These are times when professional seafaring men—and naval officers are probably no exception—must wonder if there is any reasonable excuse for the water being all cluttered up with small boats and men that go to sea for pleasure. Disregarding all the excellent arguments in favor of outdoor sports, it seems to me that a real answer to the question is that the vast growth in the sport of yachting in the past 20 years has built and is building up a substantial fleet of vessels and group of men that, in the event of a national emergency, can be of great value to the Navy with a minimum of specialized preparation and training.
To some extent this was true in 1917, and both yachts and yachtsmen played a helpful part in the World War. Another war would find this factor many times increased. There were 28 yachts, mostly steam of the old type, in the Brittany Patrol alone, carrying their share of submarine patrol and convoy duty. At home, a huge fleet of smaller ex-pleasure craft attended to the business of harbor and coastal patrol—not a spectacular branch of the service, but one that must have been necessary or the men, craft, and money would not have been wasted on it.
The old steam yachts are gone, but in their place is a larger and more able fleet of seagoing pleasure craft. There are at least 60 large yachts today suitable for offshore patrol work. On the average they are better built and better designed than the pre-war yachts, Diesel powered, with a wider average cruising radius and more adaptable in many ways to conversion to naval use. And of smaller craft suitable for coastwise work there are literally thousands, much faster than the 1917 pleasure fleet, powered with better and more reliable engines, and in most cases much better able to keep at sea when the weather gets bad.
The potential naval value of the vessels, however, is negligible compared to the reserve of competent men on which the Navy can draw for officer material. Most yachtsmen of pre-war days were of two types—wealthy men who left the handling of their yachts entirely to paid hands, and those of less means who sailed their own small boats in afternoon races and alongshore cruises. With a few outstanding exceptions, neither type had had any real deep-water experience, and not one in a thousand, probably, knew anything of celestial navigation.
Times and standards have changed. Many owners even of yachts too large to be operated without professional officers and crews are qualified by knowledge and experience to take command of their craft if they wish. Transatlantic, transpacific, Bermuda, Nassau, Havana, and long-distance coastwise races have supplanted the afternoon race to a remarkable extent in popularity and interest, and in all contests of this type the skipper and the bulk of the crew are amateurs. These men have learned to know the ocean, its winds and currents and tides and weather signs, as only men who have lived close to the sea in small craft can know them. They retain a profound respect for the sea.
Thanks largely to the ocean races, celestial navigation has become an almost standard part of the yachtsman’s education. It is a matter of pride, if not of necessity, with the owners of most yachts that go to sea—and hundreds do—to be able to keep track of their positions. Clubs and other organizations, as well as private individuals, run winter navigation classes for yachtsmen and would-be yachtsmen, and whole schooner-loads of yachtsmen go to sea for week-ends in the summer to practice navigation and compare their results—not always, it must be admitted, with complete unanimity of conclusions.
The question of whether training in sail is of value for men who are to command vessels propelled by steam or Diesel power always starts an argument, but I don’t intend to stir it up here. Most unprejudiced observers will agree that the handling of vessels, and particularly small vessels and boats, under sail inculcates a certain intimacy with the sea that the handling of power-driven vessels, especially large ones, does not. The majority would probably say that this knowledge is desirable but not essential. Still, it may be a desirable thing and certainly, today, the yachtsmen are about the only ones who are getting sailing experience.
There have been many thousands of newcomers to both the sailing and powerboating branches of yachting in the past few years, and while some of them are still pretty inept at the game, their opportunities for education have kept pace. Yacht clubs make special effort to provide training for youngsters, through junior instructors, and for older members, in some cases, through classes in navigation and other subjects, and other organizations of wider range are also carrying on the work. Special mention should perhaps go to the U. S. Power Squadrons. In many centers throughout the country they have conducted classes in which hundreds of men have learned the fundamentals boat handling, piloting, and more advanced instruction in dead reckoning and navigation for those who have gotten past the first grade.
Considering all these things, the conclusion is obvious that, in the event of another emergency, the Navy will find a large body of men, ready at hand, whose training is at least begun. I realize that there is a great deal more to the complex business of modern war than mere seamanship, but that does not eliminate seamanship as an essential. In other words, with these men a navy preparing for war would save a great deal of time by not having to start quite back to the beginning.
As a whole, yachtsmen are an intelligent, alert, and level-headed group of men—the stuff from which good officers can be made—and they should be especially adaptable to duty in the smaller and less complex craft, for such work as picket and patrol boat duty and watch officers and navigators on large vessels.
The average American yachtsman is a business man who cannot give the time which I understand is now required of any active member of the Naval Reserve, but I think anything the Navy could do to promote a closer understanding would be of great value in an emergency and I feel reasonably sure that yachtsmen would be more than glad to co-operate in any way possible.