Phillips-Birt Douglas Hextall C. Fore & Aft Sailing Craft & the development of the modern Yacht

London: Seeley, Service & Company, 1962. — 399 p.The fore and aft rig is one of the notable inventions of man. It gave him a new power of movement over the face of the earth, and especially in the narrow coastal seas and estuaries adjacent to his dwelling. There is another reason why the study of the evolution appears to be salutary at the present time. We live in an age of what the scientists may call discontinuity in progress. Since the day when the first steam engine ground out its slow revolutions to the present time of quantum physics and nuclear fission, man's control over nature has rushed forward at an ever-accelerating pace. Yet history suggests that man is by nature only fitted to sustain slow advances. In the evolution and diffusion of the fore and aft rig, as in a few other fundamental inventions, we see progress nicely adjusted to what would seem to be the natural tempo of the species. A few centuries pass and the hull form of a boat becomes a little better than it was; details have been added to the rigging; yet all the while much remains unaltered and men are still using something that would not be incomprehensible to those of a thousand years ago.