Sea Birds

A seagull or two, poised over the ridged seas that beleaguer Scotland, were puzzled last week by a pair of inexplicable water-fowl--larger, whiter, sleeker than they--which never rose into the air, but skirted the wavetops, their wings petitioning the wind. Through a calm off Bogany Land, round a buoy at Kerry Croy, on the tumbled reach to Blackhouse, one of these birds was always in front of the other. That one was the Lanai, U. S. six-metre boat, sailed by Sherman Hoyt, famed Long Island yachtsman.

The other, luffing, jibbing, stepping in and out of the seas in a staunch but hopeless attempt to sail under Hoyt's lee, was the Scotch boat Coila III, defending the Seawanhaka Cup, which was won 30 years ago by a 'British six-metre boat, never regained for the U. S. until a salute-gun boomed, a flag broke out from the staff in front of a yacht club, the Lanai crossed the line, left the sea to the toiling Coila III, the windy clanging of the gulls.