trimming of the sail-planes to the wind can be done with speed and
accuracy; the unbroken spread of the sail-area is of infinite
advantage; and the greatest possible amount of canvas can be
displayed upon the least possible quantity of spars. Lightness and
concentrated power are the great qualities of fore-and-aft rig.

A fleet of fore-and-afters at anchor has its own slender
graciousness. The setting of their sails resembles more than
anything else the unfolding of a bird's wings; the facility of
their evolutions is a pleasure to the eye. They are birds of the
sea, whose swimming is like flying, and resembles more a natural
function than the handling of man-invented appliances. The fore-
and-aft rig in its simplicity and the beauty of its aspect under
every angle of vision is, I believe, unapproachable. A schooner,
yawl, or cutter in charge of a capable man seems to handle herself
as if endowed with the power of reasoning and the gift of swift
execution. One laughs with sheer pleasure at a smart piece of
manoeuvring, as at a manifestation of a living creature's quick wit
and graceful precision.

Of those three varieties of fore-and-aft rig, the cutter--the
racing rig par excellence--is of an appearance the most imposing,
from the fact that practically all her canvas is in one piece. The
enormous mainsail of a cutter, as she draws slowly past a point of
land or the end of a jetty under your admiring gaze, invests her
with an air of lofty and silent majesty. At anchor a schooner
looks better; she has an aspect of greater efficiency and a better
balance to the eye, with her two masts distributed over the hull
with a swaggering rake aft. The yawl rig one comes in time to
love. It is, I should think, the easiest of all to manage.