About the middle of March in these latitudes we generally are blessed with ideal sailing breezes, a trifle blustering and boisterous, perhaps, when the merry music of the stiff nor'wester pipes through the rigging, but nevertheless vastly enjoyable to the ardent amateur, who grasps the tiller of his stanch shippie and fearlessly luffs up to the strident puffs, knowing that he has a stout hull beneath him, and that sails and gear are of trusty strength.
It is all very well for the steam-yachtsmen and such-like marine Sybarites to wait for the hot days of July to arrive before ordering their floating palaces to go into commission, but he who depends upon sails can ill afford to allow all the glorious winds of the fresh and fragrant springtime to blow themselves to waste in such reckless, feckless fashion. There may be a chilly sting or bite in the spray that breaks on the weather bow in a silver shower and smites the helmsman mercilessly in the face, but there is invigorating ozone in wind and water, and a glow of triumph after a successful battle with breeze and billow.
It is prudent, too, to fit out early and lay up late, for life, alas! is brief, and it behooves us, my boating brethren, to enjoy as many brave sailing days as possible ere we make our final voyage across the Styx, with grim Charon, the ferryman, taking his perennial trick at the tiller, while his pets, the frogs, plash and play and croak in his muddy wake.
If the yacht is a small one—a knockabout or a 30-footer—and she has wintered afloat, the first thing is to haul her out and prepare to clean her hull of barnacles and grass, of which a goodly crop is sure to have grown on her below the water-line. Start in with scrubbing brushes, sand and canvas and use plenty of elbow grease until she is thoroughly cleaned and all rough places smoothed with pumice stone. Use plenty of fresh water, with a flannel cloth as a final application to her hull. Then leave her until she is thoroughly dry. Carefully examine her seams for leaks, calking where necessary.
When your boat is out of water open her wide to the fresh air. Rig up a windsail, and let the healthful breezes circulate through her interior. If she has hatches or skylights, lift them off; if portholes, unscrew them and give the wind a chance to blow all close impurities away. Rig the pump and relieve her of all malodorous bilge water, the most nauseating and offensive evil that is met with by mariners. Take up the cabin flooring. If the ballast consists of pig iron, rout it out, clean off the rust, and before replacing give it a good coat of coal tar, applied hot. Clean the limbers and flush them with plenty of water, using a bristly broom to remove the dirt. Splash the water about lavishly, and then pump it out dry. If there happens to be a cooking stove below, as there generally is in a vessel of any size, light a roaring fire and do your best to kill all fungoid germs or spores that may have gathered in damp places during the winter. Examine the ceiling for leaks.