Northwest Is the ambition of Portland
Tachting enthusiasts In general and
of Oregon Tacht Club In particular.
Tuning the season Just opening; en
thusiasts hop to attract attention to
Portland and ' the unexcelled racing;
possibilities of the feolumbla and "Wil
lamette Rivers. Then will come ISIS,
with the Fanojna-Paclfic International
Exposition,-, with its series of sailing;
contests excelling anything; ever pre
sented on the Pacific. In these races.
Involving the speed chalmplons of a
dosen nations and bringing to the wa
ters of the Pacific Coast thousands of
yachtsmen of this and other coun
tries. Oregonians see the opportunity
to elevate the state and Its waters to
a prominent position In the sailing;
world.
Fot several' years Portland has oo
. "copied an enviable position In motor
boating;, due to the sensational per
formances of - the Oregon Wolf, de
signed and piloted by J. E. 'Wolff. A
few of the Eastern owners of speed
boats have scoffed at the Idea of a
product of the Pacific Northwest tear
ing; over the water at a rate of more
than 42 miles an hour, but every In
vasion has resulted disastrously and
should the recent ISOOO challenge be
accepted and one of the Baby Reliance
motorboats, champions of the world,
appear at 'Astoria this Summer. It Is
not unlikely that Portland will be ad
vertised far and wide as a city boast
ing; of the . fastest motorboat in the
world.
Yachtsmen have watched the growth
of motorboatlng with pride, but also
with a little envy. They have dreamed
of dotting; the Willamette and Colum
bia with a fleet of fast sailers, with
annual races In their waters between
craft representing; Seattle, British
Columbia and California, but It has
been little more than a dream.
But this year they believe that In the
Grayling, Captain H. F. Todd's new
j mi 1miiI they fcave the entering
m olj.ii thn craft which win draw the
attention of Pacific Coast "yachtdom"
to Portland and provide the necessary
Impetus to' the movement to establish
the e ""ff - pleasure " craft on a firm
foundation In this section.
Captain Todd, veteran yachtsman and
m. member of the Oregon Tacht Club,
; Intends to challenge the famous racing;
I sloop Genevieve, of Everett. Wash. This
'loop bears the reputation of being; the
I fastest in Puget Sound waters, and
' there arc not more than two or three
'boats on ths Pacific Coast her equal
'la speed. , . "5
The Grayling;, which Is being; placed
la commission at the Oregon Tacht
I Club quarters , on the Willamette, is
the latest sloop built after lars of
' development In the production of the
I centerboard type of racing; boats for
. local waters. She was constructed
! from designs by Gus Amundsen of
White Bear. Minn, the home of the
j fastest race boats of -this type In Amer-
If these boats race, and there is
very prospect that they will, and In
a series of competitions to decide the
question of supremacy In the North
west, the curloua. spectaclo of a con
test between craft, of widely divergent
types will be presented.
The Genevieve Is a 60-feot sloop with
a deep draft keel and outside balance,
while the Grayling; is of the old eklm
dlsh type of boat, with centerboard and
' blunt ends. The Genevieve Is built for
heavy weather and choppy seas en
countered cn the Sound, while the
Grayling Is designed to traverse the
smooth waters of the Columbia and
Willamette.
The centerboard design Is pre-eminently
a Portland feature of Pacific
Coast sailing. This is the result of
the racing conditions. This type of
craft shows to poor advantage in
choppy seas but - is at home in the
comparative smooth river waters. The
deep draft keel with the outside bal
ance makes the Genevieve and her
sisters best in rough waters.
Despite the apparent superiority of
the Genevieve over a shallow sloop of
the Grayling type. Captain Todd, who
bas sailed on the waters of every sec
tion of North America. Is willing and
eager to pit his 28-foot champion
against the Everett speeder.
What would a victory over the Gene
vieve mean?
Only this: The boat that beats the
. il . : m3ez
. ..... ....... .. - ? V """ ,J" '"V"'' -t.' r.X-fM. iZv" ' ? '.
&&ZZZsT- ' VA M ' 'l "."'I t-fLf .'4
v iri "
i i i i I " .iW?::-.?:-.: ' - -.-Wj.vtS" .
Genevieve wlU be the fastest craft ever
produced in the Pacific Northwest,
taster than the famous international
racing sloops. Spirit X, Spirit II, and
Alexandra.
The history of these boats Is In
teresting. The two Spirits were built
by the Seattle Tacht Club to compete
against the champions of the Royal
Vancouver Tacht Club for the Duns
mulr trophy. The Alexandra was built
by the Vanoouverltes in 108 for a race
against the Spirit L The Canadians
won by a close margin and next year
the Spirit II was built In an effort to
wrest supremacy from the rival club.
The two champions met in 190 at
Victoria. B. C The Alexandra won
the first day, winds favoring her. The
second day the Spirit II was victor, but
the Canadians declared that the win
ner -vas larger than the rules per
muted and refused to sail the deciding
race. Bitter feeling resulted and the
international contests were abandoned.
Since then the Canadians have ac
quired the two American craft and
the three engage in frequent races,
with first one and then the other win.
nlng.
Last year at Cowlchan the Genevieve
plainly showed that she has more
speed than any one of the international
sloops. Consequently Captain Todd
must havs wonderful confidence In
the ability of his Grayling to have the
temerity to challenge the Everett
speeder.
The Grayling, which Todd claims
can make 14 miles an hour, remark
able speed for sail power, was built
primarily for competition against the
Sparrow, the class B winner at Astoria
last Summer; the Spendthrift, Fore-and-aft
and other boats of the same
class. But Its owner is ambitious and
aspires to meet worthier foes; hence
the challenge to the Genevieve.
Just what Captain Todd will stipu
late in his challenge Is not known,
but Portland and Northwestern sail
ing boat enthusiasts are assured of a
series of great struggles, with the
testing of the center board design to
the fullest.
Other boats, lust as fast, are to be
built within the next yeai, looking to
wards the establishment of relations
with Northwestern clubs for compe
titions preliminary to the big Interna
tional races of the Panama-Pacific Ex
position.
The game has grown steadily for
the past eight or 10 year, but the past
promises to sink Into insignificance
compared with the development within
the next few years.
Tachting Is becoming more popular
each year, from San Diego on the south
to Alaskan points on the north. The
prospects of the many races in San
Francisco Bay In 1916 will give It the
Impetus needed to place yachting on a
par with motor boating in the North
west. In the South the yacht Is more
prominent.
One feature of the Exposition speed
carnival which Is most alluring to Port
land yachtsmen Is the large number of
boats .which 'will seek the Coast In
1915. ' Thousands of men, from Eastern
ports as well as j foreign countries,
will bring their beats to the Pacific
Portland being, for peculiar reasons, a
point likely to greet many of them. '
All yachtsmen know that after a
long sea voyage It Is essential that the
hulls be rid of barnacles and sea
growths, the bane of ocean cruising.
Portland possesses the only body of
fresh water on the Coast which Is deep
enough for visiting yachts to cruise.
Hence Portland promises to be the
scene of notable gatherings of yachts
men, who will be entertained here by
the Oregon Tacht Club and Portland
Motorboat Club while the fresh water
Is playing havoo with the leeches.
Among the big events of 1915 will be:
Endurance contest. New Tork to San
Diego: Seattle to San Francisco, for
Seattle yachtsmen; Honolulu to San
Francisco, for Hawaiian sailing men. A
feature In which Portland men are par-,
tlcularly Interested is one . being .-agitated
for a cruise of. the pick of the
Exposition material from San Francis
co to. British Columbia. From 50 to 75
boats. (0 'feet or more in length, Sir
Thomas Upton's Shamrock IV, Erin
and new 7o-foot racing sloop, and hun
dreds of boats of Eastern yacht clubs
will pass through the Panama canai
far a cruise on the. Pacific and a
glimpse of what is expected to be the
most notable exposition in msiory.
And Portland, awakening to the pos
sibilities of the racing sioop, and de
termined to share In the glory of the
grea,t regatta, should play a prominent
part in the. activity of that year and
achieve the ambition of Its enthusiasts,
a paramount position In yachting in
the Northwest.
They Behave Mke Men.
There Is no reason to believe that
women are fundamentally more moral
than men; that is to say. that they are
guided by an instinct unknown to the
greats body'-orVMlei't-nareless-llving
-ment
The vast army of self-supportlng.wd-men
are more concerned with personal
comfort and occasional amusement than
with abstraction of any sort; and that
ever augmenting army of young women
of a higher class, nonmaternal, pas
sionately Independent, exulting In mod
ern conditions that permit their sex at
least to live unyoked and unregulated
without loss of prestige, and with a
fair chance of success in whatever ac
tive field they elect to enter, are far
too Individualistic to merge themselves
Into the general Idea of reform. It is
In the last two classes that woman's
morals will tend to become one with
man's.
Man, having firmly established his
code, with the help of both law and
society, has never had the least hesita
tion in violating It himself; openly, If
he Is a loose liver. Indifferent to the
pleasures of social groups composed of
stricter or more circumspect men and
women, or If he Is young enough to be
forgiven for his "wild oats" If he Is
none of these things he discovers him
self to the,' world accidentally. A large
numberfof Tnen are too Indifferent to
Women to ' venture into the zone of
danger, and there .is still another class,
men of stern; unyielding morality, who
are the backbone of tha creedi.-u All
varieties, however, unite as one-man
upon the question off the conduct of
the sex that gives them birth. She must
be good, or $he must emigrate to the
garish and definite district beyond the
pale and stay there. So far, not even
as a result of the modern rapid expan
sion of the civilized conscience, has
anything been said: about the girls sow
ing their wild oats.
Now, how far have women been con-
troited by this law Invented by man
and upheld by society?
At what period of the world's history
have women sheltered women been
invariably chaste; what period has been
without its scandals?
I can recall none In the Occident
save ancient Greece, where the moth
ers, present and potential,, were seg
regated, the heterae a triumph class
by themselves, and the admiration of
men was reserved Hot,. their, own phys
ical perfections; or,'perhaps,V'n those
long periods when all the world was
at war in other- words, all able-bod-led
men on the battlefield and all wom
en absorbed in keeping themselves and
their children alive.. Otherwise, if his
tory is to be believed, the irregular
relations of men and women have ever
diverted society, inspired poets and ro
mancers and been the mainspring of
the world's tragedies, great and small
There is no reason to believe that
women are not innately as Immoral, or
as unmoral, as men; but they have
held their propensities in leash when
they have through prkle, fastidious
ness, fear, custom, or at the command
of two forces more restraining still
maternity and religion.
The code in this country is still the
highest In the world, but it would be
Interesting, nevertheless, to sit down
and recall how many weeks we could
segregate in our lives in which we had
not heard a bit of scandal in one set
or another; how many days, in fact,
when we have dwelt in cities at the
height of the season. The hope for ua
is, or has been, that we loudly upheld
our standards, ceaselessly reiterated
them; that our women, if they fell front
grace, did so with the violence of the
unhinged or with the utmost circum
spection; and that girls whom circum
stances forced to earn their own bread,
monotonously and with hateful toll,
preserved a haughty front or took to
the streets altogether.