BBOB mSm HBfilfl Hmbbbw 9HKHHDDO0OOBH Class 1 Book dilii PRKSKNTKI) ISY CANOEING, SAILING AND MOTOR BOATING WARREN EL MILLER CANOEING, SAILING AND MOTOR BOATING PRACTICAL BOAT BUILDING AND HANDLING BY LIEUT. WARREN H. MILLER U.S.N.R. Author op "Rifles and Shotguns," "Camping Out/ "The American Hunting Dog," etc., etc. new xar YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY /f'7 COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1919, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY Gift SEP 4 »W COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY THE FIELD AND STREAM PUB. CO. COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY OUTING PUBLISHING CO. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AUG I J PREFACE "With most men whose homes are beside salt water, river or lake, the desire to get afloat and navigate their own craft is ineradicable. Begin- ning with the boyhood batteau, we grow to the youth's catboat or dory, and then to manhood's yacht or motor boat. The sea-faring blood seems well distributed throughout the country, as wit- ness the army of inland bluejackets trained at the Great Lakes and other stations far from our sea- coasts. Once a sailorman, always a sailorman,- — even if the craft is of the most modest pretensions. And we do not outgrow our old loves. At forty we get as much fun out of the tiny canoe as from the expensive power cruiser, and to those of us whose purse (and we are many) does not permit anything resembling a fancy yacht, the craving to venture forth on the waters is well satisfied by a cruising canoe, a small sailboat, or a twenty-foot power boat, home-built, perhaps from knockdown frames. It is to this great class that I write. It is not needful to be even moderately wealthy to enjoy VI PREFACE your own craft. Boys, youths, workmen of modest means, all find the way, in one fashion or another, to satisfy the craving to cruise, each in his own choice of craft. To help such a one to select, man- age or build the boat of his heart's desire is the purpose of this volume. The author has never been well blessed with this world's goods, yet, from earliest boyhood, has managed to own his fill of pleasure craft, and to this day gets as much enjoyment out of the least as from the most pre- tentious of them — with always still another boat looming in the future, on paper ! His experiences afloat have given him golden memories, with fu- ture ones in store, and the knowledge and self-reli- ance that years of boat handling have brought have been useful to his country on two occasions in time of war. For, after two years in the Naval Eeserve as a youth, it was the author's privilege to serve in the Navy as Ensign during the Span- ish "War; and, after twenty years' retirement from naval affairs in the Fleet Eeserve, he was again called to duty as Senior Lieutenant in the German War now happily terminated. As the knowledge of nautical terms is one of those things that stamp the sailorman as true blue aboard ship, a yacht design, with many of the proper names of the various parts of rig and hull PREFACE vii marked on it, has been included in this preface. A study of it is recommended, as being the easiest way for the tyro to become familiar with the sea- man's names for things aboard a yacht. It is believed that the book will have wide ap- peal, not only to the boy making his first ventures on blue water and to the youth learning to become an able yachtsman, but to the man who would still keep to his love for adventures afloat, yet whose pocketbook may prevent him from becoming a yachtowner in the accepted meaning of the term. To the Poor Man, therefore, let this volume be dedicated. May its perusal steer him clear of ex- pensive pitfalls, show him the way to enjoy his days afloat, and keep alive in him that love of the sea which lies at the root of this nation's sea power. Wakeen H. Milleb Intkrlaken, N. J., 1919. CONTENTS PART ONE: SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING CHAPTER PAGE I The Sailing Batteau 17 II Sail Dory, Duckboat and Skiff ... 41 III Catboats and Knockabouts .... 63 IV Boat Building . > 89 PART TWO: CANOEING AND CRUISING I How to Rig and Handle an Open Canoe 119 II Canoe Cruising . . 138 III How to Build a Decked Canvas Cruising Canoe 160 IV Canoe Fittings 177 PART THREE: MOTOR BOAT MANAGEMENT AND CONSTRUCTION I Choosing Your Motor Boat .... 189 II Motor Boat Fittings 206 III Cabin and Interior Furnishings . . 226 IV Yacht Plumbing 241 V All About Your Engine 253 ix x CONTENTS VI Engine Troubles VII The Galley of the Power Cruiser . . 286 VIII Going into Commission 303 IX Hauling Out for the Winter . . . 318 X Building a Power Cruiser from Knock- down Frames 331 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A Sailing Skipjack Race Frontispiece PAGE Part I: Chapter I 32 Nautical Names About a Boat Keel Board for 15-ft. Sailing Batteau Under Full Sail Whistling for a Breeze The 13-ft. L. W. L. Sailing Batteau Margaret Part I: Chapter II 48 Sail and Deck Plans of the 17-ft. Whitehall Boat W. B. The Barnegat Duck Boat The 17-ft. Club Sailing Dory Bee 18-ft. Decked Racing Dories Part I: Chapter III . 72 A 16-ft. Lap Strake Catboat for Boys Frame Plan and Deck Plan of 16-ft. Lap Strake Catboat A Knockabout Rig for a 22-ft. Decked Skiff The Popular 15-Rater Knockabout Sail Plan of a 26-ft. 0. A. Knockabout A 16-ft. Racing Catboat XL xH ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Framing Plans and Deck Plan op 16-ft. Cat- boat Knots and Bends Used in Seamanship Boat Construction Details Part I: Chapter IV 96 Sheer Plan and Body Plan of 19-ft. Sail Dory Framing Designs for a 19-ft. Sail Dory Part II: Chapters I, II 132 To Swing Canoe Overhead Paddles Lashed in Position Carrying Single Frame Plan and Sail Plan Water at IV Getting Breakfast in the Canoe Tarp Camp Dan Beard or Camp-Fire Tent The Forester Tent The Perfect Shelter Tent Part II : Chapter II 144 The Canoe Tarp Camp In Camp in a Cruising Decked Canoe The Side-Opening Grub Bag Ready to go Overboard Again The Varmint Under Full Sail The Water at IV with Sails and Cockpit Tent Details of Stem and Stern Construction Waterat IV Part II: Chapter III 168 Deck Framing of the Waterat IV After Stretching Canvas ILLUSTRATIONS xiii PAGE Body View Ribbands of Water at IV Rounding the Mark The Varmint Under an Ash Breeze Part III: Chapters I, II ....... 192 A Husky Launch for Bays or Large Lakes The Hunting Cabin Launch A Deep-Sea Motor Cruiser The Author's Deep-Sea Cruiser Go-Sum The Author's Lake Launch Adelaide Some Fittings the Marine Law Requires A Good Design of Yacht Compass The Viking Type of Anchor Windlass Open 25-ft. Launch with Hunting Cabin Added Cabin and Deck Section of the Go-Sum Bending the Plank for the Hunting Cabin Part III: Chapters III, IV 228 Cabin Plan and Elevation of the Go-Sum Cabin Plan of a Large Ocean-Going Cruiser Elevation of Galley and Toilet Room of the Go-Sum Details of Cabin Construction on the Go-Sum A Home-Made Force Pump Electrical Connections for Jump-Spark Igni- tion Part IV: Chapters V, VI, VII, VIII .... 288 Crank Piston and Engine Bed A Four-Horse Gray 2-Cycle xiv ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Compression in 2-Cycle Engine 3J^ H. P. Ferro 2-Cycle Engine Galley and Toilet Room Plan of the Go-Sum Can, Cork and Barrel Buoys Anchor Bitt and Capstan, Combined Mushroom Mooring Anchor Mooring Tackle Part IV: Chapters IX, X 320 Overboard with a Pair of Shears Cradle and Ways for Hauling Out Details of Hauling-Out Ways The First Day's Work on the Go-Sum Finishing the Planking Planking the Go-Sum PART ONE: SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING CANOEING, SAILING AND MOTOR-BOATING PAET ONE : SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING CHAPTEK I THE SAILING BATTEAU My boyhood town was located on a point of land commanding a beautiful blue harbor, an arm of the salt sea whence came in daily stately ships, standing in from the open roadstead and sweeping majestically through the crowds of small sail craft, until the grizzled port pilots gave the signal to let go anchor, or a puffing tug took charge and nosed them into the wharves. That was before the U. S. Government dredged out our harbor to admit steamers. We were a great sail ship port, and our people dealt in commodities that are car- ried from far distant lands. Later it all gave way to huge smoky steamers, laden with prosaic iron and coal, and the town became a big manu- facturing center. But we boys were of the sail period of the Be- 17 18 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING public ; the salt sea was in our breath all day, and to be ' ' Cap 'n ' ' of even a ten-foot sail dory was the ambition of every one of us when but six years old. By the age of ten we had usually learned to swim well and then had the parental per- mission to own a boat, a sail boat of course, usu- ally rigged from bowsprit withe to topping lift cleat entirely by ourselves. There were plenty of fish to be caught, and the bay abounded in wild fowl, so that from April to Hauling- out- time in November we lived in or on the water. I carry the weatherbeaten tan of those days to this hour, and no amount of city living can eradicate it ! We usually began with a flat-bottomed batteau, fitted first with a sprit sail and centerboard or keel board, and later added the glory of bow deck, wash boards and standing rigging; sold the pre- cious frigate at about the age of fifteen and ac- quired a round-bottomed sharpie; sold her and got a catboat ; and, before we were nineteen years old, had graduated into the full glory of the rac- ing 18-rater knockabout. And, as the port had a flourishing yacht club, we boys were much in de- mand for crews, both for racing and cruising. Our own particular crowd of five boys were the crew of the Ocean Spray, a forty-foot racing sloop, whose owner we were only too glad to help at over- THE SAILING BATTEAU 19 hauling time, in return for being taken on a cruise or two in the summer and allowed to help man the yacht in a race. It was a thorough school of seamanship — I think every boy of our squad is to-day a yacht owner and a naval reservist — and, though the motor boat with its general air of land- lubberliness seems to have come to stay, the an- cient sport of sailing is more than holding its own in dozens of ports along our sea-coast. My first cruiser was a thirteen-foot flat-bot- tomed batteau, four and a half foot beam, that cost me ten dollars just as she lay, a common row- boat, in Capt. Milham's slip. I bought her with the money of my eleventh Christmas, having con- vinced Pater the summer before that I could out- swim him by challenging him to catch me. We were all in swimming off the end of Parker 's pier, in about two fathoms of water, and Pater, after a vain chase of maybe twenty minutes, nearly got me ; but I dived under him, and, coming up about where his heels were, I made fast and ducked him properly ! And so that Christmas I received per- mission to buy my first boat. She was a staunch, light batteau ; two strakes, cedar planking ; an able boat in the seaway that got up in every easterly blow that hit our harbor. I bought her in March (it seemed that January and February would 20 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING never pass), and my first work was to paint her and put her overboard. That meant a can of cop- per paint for her bottom, a can of white lead for her outside, and a can of buff for the inside coat- ing. These were all quart cans, as two coats each were needed, so the bill was $1.95 that stared me in the face. A whole lot for a boy of eleven years, but I raised it somehow. Her seams lay wide open, but the calking was in good shape, so all she needed was putty in the seams and then the paint. Meanwhile, my chum Eber, who owned a similar boat, fifteen feet on the waterline, was happily working over his craft nearby in the warm spring sunshine, and we combined forces when it came to getting the boats overboard. Both promptly filled to the water's edge, as is the way with all flat-bottomed craft until the planks swell shut, but in a week they were ready to bail out and were tight as drums the rest of the summer. My first problem was one that troubles many a boy, — how to overcome leeway and how to make a rig for her. A flat-bottomed boat will skid over the water like a leaf if she has no centerboard, Leeboards are a clumsy and landlubberly contrap- tion for a regular boat, though well enough on canoes, and a centerboard is rather expensive — $2.75 was the best price I could get from the THE SAILING BATTEAU 21 "Cap'ns" alongshore, who all did a bit of boat carpentry in the winter. My first scheme was a hinged centerboard. A piece of twelve-inch-wide yellow pine three feet long was secured for ten cents from the local wheelwright, and two stout galvanized iron hinges with brass pins were screwed to it, about eight inches from either end. The Margaret was then hauled up on the beach and turned on her side, while I attached this cen- terboard to the keel strip by its hinges. Two stout galvanized iron screw eyes were next screwed in the lower edge of the board, and from them was led out two pieces of flexible copper rope a yard long each and costing ten cents a foot. These fastened in cleats on opposite sides of the gun- wale, and the board was then ready for use. This board worked rather well. A knot in the copper rope told me when she was perpendicular to the keel, when both ropes would be belayed on their cleats, and she held up well, making little leeway. When the boat began to heel down and move right along under a smart breeze the ropes thrummed as they cut through the water, making the whole boat vibrate and of course reducing her speed, so she was beaten by nearly every craft in the harbor that carried a sail. My chum, who was a Florida boy and hated to 22 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING be beaten, devised a heel board for his boat, pre- ferring beaching troubles to going slow. He nsed a % x 12-in. yellow pine plank five feet long, cut on a long slant at both ends. This was spiked securely to a strip of 2x4-in. dressed pine run- ning the full length of the keel board, and this in its turn was screwed to the bottom of his batteau. A second strip was screwed along the other side of his keel board and toenailed to it. The whole thing was then copper painted and it made a strong job, a deep, permanent keel in fact, and he lost no speed from copper ropes thrumming un- derneath. Of course his troubles came when he got into shallow waters or wanted to beach her, when that tender keel would strike and had to be nursed to prevent it going adrift. The photo shows how we made the latter type of board ; they both cost about the same, $1.00, as we both were mighty short on the coin of the realm! My first rig was a six-foot by six-foot leg-o'- mutton, made of two yards of unbleached muslin, the upper corner of which being cut off and added on below made the whole sail. It looked huge, in the house, and my mother was very much fright- ened at my carrying all that canvas ( !) but on the boat it looked like a pocket handkerchief and just about gave her steerage way. The mast was THE SAILING BATTEAU 23 a piece of bamboo picked up on the beach and the boom a square strip of yellow pine — can you beat it for landlubberliness ! However, in a hard blow the sail drew well enough to let me learn the sim- ple arts of tacking, running free and running dead before a blow, and it was a much safer rig in the last case than one with a peak. This sail got dirty and mildewy, and, at the height of its disrepu- tableness my father and old Cap 'n Tom Little, the port pilot, decided that I had progressed far enough in sailing to carry a bit more canvas, and so I received permission to add a peak. This was done, a snowy triangle of unbleached muslin added to the filthy leg-o '-mutton, and with that and a light sprit spar to hold it out, I scandalized the harbor ! This in its turn got muddy and dirty from numerous shipwrecks and cruises up muddy salt-water creeks after snipe, and then I found another boom and a longer spar for a sprit and so added about two feet more to the leach of the sail, making it eight feet along the boom, six feet hoist and six feet head. This is about as small canvas as I would advise any boy starting out with, for a thirteen-foot boat; it gives her good speed and she is not set back so much on a tack by the tide drift. My sail now resembled Joseph's coat of many colors, but I did not care — wasn't I 24 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING the eleven-year-old "Cap'!!" of a sail boat my- self! And presently November came around and the bunting season was in full blast, so I spent more time in the forest with my air rifle than on the water in the Margaret, and soon she was hauled out and turned over, bottom up, on a pair of skids and left to the snows of winter. But her skipper was not idle ; far from it. My twelfth Christmas, word having gone throughout the family that I was going to rig the boat and put in a centerboard, and that cash would be very acceptable in lieu of presents, resulted in about $12 in my stocking. I needed a powder rifle and a tomahawk very badly but, oh, gee! I did need everything imaginable for that boat ! A new main sail, a jib, spars, centerboard, bow deck, wash- boards, standing rigging, running rigging, anchor, paint — what not! I spent all January planning, and resisting the temptation to sell her and add the money to my $12 to buy a round-bottomed boat, but I wisely stuck to the able little Margaret, for the other boat would need complete riggirig too, and I did not propose to worry through an- other season half found. During February con- ferences with Cap'n John Milham, who was very busy building boats for the men at the yacht club, brought me his promise to put in a centerboard, THE SAILING BATTEAU 25 put on washboards, bow deck and bowsprit all for five dollars, so this amount was set away until it would be needed in the spring. The remaining seven had to buy canvas for the sails, rope, blocks, spars, etc., and it required careful planning to make it cover all the necessities, while the rifle and tomahawk were relegated to another time. Mr. Kearney, owner of the sloop Eitty Maginn at the yacht club, coached me on the rig that was to be her final " grown-up' ' outfit. Eleven-foot boom, eight-foot gaff, eight-foot hoist and sixteen- foot leach were settled on for the mainsail, and thirteen-foot hoist, ten-foot six-inch luff and six- foot six-inch foot were the dimensions of the jib. My school arithmetic was taxed to the utmost to find out how many yards of canvas this called for, but we made it eighteen yards, and this was bought in American drilling at ten cents a yard (now about fourteen cents). Then, one sunny Sat- urday in March, we pegged out the dimensions of mainsail and jib on the lawn, running a cord from peg to peg so as to give us a full-sized outline of the mainsail. "We gave the foot a one-foot rise, which brought us a tall, sassy peak. The canvas was then unrolled, the first strip being laid along the leach line, and this was cut to the string along head and foot. Each gore was then added to this, 26 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING overlapping to the blue line on the canvas edge, and pinning every foot, cutting off along the sail outlines until both mainsail and jib lay rough fin- ished on the lawn and there was but a small bit left of my roll of drilling. With these sails I went home and cajoled mother into hemming them all around, sewing down the gore seams and finishing the sails for grommets, etc. With this light canvas, an ordinary house sewing machine with forty cotton thread and heavy needle is amply strong enough. Before the next Saturday came around, oh, joy — I had the mumps ! No school for two weeks and only two days of misery — that is what it means to a boy! No wonder that that disease (and measles) are considered by boys blessings in dis- guise, no matter what parents think of them! Two bad days in a darkened room, and then, still confined to my room, I was up and about. I had stored the closet full of salty paraphernalia: manila rope, sail needle and beeswax, a ball of sail-maker's twine, some smelly, tarry marline, of brass grommets a box, galvanized pulley blocks — a sailor's paradise forsooth ! At the end of every seam I put in a %-in. No. 1 brass grommet. These little brass rings come in two parts, a " thimble' ' and a ring, costing 30 cents a gross box. You cut THE SAILING BATTEAU 27 a hole with your scissors, insert the thimble through one side, slip over the ring on the other, and turn over the edges of the hat with a marlin- spike or fid, or even a stout wire nail will answer. Finish with a blow of the hammer and there you are ! Along head and foot these grommets go, not only at the end of every seam, but along the hem midway between the seams also, giving you one about every foot. Through them is rove the head rope and foot rope which secure the sail to gaff and boom respectively. Simply pass it round and round the spar taking in a grommet hole at every turn and securing with a double half hitch at the end of the spar. I got in the grommets for both mainsail and jib and then went at sewing on the bolt rope. An or- dinary hem will not do for a boat sail ; it stretches too much and soon pulls the sail all out of shape so she will not draw well and you lose speed. You simply must have a bolt rope, a stout manila rope, sewed to the hem with sailmaker's twine. For a sail such as the Margaret's %-in. hemp rope is ample. Your twine should follow the lay of the rope, fitting neatly in the bottom of the twist and nowhere exposed to the rough usage that it will surely get if it goes round the bolt rope at any old angle. I had about a hundred feet of bolt rope 28 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING to sew around the two sails, and it took two days to do it. Wax your twine religiously if you expect it to last. With the bolt rope on, the sails began to take on a real seamanlike appearance, and my next job was to lay them out on the floor of the room and mark out the reef points. One must go in every seam, but do not put them in the plain body of the sail unless you reinforce the spot with a little square of canvas. As I did not have but a few gores in my sail I had to put in these little squares, every one of them hand stitched. The reef point hole itself can either have a small 14-inch grommet or a worked eyelet. The latter take longer but are stronger, and, as I had all the time in the world, I eyeletted them all, two rows of reef points, two feet apart vertically for the mainsail, and one row for the jib. To put in the reef points you cut pieces of white cotton rope (the %-inch size for this small sail) two feet long. Stick it through the eyelet hole a foot, and tie a knot. Put another knot on the other side of the sail and your reef point is secure. Both ends of it are next to be lashed with waxed twine, for no sea- man would tolerate a knot or a crown on the end of a reef point. By this time I was allowed at large, as the THE SAILING BATTEAU 29 mumps were about over, but bad not returned to school, and my first excursion was to the ship- yards where the incessant clicking of the calking mallets had been calling to me through the open windows of my room. It was late in March, and the tall-sparred three-masted schooners were rid- ing high in the drydocks, their bulging sides cov- ered with busy men driving in the oakum that was to make them tight and sound for the season. Oh, the Time of the Calking Mallets ! It comes along about Lent (and tops and marbles for the small boys), but for us sea-faring youths it meant boat work in the balmy spring sunshine and good times to come ! I headed for a soaking pool filled with spruce spars of every conceivable length, all with the bark on and all as straight as so many lances. They are sold at twenty-five cents an inch across the butt, and I was not long in picking out a 2^4- inch stick 14 ft. 6 in. long that was to be my future main mast. Back to the house, where with plane and spoke shave the bark was peeled off and the mast got ready for slushing with beef tallow. This is rubbed in by hand — a seaman's delight — three or four times until enough is absorbed by the spruce to make the mast rings slide freely. My friend the wheelwright supplied the boom and gaff — two 1%-inch square spruce strips, en- 30 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING tirely free from knots, — and these I worked down to a round with plane, spokeshave and sandpaper, tapering them to an inch for the gaff and 1*4 inch for the boom. The stock cost 30 cents in the rough. Any lumber mill nowadays can furnish you these spruce sticks already round and only requiring tapering, any diameter you prefer, so all three spars can now be had anywhere just as easily as if a shipyard were handy. And now to bend on the sails! First the gal- vanized mast rings, six of them, were lashed to the luff of the sail at each point where a brass grom- met marked the end of a seam. Next the mast was erected alongside the back porch, and the rings with sail attached slipped over it. Then gaff and boom were tapered with a sharp flat cut where the jaws were to go and the latter sawn out of inch oak and whittled and sandpapered smooth. Most boys get these jaws too wide and clumsy so that when put on they do not hug the mast closely. The way to cut them is with the back of the jaw along the grain and a quarter circle of the radius of the mast struck, after allowing not over an inch for the thickness of the horn of the jaw. Then a taper is struck from the heel of the jaw to its aft end and you have a narrow, thin, strong THE SAILING BATTEAU 81 jaw of oak, which, when bolted to boom and gaff, will lie close to the mast. These went on as described, also a hole bored through the boom and gaff near the meeting point of the jaws, through which was rove the %-inch cotton rope which was to lash head and foot of sail to the spars. A double crown knot of this rope stopped it from pulling through the hole, and then the foot of the sail was lashed to the boom by running this rope around and around the boom, taking in a grommet along the foot at each turn. The two lower corners of the sail are called the tack and clew ; the clew being the corner at the aft end of boom. To secure the tack, the lash rope must take one turn through the tack grommet before running out along the boom. To secure the clew the sail is pulled out tight, seeing that all lashing is taken up snug, and then she is belayed with a turn through clew grommet and a double half hitch around the boom. The boom ought to be about a foot longer than the sail, to allow for stretching, also the lash rope must be about three feet longer because when you come to reef you will need the end of this rope to belay the cringle, which is the last grommet at the end of the line of reef points, in the hem of the leach. All of which I attended to in a seamanlike man- 32 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING ner and did the same by the gaff. The two upper corners of the sail along the gaff are called the throat and peak. The next thing was to bend on the running rigging. The throat halliard for so small a sail as this is simply tied to a screw eye driven into the gaff near the meeting point of the jaws. The peak halliard requires a block, and the loca- tion of this block on the gaff takes some experi- ment. If too far in it will tend to draw too hard on the throat of the sail, if too far out will hoist the peak too hard. A little trial will give about the right place. The mast needs a galvanized iron withe with four rings standing out from it. To the aft ring is lashed the galvan- ized double pulley block which takes throat and peak halliards ; to the forward ring the wire rope jib stay; and to the two side rings the wire rope shrouds. I whittled a shallow collar on the mast- head and fitted the withe over it tight. Then I had a perfectly lovely tarry half hour " serving' ' the ends of those wire ropes with marline. This is a tarry hemp cord which fairly reeks of ships and shipping, and to this day I keep a wad of it in my pocket so that if I see too many gardens I can take a sniff of it and feel all right again ! Wire rope cannot be tied without making a landlubberly THE SAILING BATTEAU 33 job of it, so the end is passed through the ring on your mast withe, bent over in an eye and the end lashed to the standing part with marline. This is called serving it, and you have a little serving mallet over which a couple of turns of the marline are taken and then this is passed around and around the wire by its handle. The pressure exerted by it is so great that it makes the marline lie flat and sweat tar so as to make a neat smooth job of your lashing. The wire rope for my boat was the smallest obtainable, 3/16-inch diameter. Finally the peak and throat halliards were rove, and up went my new sail for the first time ! She set nice and flat after taking up here and there, and the next thing to do was to put a draw in it. The "set" of sails explains all the reason why one boat will beat another with identically the same hull and rig and sailed equally well. Too flat a sail means a slow boat ; too loose, a poor pointer. The ideal shape is a sail, nice and flat aft, and full along the luff, the shape of an aeroplane wing or bird's wing. The wind shoots into such a sail, ex- pends its energy and is slid out along the flat leach. If the latter is baggy, the wind will get trapped in it and hold back the boat, hence, for large sails, the necessity for battens in the leach. My sail 34 SAILING AND BQAT BUILDING was too small for that. By setting up hard on the peak so as to throw a quantity of wrinkles into the luff, the fullness desired is in a way attained. I helped it by letting out a trifle of lashing rope along head and foot just aft of throat and tack. Then I went down to the shore where I found Cap'n Jack already started on my boat. He had gotten out a centerboard log of 1% x 5-inch clear white pine and had slotted it for a 24-inch board. Maybe I didn't camp out on a saw horse for the rest of the afternoon and watch him make that board! First went in two 2 x 1-inch uprights a foot high and were securely spiked with galvan- ized nails into each end of the slot. To these were nailed the two trunk sides of % x 14-inch clear white pine stock, 28 inches long. These were calked where they abutted on the log and were white leaded along the uprights and log before nailing fast up through the bottom of the latter. Next, the board itself was made, of a single %-inch plank of hard yellow pine, with a couple of iron rods driven through it to prevent warping. These were upset at the ends and then the board was put in the trunk in position and an inch hole drilled through both sides of the trunk and the board down in the for'd lower corner where the pivot pin was to go. This was next put in, a sim- THE SAILING BATTEAU 35 pie pin whittled of white pine and driven through. Then Cap'n Jack laid out, on the keel of my precious boat, a centerboard slot, drilled an inch hole through keel, bottom boards and keelson at each end of the slot and joined the holes by two long saw cuts. The bottom boards were then calked and painted where they crossed the keelson and finally some wicking soaked in white lead was laid around the edges of the slot and the center- board trunk screwed fast. At last I had a board ! Next day he began with the washboards and bow deck. Two white pine planks we held in the position they were to go, along the sides, and the line of the gunwale was scribed on the plank from below. A line parallel to this and six inches in- side was next struck, and the Cap'n labored with his ripsaw until he had the two washboards cut out and ready to fit. They were then nailed down through the top into the gunwales and an inch half-round strip run along the gunwale to cover the crack. Along the inner edge went the coam- ing, a piece of %-inch by 3-inch yellow pine board, with a strip of cove molding in the corners. The coaming ended with a square fit about six inches aft of the mast. Next Cap y n Jack put in oak deck carlines every foot, sawed to give about two inches crown to the deck, and then ran the mast plank 36 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING from coaming forward over the stem. This plank was six inches wide and the ends of the wash- boards or " plank sheer' ' as they are called in boat building, butted against it. The space left was then filled with small deck strips, two inches wide, so accurately laid together that not a crack between them could be discerned. But of course this would never do for sea service, they would leak — all these deck cracks — with the first sea that came over the bows, so the Cap'n began calking all these seams just as if they were in the bottom of the boat! Even I was not prepared for such thoroughness as that, but, let me tell you, that is what you have to have in an able sea boat ! Then the seams were all payed with paint and puttied, and then the first coat of paint went on. The Cap'n next began pottering about with a stick of spruce, carrying the while a quizzical smile on his grizzled features, and suddenly I realized with a jump of joy that he was making my bowsprit! A husky stick it was, six feet long, 2 inches square at the butt, and fined to an octagon after it stood out over the stem. He bolted it through the deck carlmes, put on a two- ring withe and ran an iron rod down to her stem from the bowsprit end. "Thar, sonny, ye kin set up on yer jib stay till THE SAILING BATTEAU 37 ye bend the mast out'n her before ever thet bow- sprit will lift!" Indeed you could pick up the whole boat by her bowsprit, as I did many times afterward. The Cap'n still had a little time left in his day, and so he examined my rudder with a sardonic grin. "Looks like a potato paddle, and is hung like a barn door! ,, vouchsafed he. A little rummaging in the shop brought forth some more white pine and soon he had sawn the rudder as shown in our drawings, reinforced with a strip along the bottom to prevent it warping, and then the Cap'n made me put on the rudder irons and do it right. My carpentry was of the let-it-go-at-that kind, but the Cap 'n soon made me realize that sea carpentry is "do it right or don't do it at all!' ' Next day I brought down the sails and put in a joyful day rigging her, while all the weather- beaten Cap'ns alongshore hee-hawed and admired the diminutive yacht. I first tried to hold the shrouds with screw eyes but they pulled right out, so I dug up 60 cents and bought the smallest gal- vanized iron chain plates, 5 inches long, and these were screwed to the sides of the boat about eight inches aft of the mast step. An eye was next put in the shroud wire and the shrouds hove up tight, 38 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING with three or four turns of marline running from the chain plate eye to the shroud eye. Then the jib stay was run from the masthead withe with a set of iron rings for the jib luff grommets to tie to. In a larger boat you would use jib hanks, which can be snapped over the stay, but they do not come small enough for a diminutive yacht of 13 feet L. W. L., so I used inch galvanized iron rings instead. This jib stay up, the double block for throat and peak halliard was next secured to the after masthead withe eye with a few turns of marline and the same was done to the jib halliard block at the forward eye. Then a jib downhaul block at the bowsprit tip, and I was ready for the running rigging. This was all %-inch white cotton rope, and after being rove through the proper blocks and secured to the spars I put on the cleats to which each was attached. You want these in galvanized iron, about the six-inch size, one each, for throat and peak mainsail halliards, jib halliard, jib downhaul, port and starboard jib sheets, and one for the main sheet on the stern transom under the tiller. For a sail of this size the main sheet can be just a %-inch hemp rope, single, no blocks being needed. A topping lift for the main boom will also be wanted to prevent the boom dropping in the water, when the sail is let THE SAILING BATTEAU 39 down and the boom happens to be outboard, and this I put on next, securing at the aft masthead eye and tying with a double half hitch at the aft boom end to give the right topping of the boom, about two feet above the deck. She was now ready to spread her wings. I ran the boat ashore on a convenient sand beach where she could face the wind, for it is better to make the first try with your rigging when the boat is on something solid or she will go all over the lot and maybe upset while you are tuning up this and that. Next I hauled away on throat and peak mainsail halliards and up went the snowy white sail ! Aye, but that was a joyful sight ! Then the jib, and now they were both flapping in the wind, everything drawing well and it was time to be off for a trial spin. I shoved her off, let down the board and gathered in the main sheet, and pres- ently she filled and was away ! Speed ! — you bet ! She made all her previous time look like racing a dock. And now for the first time I had to hike well over the side in the puffs, and now and then had to spill wind when it drove her lee washboards under and water came over the side. But I was satisfied — she made the lighthouse a mile down the harbor in a little less than no time, it seemed to me! Mainsail was a bit too flat, but I soon 40 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING remedied that by heaving to and hauling on the peak halliard so as to throw a mass of wrinkles in along the luff. At first the jib got away with me, as I had never had so large a jib to manage. Never have the jib up without the mainsail first, for its tendency is to haul the bow of the boat away from the wind and you have no steering control over her at all. In coming up into the wind the jib is a great help in going about quickly if you hold the weather sheet fast until the wind has had a chance to get on the other side of the jib thus throwing her bow around. But all these points of handling sails must be left for another chapter ; suffice to conclude with the reflection that I now had a fine, fast, able little racer and cruiser that I could go anywhere in, sleep in at night, sail ten miles or fifty, or just knock about the bay in, and the whole cost of changing her from a plain batteau to practically a small skipjack yacht was not over fourteen dollars. How I handled her, raced her and cruised her, and how to build such a batteau from the planks up will be told in suc- ceeding chapters. CHAPTER n SAIL DORY, DUCKBOAT. AND SKIFF What first awoke me to the sailing possibilities of the round-bottomed boat, or skiff, was when on a lazy summer afternoon, when we boys were loafing on the porch of the Yacht Club, we noted a girl rowing a 16-foot Whitehall boat with a speed and ease that would make any boy envy her. There was a nice easterly blow on, with the usual choppy sea, and most of the yachts of the fleet were out in it, knocking about the bay. The tide was on strong, as usual, yet that girl was pulling her skiff in the teeth of it, across the choppy seas, in long, sure strokes that jumped the boat ahead twenty feet to the stroke. It showed easy work on the face of it, and of course, being a girl, she couldn't have had much strength anyway! A brilliant idea struck me. "Say, mates, if a good sharpie rig were stepped in that Whitehall boat, just wouldn't she go right along like a scared cat ! ' ' said I. The idea was received with tumultuous ap- proval. One of us owned a seventeen-foot St. 41 42 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING Lawrence skiff, which is built on the lines of the Whitehall rowboat, only she is clinker built, with lapstrakes, instead of carvel built with smooth planking. This boy, Harry, had a rich father who gave him everything he wanted, but his mother was as timid as a mouse and wouldn't let him do anything with all his possessions, and, while all the rest of us had our sail batteaux, sail dories and sneak boats or sail ducking craft, poor Harry had to content himself with rowing, and so was "out of it" most of the time, for we went so fast and covered so many miles of distance that he hadn't a chance. But here was a way to let him in on the fleet. "Buy a sail boat for Harry — Never!" was the verdict of his family, but, to step a rig in his skiff, — well, as Harry had been "mate" on nearly all our sail boats and was a good sailorman, we might get a rig for his boat across ! We spent the afternoon discussing the best way to make the change. The first thing wanted would be a keel and keel board, for these long, fine, round-bottomed boats have too narrow a keel to think of putting in a centerboard, and if they have no keel at all will make leeway like a balloon. We decided on a four-inch keel, running the entire length of the bottom and rockered two inches in DORY, DUCKBOAT AND SKIFF 43 a long slant towards bow and stern. This rocker- ing process is hard carpentering, but necessary or the boat will be too slow in coming about to get around without the help of oars. The wood for this keel was to be a piece of 3-inch by 1%-inch hard yellow pine, and, to fasten it to the bottom of the boat, we would use five brass %x 7-inch through bolts with their heads sunk flush with the bottom of the keel and augur bit holes drilled through the built keel and keelson of the skiff. The threads of the bolts stick through about an inch, and when the nuts are screwed down tight it makes a strong job. To make it water-tight around the bolts we simply tie around each bolt a couple of turns of wicking soaked in white lead, and when the new keel is drawn up tight this wick- ing is clamped in firmly between the new keel and the built-in keel of the boat. For the rig we chose the sharpie leg-o '-mutton, with the leach cut full to destroy that distressing bag-and-nigger-heel combination that usually af- flicts this type of sail. The mainsail had 15-foot hoist, 11-foot boom rising one foot aft, and 18-foot leach. The mizzen had 10-foot hoist, 6-foot boom, rising about 14 inches, and 12-foot leach. This pair of sails were made of American drilling and staked out on the floor of the big dock where we 44 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING boys kept all our boats. A twine run around nails driven in the floor at the corners of these sail areas gave us something to cut to, and to get fullness in the leach we cut the gores of the sail perpendicu- lar to the leach, instead of parallel to it as you would do with an ordinary mainsail. We allowed 4 inches of outcurve to the leach, bending a thin batten over a nail from peak to clew so as to get a fair curve. The sails were cut to these limits and then sewed up and hemmed all around, for a leg-o '-mutton sail of this size does not need a bolt rope. Brass %-inch grommets were next put in at the end of every gore and midway between each, and the sails were ready to bend on the spars. To make these latter we discovered that the planing mill carried round spruce in stock, in 14- and 16-foot lengths, thus doing away with the necessity to work them up from square stock as I had done with my sailing batteau. All this round stock needed was a little tapering at gaff and boom ends and mast tops and you were ready for the spar varnish. The mainmast was of 2 %-inch round spruce, main boom and mizzen mast of 1%-inch stock, and mizzen boom of 1%-inch. The rig was all made ready down at the club in three days of work, after the daily swim, and we all pitched in DORY, DUCKBOAT AND SKIFF 45 and helped Harry out, as we wanted him along on a big consort cruise down the bay. Both sails were lashed to boom and mast by a running white cotton rope around the spar and through the grommets, as no halliards are wanted on this rig ; they are a nuisance except on large sail dories. To step the mainmast all that was needed was a 2%-inch hole in the bow sheets, a stout oak mast step bolted to ribs and keelson, and a %-inch iron rod run through the ribs at the bow sheets clear through the boat and upset on the outside. This is essential, to brace the boat to withstand the strain of the rig, or the pressure of the sail on the bow sheets will strain the planking and make her leak forward. We had the village blacksmith cut this rod for us and upset it over wide iron wash- ers, using an axe at one end as anvil and an ordi- nary hammer to upset the other end. The mizzen mast was stepped by simply screw- ing a galvanized iron U-clamp to the aft rowing thwart and putting a mast step in the grating below this thwart. This U-clamp can be bought at any pipe fitter's, of the size to go around a l^-inch iron pipe. Around the mizzen mast we also put the yoke for managing the rudder, for, of course, you should not sit 'way back in the extreme stern to handle a two-sail rig. The mast went through 46 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING a hole in the yoke, and two wire cords led back to the yoke on the rudder, so that a boy sitting amidships could steer nicely. This boat went like a racehorse. I took the first spin in her, a leg out to sea and a leg back again, while the rest were in swimming near shore. I got back so fast that I nearly ran down two of them ! The mizzen sheet was simply cleated fast and took care of itself on either tack, as it was led down to a pulley block on the stern transom and thence for'd to its cleat. My principal atten- tion was on the mainsail, the sheet of which was held in the hand and never cleated, for this boat was nearly as lively as a sail canoe. And fast! She beat most of the power boats that we met go- ing our way, when I shipped Harry and Eaymond, my old mate of the Margaret, for a crew and "beef to windward.' ' In bringing a sharpie about you use your mizzen to help out the rudder. Get a good full on her, and then put the helm down hard. This will throw her in stays where she will most likely hang, so at this point back the mizzen, that is, push its boom out to windward by hand, when the wind will fill it and shove her stern around so that the mainsail will fill off on the other tack. With our 3-inch rockered keel she still made a good 1 WHISTLING FOE A BBEEZE Courtesy "Rudder f t VJC t THE 13-FT. L.W.L. SAILING BATTEAU "MARGARET" The author's first yacht, when a boy of twelve. NAUTICAL NAMES A IX) I T A l!()A T * * >■'■'■■. ■'■■, •' ■ '" '■ ' " ■ ' ■" '".'■■ ■.'■■■■''.'■ r - ' ■•■.••'■ S?*" -m%^^" '--/ : '. <5#«f J /5a '$>;-"" ' N "» V - 5fw KEEL BOARD FOB MY BOYHOOD CHTJM'S 15-FT. SAIL BATTEAU ■■!■ UNDEB -FULL SAIL, A SKIPJACK SAIL BATTEAU Courtesy "Rudder' DORY, DUCKBOAT AND SKIFF 47 deal of leeway, and was so slow in stays that we could generally beat the W. B. ("world-beater") as Harry called her, in tacking to windward, so later we added a keel board. To make the rocker (I should have told you before), you strike a long curve from one end to the other of your keel plank, making it 3 inches deep for about 5 feet amid- ships and then tapering gradually to 1% inches at bow and stern, and this is easiest carpentered by dubbing down with a hatchet and finishing with a jack plane. To add a 5-foot keel board, we got a piece of %-inch dressed oak board 8 inches wide, sawed a slant at each end of it and put in three carriage bolts through the top of this board, so that by putting the ends of these bolts through three corresponding holes in the keel we could screw it fast with galvanized iron wing nuts by hand. To put it on, of course, you had to beach the W. B. and turn her over on her side, but, with a light boat like the St. Lawrence skiff, this was easy for a couple of boys to do when you were off for a long sail. With the keel board added she was less lively, made less leeway and stood up much stiff er in a blow. In all, I do not know of a better rig than this leg-o '-mutton sharpie for a long, fine round-bottomed rowboat, such as one 48 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING finds in thousands on all our lakes and the salt water bays and sounds of the Atlantic Coast. Another exceedingly popular small sail boat with us boys was the Barnegat duckboat. As you will note from the plans herewith of a typical boat of this type, she is built something like a wide, shallow slipper, a "punkm' seed" as she is called in many localities. The bottom is round, with a shallow dish curve, and the deck is almost a dupli- cate of the bottom. There is a small cockpit amid- ships, a mast hole a short distance for'd of this, and a centerboard trunk for a dagger type center- board is generally built in at the same time the boat is made. As a cruiser, a ducking craft, and a fast racer in blows that would put many a larger craft under three reefs, it is hard to beat the Barnegat duckboat. With their high, rounded decks they are a most easy craft for a boy to slide overboard out of, so the stern deck is generally enclosed by a high board frame, secured to the decks with hooks and eyes, and inside this frame go also the two wooden, folding oarlocks. We boys knew these boats well, and sailed them in all kinds of weather. I had an aunt down at Barnegat Bay, and whenever I visited her she knew just what to do with me, and that was to give me the exclusive possession of a small duck- SAIL PLAN OF THE 17-FT. WHITEHALL BOAT, "W.B." Lower dotted lines show the yellow pine keel we bolted below her built keel. DECK PLAN OF THE "W.B." Showing arrangement of tiller and yoke. Sail plan Deck plan THE BARNEGAT DUCK BOAT Showing spritsail rig and dagger centerboard; a splendid sailboat for bay waters. Courtesy "Yachting" SAIL PLAN THE 17-FT. OVER ALL CLUB SAILING DORY, "BEE" DORY, DUCKBOAT AND SKIFF 49 boat and sail and turn me loose! It was just a little sprit sail, of some seven feet hoist and eight- foot boom, say, ten feet to the peak, and I was in a perennial condition of wet feet with her, for she sailed with her whole lee rail awash and I was a regular Koll-Down Joe — I never spilled wind un- less she was positively going to upset! These small duckboats were steered with an oar out astern through the sculling chock, and were simple and primitive to handle, but how they could go ! With a gun, some snipe stools, a wad of fishing tackle and some bait, a boy could be so happy for week on end at Barnegat that Heaven itself would have to go some to beat it! Inside the cockpit coaming the baymen always put a sort of wooden rack in which sedge grass could be stuck so that the boat herself, by covering her decks with sea- weed and anchoring her off a point, would be an excellent duck and snipe blind. Although wet in a heavy sea practically no water gets over the cockpit coaming, and, as a boy's boat, they are one of the safest types imaginable. Naturally the fame of such a boat would extend far and wide from its birthplace in Barnegat Bay, and soon the "punkin' seed" was developed into an able, fast racer, culminating in the Butterfly Class of the Bayside (L. I.) Yacht Club, where a 50 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING fleet of 21 of these boats were ordered built at Bar- negat, N. J., and raced every Saturday on Long Island Sound. These were 14 feet long by 4 feet 6 inches beam and usually had a crew of two to three boys, or one man. The sail area was in- creased to 106 square feet, that is, boom, 12 feet, rising 14 inches; hoist, 9 feet 6 inches; head, six feet; leach, 16 feet, with about 3 inches fullness. The sprit was retained for simplicity and made rather long, 14 feet, stepped low down so as to throw plenty of draft into the sail. All sprits are stepped alike, a slip noose around the mast and an eye for the foot of the sprit to rest in. To set the sail, the sprit is slipped into a pocket in the peak (or an eye in the bolt rope at the peak usually), and the peak is then raised until the foot of the sprit rests in the "slippery Jim," as we called the sliding sprit rope. Then, to tauten the sail and throw wrinkles into the luff, you just raised the noose up along the mast and it would stay fast wherever put. A simple rig, and the best for small boats, of twelve to fourteen feet L. W. L. Charley Hall was the only one of us boys that owned a sailing duckboat. She was sixteen-feet by five-feet beam and had a standing rigging, that is, the mast was stepped in her and held so by wire shrouds, the sail raised with throat and DORY, DUCKBOAT AND SKIFF 51 peak halliards, and she had a traveler over the tiller so that the main sheet block could cross the boat on either tack, the sheet pulling so hard as to require a block instead of being held by hand or over a cleat as with the smaller duckboats. She was an able, fast boat; could beat the Margaret, hands down, and no weather was bad enough to make her stay in if Charley could get in reefs enough. But the smaller 14-foot boat, with its simpler rig, we found the handiest type. She could do anything the big boat could do, and then some, for you were not handicapped by standing and running rigging, could leave the sails at home when the wind was wrong or in working up a crooked salt creek, and you could pick the whole boat up by the bow and camp under her, as she was so light. As this boat is so easy to build I will outline here the plans of her construction. All the ribs are steam bent over the same mold, both bottom and deck, usually of %-inch by 1-inch oak stock. The keel is simply a broad plank, 1-inch stock, a quarter inch heavier than the %-inch cedar or white pine planking of which the rest of the boat is built. The keel plank is tapered from about 8 inches amidships to 3 at the bow, and 5 at the stern, in long easy lines, and is then bent up for- 52 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING ward and aft to fit the sheer. The frames are then screwed onto the keel in pairs, riveted together at their ends, the transom secured to the keel with a knee and a yellow pine chime is bent around inside the frame joints, securing them all together longitudinally and taking the place of the sheer strakes of the batteau construction. The planks are next gotten out, three on a side, and planed to an easy taper bow and stern, so that they lie side by side over the ribs. They are riveted to the ribs, or secured with galvanized iron clout nails, and where deck and bottom meet, are finished with smooth joint, and usually a low molding or gunwale is run around the deck at this point. The cockpit coaming, and cockpit ceiling, screwed to the frames, is next put in and the boat is done and ready to calk and let swell tight. She needs a skeg, sawed out of pine board, and a center board trunk if you are going to sail her. The centerboard trunk should of course be built before the planking goes on while the boat is still in the keel and frame stage. A slot is cut in the keel between the ribs just for'd of the cockpit, two posts let in and the trunk sides screwed to these posts and screwed to the bottom from the under side of the keel. The top of the board ends in a corresponding slot in the deck planking, and DORY, DUCKBOAT AND SKIFF 53 a dagger centerboard, 12 inches by 3 feet long with a stop bead, is shoved down through the trunk, and it is removed entirely and stowed below when not in use. The mast hole is cut in the deck partner plank and the mast step screwed securely to the keel plank. Some boys of my acquaintance, not feeling expert enough in their carpentry to plank this duckboat, have built her as above de- scribed, fitting the planks as closely as they could, and then put a canvas deck and bottom on her just like a canoe, painting it to get her water-tight. Such a boat will do nicely anywhere but in rocky waters. Down Boston way, where one sails a good deal on the open ocean for pleasure and the heavy ocean swells run right into the harbors in an east- erly blow, the demand for an able, deep sea boat has brought another favorite boy's sail craft into existence — the sail dory. The Barnegat duckboat is too low and shovel-nosed to live in a heavy ocean sea. The choppy and comparatively low seas that get up on inland waters and such wide bays as Barnegat and Great South Bay she man- ages very well, albeit somewhat wet. But, sup- pose one end of her is held up on a comber six feet high, while her nose is rammed into the breast of another of the same height, — you can readily 54 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING see her whole for'd deck going under and the boat swamped. What is wanted is a high, lifting bow, and high sides, a deep, narrow boat, non-capsiza- ble because of her depth, and non-swampable be- cause of her high sides and bow, — in a word the deep-sea Viking type of boat. Such a craft is the sail dory, such as you will see on Long Island Sound and Down East from Buzzard Bay to Maine. In addition to this the dory is light enough and flat-bottomed enough to be easily beached, another fine feature for a boy's boat, as going ashore on a strange coast is half the fun ! In gen- eral, the dory construction consists in a somewhat narrow, flat bottom board, usually in three planks, a natural-bend stem piece secured to this bottom board at one end, and a deep, narrow transom stern secured to the other end of the bottom plank with a bent knee. Four frames, sawn out of natural-bend rib stock, give you the ribs and around these are wrapped the side planking, four planks on a side. You will see that she is rather an easy boat to •build, not as simple as a batteau but considerably easier than a narrow-planked round-bottomed rowboat which only an expert ship carpenter can put together. The original Swampscott Dory was 18 feet long by 4 feet 6 inches beam, 30 inches deep forward and 28 inches DORY, DUCKBOAT AND SKIFF 55 aft. It carried a rig, as shown in the illustrations, of a wide shallow leg-o '-mutton, 13-foot 6-inch foot, 11-foot hoist, 16-foot leach, and a jib of 8-foot hoist, 6-foot foot and 7-foot leach. A centerboard was let in between the first and second frames for 'd, giving you room enough for a 3-foot board. About two hundred pounds of ballast in sand bags ought to go on her bottom, and so rigged and bal- lasted she makes a very able, fast boat for a boy of twelve to fourteen years. It seemed to me that a sail dory would be a splendid proposition for cruising in Barnegat Bay down near the Inlet where the ocean rollers come into the bay and the distances are so great that a very neat sea gets up in the bay itself. Such a boat could live in weather that would either send the duckboat to port or else make a very wet boat of her, and so I ordered the largest and best of the sail dories, the decked 17-footer, as made by the Toppan or Cape Cod Dory Companies. This boat was wider than the regular dory, being 5 feet 6 inches beam for 17 feet of length. She was about the same depth fore and aft, but was decked over, with a 10-foot cockpit about 4 feet wide, and a traveler astern to lift the main sheet block over the tiller. This boat, the Bee by name, carries much more 56 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING sail than the smaller and narrower type of dory. She has 17-foot hoist, 18-foot boom rising two feet, and 14-foot hoist by 8-foot foot for the jib. The rig is standing, that is, there is main halliard, jib halliard, jib downhaul and wire rope shrouds for the mast. She will take four to six people easily, and for a cruiser for four boys is unsur- passed. Seaside Park is the furthest point by rail to the hunting and fishing grounds of Barne- gat, and from there down to Cedar Creek is six miles further before the shooting gets good, and ten miles to the Inlet where you get channel bass in the surf, also weaks and croakers and bluefish, small weakfish in the bay, and snipe and ducks in their season. Further on, down towards Great Bay and Little Egg Inlet, the water is still rougher and the shooting and fishing splendid. To reach those places requires a long roundabout trip by rail, and we have also tried rowboat and sand tramping with a camp on the beach for several days to get to it. Sand camping is the hardest of all sorts of outdoor camping; the sand blows into everything, the mosquitoes and flies are a pest, and the wind blows so hard that even your fire gets blown out ! The big sail dory changed all that. Now we take the train for Seaside Park, hoist our sail and are away for the delights of a DORY, DUCKBOAT AND SKIFF 57 cruise in those waters. Decoys, provisions and a cockpit tent are kept aboard under the bow deck, so that all we have to bring is the rods, guns, ammunition and bait. A water butt takes care of the all-important water problem, and we go ashore to fish and shoot wherever we please, as you can beach her anywhere. At night, we top up the boom and tie the ridge of the cockpit tent underneath the boom, fastening the sides down to staples outside the cockpit coaming. A scrim front and rear curtain keep out the mosquitoes, and we have four ticking bags which we fill with dry seagrass on the beach and put one on each side of the centerboard and two up in the stern sheets. The grating is taken up out of the bot- tom and hung just below the cockpit seats, with turn-out cleats for the purpose, and so you get two stories, so to speak, for our tent, and there is plenty of room for four to sleep aboard. In the morning the little alcohol yacht stove is pulled out in its tin galley box, and a breakfast of coffee, bacon, eggs, fried fish and creamed potatoes is furnished by the cook — which is me! Then a lunch is put up and we have the whole day ashore fishing or in the snipe blinds. Eeturning at night- fall, a big feed is cooked up aboard the boat, and a little later we are ready to turn in, for " early 58 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING to rise" is the only rule to get good fishing and shooting. No sand, no mosquitoes, no wind blow- ing everything to kingdom come — it's a great improvement over our old camping days on the beach, and now we can go forty miles, when ten used to be our outmost limit. The smallest sail dory is the 14-foot open sail- ing boat, virtually the Gloucester fishing dory with a sail stepped in her. The hoist for this would be 10 feet, boom 13 feet, rising 12 inches. The simplest possible spar rig would be a hori- zontal sprit, running from a slippery Jim on the mast to a pocket in the clew. The mainsheet is bent to a ring in the clew bolt rope and there you are ! This makes a very nice boat for young boys, but rather too small for youths of sixteen and up. If you live in a town where there are shipyards, especially in New England, it will not be so very hard to build yourself a sail dory of the 17-foot or 18-foot size. Dory side planks have so very much sheer to them that the plain lumber mill board will cut to a lot of waste, so regular white pine dory stock is kept on hand by most Down East shipyards. This is natural-bent tree, sawed into %- or %-inch stock. Then the ribs, which are of tamarack (or, as it is often called, hackmatack), are sawed out of natural crooks, which are kept in DORY, DUCKBOAT AND SKIFF 59 stock at the shipyard. Enlarge the frame pat- terns I give yon in the illustrations to fit the size you want on big sheets of brown paper, cut out and take to the shipyard where you can try them on the stock and pick out what you will need and have it sawed out on the band saw at the yard. In the same way the stem is gotten out of a 5-foot piece of 2-inch oak, natural curve, and with it the stern knee. For bottom board you will want %-inch white pine stock, 6 or 8 inches wide, in the 14-foot merchant length, ordinary dressed lumber boards, and, for side planks, dressed white pine, %-inch stock, 20 feet long, about 10 inches wide, for the six side planks, and 14 for the two gar- boards. These will be natural sweep stock. Enlarge your bottom plan to full size, and get out the three bottom planks to make up, the center plank being full width, as in it you must cut the centerboard slot and so do not want the centerline to be a crack. Now clamp together and tack with a few cross pieces, and then set up your four frames, screwing through the bottom with No. 10 brass screws, allowing three feet for the center- board frame and the rest spacing about even, some 2 feet 10 inches apart. Plumb and set up the stem and stern knee, and secure to bottom board with three or four galvanized iron screws 60 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING each. The frames and stern transom are then beveled to fit the planking, the angles being gotten by running strips of light stuff around, touching all the frames. The stem knee has of course been rabbeted to receive the planking before setting up. You are now ready for the garboard planks, the spiling of which will be shown from the frame flats. Bend your wide garboard plank around and mark the pattern points on it direct. The bottom line can be scribed with a pencil and the upper points marked and joined with a long flexible sweep strip. Saw it and its mate out with the rip saw and nail on with galvanized iron clout nails, about 10 d. is right, clinched on the inside of each rib. Bore holes in the plank and rib before driv- ing the nails, to prevent splitting, and do not nail anything until the garboard is a perfect fit every- where. The bottom planking wants about l^-inch rocker on it before scribing the bottom line of the garboard. Note that the bow and stern of the garboard are much wider than the midships, about 12 inches for'd and aft and 6 inches amidships is about right. Also note that the first two planks come in line on the stem and stern, there being no knuckle, and are almost carvel fitted at the cen- ter frames. The next two lap and are beveled to a fit and clinch-nailed together. The planks can DORY, DUCKBOAT AND SKIFF 61 be wrapped and marked in place or a spiling taken from a straight strip, either way you prefer. After the garboards are on, the craft will be strong enough to tnrn over and build upside down, as that is much the easiest way to plank her. After the planking is finished you will want a 2 x %-inch oak gunwale wrapped around outside, and a 2 x %-inch pine riser secured around inside about 8 inches below gunwale to rest the thwarts on. The centerboard trunk is made of two oak posts of 2 x %-inch stock (same stock as gunwale) and two wide 17- or 18-inch white pine boards, 3 feet long, are screwed to each side of the posts over a white lead and wicking filler, making a tight trunk, with about an inch of the posts stick- ing down below the trunk. The posts are then notched half an inch to give the ends of the trunk something to bite on when in place, and a %-inch by 3-foot slot is then cut in the center bottom board of the dory. (See construction drawings in Part One, Chapter IV.) Drive in the posts, with a turn of lamp wicking, soaked in white lead paste completely around the slot, and secure with galvanized iron screws driven up through the bot- tom of the dory into the bottom board of the trunk. This job should be tight enough to squeeze out paint all around. The center board is next gotten 62 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING out of %-inch dressed oak and hung by a white pine pinion driven through the side of the trunk in the lower for'd corner and the dory is ready for sails. Brace the mast step thwart by knees to the planking and put in the step with the grain run- ning across the boat. The mast will be two to three inches for the 14-foot and 18-foot dories, and the other dimensions I leave to you. I would sug- gest 14 feet by 3 feet 10 inches for the 14-foot size, 18 feet by 4 feet 6 inches for the 18-foot open dory and 17 feet by 5 feet 6 inches for the decked sail- ing dory. Scaling in proportion on the frame plans, etc., given here without dimensions, you can make up your patterns and build the boat any size you prefer. These drawings were taken by Mr. Victor Slocum from the original Swampscott dory and we are indebted to him and the Yachting Magazine for their use. CHAPTER in CATBOATS AND KNOCKABOUTS While the smaller sail craft, dories, duckboats and sailing batteaux answer very well for the boy of from ten to fifteen years of age, the youth of sixteen to twenty will be more satisfied with a larger craft ; one that can enter the regular races of the Yacht Club — and right here enters a great sport, one of the finest — yacht racing — a sport that brings out to the full all the skill, seaman- ship, sportsmanship and gentlemanliness that is in the youth. No sport is more real — less savor- ing of a mere game — and no sport is a keener test of character. There are times when it is essential to hold your way, — to have your rights; when giving way is not generosity but mawkishness; and there are other times in this great sport when a really unfair advantage can be taken, and then the promptings of generous sportsmanship may take full sway; and, as these situations occur again and again in the great game of life, there is no better training for the youth than yachting, if he is to be a whole man in later years. 63 64 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING The cat rig lias the great merit of simplicity. There is only one sail to manage, and that means a good deal for an inexperienced skipper in a heavy blow. The disadvantages of the cat are its hard helm, its slowness in proportion to its sail speed, and — to me — its simplicity! By that I mean the lack of finesse in sailing which is other- wise made possible in the sloop rig by the jib. I graduated from the cat rig at the age of eleven, and never returned to it in any of my own boats. The jib, with its infinite possibilities in expert seamanship, in balance of the helm, in nicety of judgment, has always been to me a fascinating sail, and of course jib and mainsail, foot for foot area, are always faster than mainsail alone, partly because the balance of the sail takes the hard helm off her, eliminating that back rud- der pressure so retarding to the speed of the boat, and partly because the sloop lines are finer, the cat requiring a tubby model to withstand the big pressure of her mainsail. Of late years de- signers have gotten somewhat finer lines by using the sliding gunter rig for small cats and topping up the gaff as high as can be swung, thus putting the bulk of the sail pressure low down. This is an important idea, boys, and I want you to get it. If you look at any of the older CATBOATS AND KNOCKABOUTS 65 cat models you will find the gaff nearly as long as the boom, the sail, when hoisted, very square, with a great peak towering aloft and well out from the mast. Now, the wind pressure is always heavier up above the water than right on it — that is the reason your small boat's sail will often hang slack, while the big fellow bowls right ahead; he has a puff of wind that has raised off the water and passed over your head. Now this big accumu- lation of wind pressure up in the peak gives a heavy capsizing effect on the boat, and to with- stand it you have to use the tubby cat model, more than half as wide as she is long. Compen- sating for this by making it very shallow and dish- like, you get considerable speed on a flat keel, but as soon as she heels she digs her bilge into the briny and you have an awkward shape to drive through the water. But if you top up that peak nearly straight, you get the bulk of the sail area down low, almost like a leg-o '-mutton, as shown in the illustration of a handsome little 16-foot catboat for boys, and the rig becomes safe and the lines of the boat fine and fast. Let us look at that model a little more, for she is a fine boy's boat, and, by building her with a skipjack dead-rise bottom, she can be built by any 66 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING boy from 16 years up in age. The lap strake shown in the designs is too complicated for ordi- nary carpentry, so I suggest instead a skipjack mid-ship section, taking but three wide boards on a side, and using the same keel, stem, transom and skeg shown. You will note that the skipjack rib is in two straight pieces joined by a knee brace, and a chine is bent around the outside of the frames at this joint, and against this chine the upper and lower planks can swell shut. If you tried to join them direct, as is often done with motor boats, it is hard to keep the joint tight, as there is nothing for the planks to swell against when the boat goes overboard. However, work- ing out a set of five frames, you can design your- self a skipjack cat that will be a,s fast and sassy as the boat shown in our plans. I would suggest %-inch white cedar planking, and chine and frames, also keel board, of 1-inch white oak. The keel board had best be of 1 x 12-inch dressed oak plank, rockered as in plans, transom of the same stock, stem and stern knee of 2-inch stock. The deck I would make of %-inch white pine boards covered with 10-ounce duck canvas, and the board would be preferably of straight posts as shown. A word on the sliding gunter rig. If you top CATBOATS AND KNOCKABOUTS 67 up the gaff until you get it almost perpendicular it is almost impossible to make the jaws stay around the mast. They cannot be made of wood and get enough bend, but they can be made of brass rodding or heavy galvanized wire for canoe rigs, and are held to the mast by the topmost mast ring. This is essentially a weak construction, and, while well enough for canoes and small boats, when your sail pressures get large the best plan is to discard it altogether and use a sliding gun- ter. This, as you will note from the drawing, is a metal gaff collar, a standard boat fitting, slid- ing up and down the mast, and to it is bolted the end of the gaff. A single halliard raises the latter, and it is shown rigged with a bridle to dis- tribute the strain on the gaff, which ought to be as light a spar as possible to save overhead weight. The sail has 115 square feet of surface and is 14-foot boom, 12-foot gaff, and 19-foot 6- inch leach, with hoist about 5 feet. The mast should be 2-inch, 10 feet long. A great advantage of all cats, as cruisers, is that the mast is stepped well for'd, giving one a big, open cockpit. This permits a cabin on even a 20-foot cat, and a cabin is a tremendous con- venience. It need not necessarily be high enough to stand up in — never spoil the looks of your boat 68 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING for cabin height; but it does afford a refuge in case of thunder squalls, a place for the galley and a sleeping place at night, eked out by a tent over the cockpit, hung from the boom. With such a catboat a couple of fellows can cruise anywhere there is fishing, shooting or racing to be had, liv- ing aboard the boat for a week and having a high old time at it, infinitely preferable to going ashore and setting up a tent on the sand. Closely allied to the sail cat shown is the jib- and-mainsail sailing skiff, a popular design for youths being included in these chapters. You can convert any oyster skiff to this rig with very little work. The dimensions of the average skiff are 21 feet by about 6 feet 6 inches beam, and they can be picked up alongshore for from $£0 used to $100 new. They have a centerboard, and usually the oystermen rig them with a large sprit sail and removable mast. The so-called one-design racing dory class, recently built for the Panama Yacht Club, is practically just what you can do by step- ping a standing rig in an oyster "skiff as the longshoremen call them. The boat is simply decked over fore and aft, with washboards and a traveler over the tiller (or, in the design shown, the rudder is underhung and worked through a post coming up just aft of the cockpit but the old CATBOATS AND KNOCKABOUTS 69 skiff rudder is just as good and easier to handle). The dimensions are 22 feet long by 6 feet 4 inches beam, and she carries 228 square feet of sail. The mainsail is 15 feet 6 inches boom, 12 feet 9 inches hoist, 9 feet 7 inches gaff, and 22 feet 4 inches leach. The jib is 15 feet 6 inches hoist, 13 feet 8 inches luff, and 6 feet inches foot. A spinnaker with 10-foot 6-inch spar is provided for racing. But the best small racing craft of all for boys is the knockabout. In the old days designers used to build a yacht with sharp vertical bow and a long bowsprit that overhung like a spar. Such a boat always slowed up in a head sea, and, when running before the wind, was apt to dig her nose into a wave and " broach to," that is, slew around on her nose until broadside to the wind, when she would generally capsize. These were bad points, and the short body of the yacht made good sharp entrance lines impossible. So, why not have the bowsprit part of the boat hull itself, so that it would lift her up in a heavy sea and make it easy also for the designer to give her long, easy en- trance lines? In a word, the knockabout model of to-day. Another thing: most boats sail on their sides, not on their bottoms, and the formula for speed says that, other things being equal, a boat is faster in proportion to her length. Now a 70 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING knockabout on an even keel will draw only, say, 15 to 25 feet of waterline, but when she heels down on her side she puts all of her shell into the water for its full length, 25 to 40 feet respectively, and thereby increases her speed, besides giving her good lifting power when her nose hits a wave. And so the knockabout came to stay, and, as it beat the older models all to pieces and was much safer to sail, the latter went out of existence en- tirely. In general the knockabouts are built with rather shallow sections and a deep fin keel; the overhang fore and aft when on an even keel is very large, taking the place of the bowsprit and stern outrigger of early days ; the jib is entirely inboard so you do not have to crawl out over the pickle and get soused with salt spray in furling it (as I had to when a boy) ; the mainsail is of the modern shape, with gaff cocked well up and center of effort kept low — and how she can sail! IVe seen the large Class Q knockabouts raced against the famous Sandy Hook boats and give them quite an argument before they dropped astern, and the little ones can beat anything in cats, sloops or dories that carry sail. Our illustrations show the smallest of the knockabouts, the 16 feet L. W. L., 26 feet over all. The beam is 7 feet 5 inches, so you see she is not so narrow; the draft, in- CATBOATS AND KNOCKABOUTS 71 eluding fin, is 4 feet 6 inches or about three feet to the bottom of the boat measured from the traff- rail. They carry about 1,700 pounds of lead bal- last in the keel, and of course are too compli- cated for youthful carpenters to attempt. The best way to acquire one is to buy them second hand in the fall, when their rich owners are will- ing to part with them for a few hundred dollars, having usually built the boat solely to enter some one-design races. The sail area of the boat shown is 330 square feet, which is a good deal more than double that of the 16-foot catboat just described, and a third larger than that of the sail skiff. The boom is 19 feet 6 inches; gaff, 18 feet 4 inches; hoist, 10 feet; and leach, 32 feet. Jib has 18-ft. hoist ; 14-f t. luff and 7 ft. 10 in. foot. A spinnaker with 18-foot pole, completes the sail set. A little house or cabin aids in making her a good weather boat, besides providing a cruising shelter, of sorts. This boat is primarily for racing, but modern de- signers have worked up cruising knockabouts that are better cruisers than any of the older designs of cats and sloops. In the design you will note that the matter of strength in mounting and staying the mast has received especial attention. The two weak pokits in any boat are the mast step and the shroud an- 72 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING chorages. These, with the mast itself, constitute a triangular truss that must withstand the enor- mous sail pressures. No ordinary mast step will do; note that the step used in knockabouts is a heavy oak timber, secured to half a dozen ribs as well as to the stem for'd. The ribs and mast partners are braced at the mast sections with knees, and doubled ribs are put in here to give a stout anchorage to the chain plates. Note also a new rope in the rigging that you have not seen before. It runs from the masthead back to a cleat about amidships on each side, and is called the backstay preventer (or rather preventers as there are two of them, to port and starboard). One or the other of them is in use when broad reaching or going dead before the wind with spinnaker set in both cases. The ordinary drive of the main- sail is taken care of by the aft pitch of the main shrouds, but, with the spinnaker added, the pres- sure would pull the mast over forward if it were not for the preventer backstay. The lee pre- venter is slacked off its cleat and the weather one belayed as the boat comes about so there is always one of them working. While the design of a knockabout looks hard, I believe that a simplified model, with centerboard (as many of them are designed), and the planking RACING WITH SAIL DORIES A 16-FT. LAP STRAKE CATBOAT Courtesy "Yachting' A KNOCKABOUT RIG FOR A 22-FT. DECKED SKIFF fUfndTd^crTserofher 11 ^ ^^ ° D ^ model at sma11 ex P en ^ making Courtesy "Yachting" SAIL PLAX OF A 26-FT. O.A. KNOCKABOUT Courtesy "Yachting' A 16-FT. RACING CATBOAT Courtesy "Yachting' 2*JL *r.i It, z*\ ae. KNOTS AND BENDS USED IN SEAMANSHIP /3 BOAT CONSTRUCTION DETAILS W.HJA^a*\. CATBOATS AND KNOCKABOUTS 73 covered with canvas, would not be out of the ques- tion for four youths of 18 to 20 years of age to build. I would suggest a 2 x 12-inch oak keel, steam bent to fit the lines shown and take the place of the stern hook on the usual three-piece keel of larger craft. A natural bent 3 x 6-inch oak stem and a stern knee of 3-inch stock serve for your main members. Oak stern transom of 1%- inch stock; planking of %~ mc b white pine with No. 00 duck canvas skin. An 8-foot board will be plenty for this boat, and the bottom of center- board trunk logs are rockered to fit the sweep of the keel. The logs would be of 2 x 12-inch hard pine ; upper boards of 1%-inch yellow pine ; cen- terboard of 1%-inch willow oak. Both board and trunk are through-bolted with half -inch iron rods. You would need a skeg and rudder post, and the boat itself ought to be a foot wider beam than the dimensions of the one shown with keel, and the ballast, about 800 pounds of it, in sand bags in each bilge behind the cockpit seats, making 1,600 pounds in all. Eibs of 1 x %-inch oak stock, steam bent. A heavy sawed frame every third rib, got- ten out of 2-inch stock, makes a stifTer boat of her, leaving the work of pinning the planks firmly together to the thinner steam-bent ribs. Our chapter on boat construction in general will give 74 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING you details of construction of all minor parts of a boat of this size, so that it will not be hard to design in the rest of the boat yourself. The fine points of boat sailing really deserve a chapter to themselves but our space in this book is limited. Indeed whole books have been written on the sole subject of handling a racing yacht under all conditions that are likely to occur dur- ing the adventures of the racing skipper. How- ever, for the youthful beginner, I believe that I will get in here about all you will need to make a good all-around skipper, leaving the rest for you to learn in the big school of experience in actual cruising and racing. To begin with the cat rig. She carries neces- sarily a hard weather helm, due to the immense driving power of the mainsail which is unbalanced by any jib. This necessitates the rudder being always a considerable bit out of true with the keel and retards her speed, as you may have often noted in your motor boat in turning a curve and observing her engine slowing down and the boat losing headway. There is no help for this with the cat rig, and she pulls your arm off, nearly, par- ticularly when you are a boy of only fourteen years, as I was when I sailed the famous cat Peggy owned by my uncle. To relieve this pull CATBOATS AND KNOCKABOUTS 75 on your arm we used the ropes for securing the boom in the lazy tongs when in port. These are short half-inch hemp bent through rings on the deck, and a turn of the weather rope around the tiller took the strain off your arm yet gave you entire control by keeping a hand on the tail of it. A good hunch, for a cat rig of 18-foot boom and over. In handling a cat, tacking, all beginners learn as a first instruction to keep her just rap full, that is, just enough off the wind to prevent the sail luffing or shivering up near the mast. A good skipper will follow his wind closely, eating up into it in strong puffs instead of spilling it by letting go sheet, yet not sending her up so smart as to kill her headway. When the wind slackens do not keep her broad away but hold her reasonably on the course and do your gaining in the puffs or "catspaws." You can see these come over the water in black prickles over the waves. Your only danger when ' ' on the wind, ' ' or tacking, is in getting such a knockdown puff that you cannot let out sheet because the boom is already fouled in the water. This causes more upsets than any other thing that besets amateur sailors. If in such a fix, loose the peak halliard instantly. Throwing her sharp up into the wind will help 76 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING some, but you really can not do much with either helm or sheet, and had best use the time you have left, which is a few seconds, in spilling the peak, which will save her every time. For this reason always have the halliards belayed with a single turn, crossing over the cleat once and then under it, the free end of the halliard in a short loop. The rest of the halliard is neatly coiled down on deck in a tight rope spiral, and a pull on the loop frees the halliard and she runs out without a mo- ment's loss of time in lifting a coil off the cleat or anything else. It is best to anticipate what appears to be a knockdown catspaw coming by shoving her up into the wind and spilling some by starting the sheet, when you will only get a furious luffing instead of your boom being driven under water. Another cause of upset on the wind is main sheet made fast. Only sheer carelessness would tol- erate this in a small boat, and in a larger one the sheet is belayed like a halliard so it can instantly be started. For a sail canoe the sheet is held always in the hand, as she is so lively that she responds heavily to the least change of wind and at no time is the pull of the sheet very heavy. In small sail batteaux, duckboats, sail dories and cats, the sheet has a single turn under the aft horn CATBOATS AND KNOCKABOUTS 77 of the cleat, so it can be easily shifted to spill wind, yet half of its pull is taken by the cleat. This also prevents the sail "skying" under the lifting power of the peak and prevents the peak itself bagging off to leeward when it lifts the boom. In cats and knockabouts of 18 to 30 feet over all the main sheet is rove through one or more boom blocks and the traveler block and then finally secured on the main cleat with a loop under the turn. Our various sail craft drawings each show different ways of rigging the main sheet. A final point in sailing on the wind is to know when you have the right of way and to hold it at all costs, only yielding to the road hog when it is absolutely necessary to save your boat — not his! Warn him by the hail, ' ' Right of Way ! ' ' and then hold your course. Nowadays, particularly among the newly rich, one encounters skippers ignorant of the Rules of the Road at sea, and, as these gentry have an idea that they own the earth any- way because of their lately acquired wealth, they are apt to pay small attention to the rights of others when sailing. You have the right of way when on the starboard tack; that is, when the wind is blowing on your face when you look to starboard. Hold your course ; it is up to the other fellow to keep clear, and if you do not hold your 78 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING course he does not know what to do himself. An- other way to remember it is, "When your boom is out to port, you're on the starboard tack" and vice versa, so when you are tacking out to a mark and are reaching it on the starboard tack, and your rival is swooping down on it on the port tack, keep on your way and round the mark. If he crosses ahead of you he is taking chances of being run down, and if he runs into you to port he must stand all damages to your boat. His best scheme is to crowd down on you as close as he dares and then luff up hard, filling in on you to windward when you come around the mark and lay over on the port tack. You still have the right of way, as the windward boat must keep clear of the one on his lee. In broad and close reaching, that is, running across the wind either with it somewhat astern (broad) or somewhat ahead (close) you have a fast point of sailing and little danger, and the sail is let out until it shows a trifle of quiver in the luff. Do not try to follow the wind too much, as she is apt to yaw and broach in the seas, par- ticularly if long and heavy ones, and the continual drag of the rudder in rectifying her course will slow her down a lot. It is much better to antici- pate,— "feel your boat," as it is called — a mere CATBOATS AND KNOCKABOUTS 79 flip of the tiller, taken at the right moment before she begins to yaw and slew, stopping the tendency without any nndue drag. If she get*, away from you, let her go and ease her back to the course gradually. Always aim to land to weather of your mark, so as to have something to come and go on. If it is before the wind on the homeward stretch, have the spinnaker ready to let go, for every sec- ond counts with it after you round the mark. Cut it close and let go the pole. Before the wind is, to my mind, the most dan- gerous point of sailing to the tyro skipper, par- ticularly in handling a cat. There are two things to look out for, jibing and broaching to, also bal- looning of the mainsail. The peak tries to raise the sail up more than ever, and, as the sheet can- not now hold it down, it may throw the boom up so that the wind catches under it The result is a folding up or ballooning of the mainsail, a tre- mendous jibe as the boom falls over on the other side of the mast, and, most likely, an upset or a cracked mast. The prevention for such condition is to slack off the peak halliards quite a bit, enough to drop a big, inactive bag in the peak, and, in a high wind, drop the gaff down altogether, letting it hang behind the mast. These precautions are necessary with the old-design, broad cat sails 80 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING whenever you have a heavy wind astern and high rolling seas. The modern cat sail, with nearly vertical boom and battened leach has much less of this tendency to balloon, as the lifting of the gaff is impossible — it is cocked up already as high as it can go ! "Broaching to" occurs when a boat is being driven hard before the wind in a heavy sea and catches the wave ahead. She at once buries her nose in it, and, as the rear wave lifts her stern, she slews around broadside on, with main boom dragging in the water, and likely, upsets. The old models, with sharp, straight stems and hard lines for'd, were particularly apt to this sin, and the cure for it was to carry less sail, put in a reef, so as to still get the benefit of the lift of the peak. Another way was to sail slightly off dead before the wind. Modern boats, with long overhanging bows lift over such waves when they catch them, and are far less likely to broach to. Jibing is a part of the regular game of sailing, and, if done right is no great storm on a small craft. When you are dead before the wind the boom has but little preference as to which side it will go from your mast, and if you let her yaw or sheer much from dead before the wind towards the side where your boom is, the wind will get CATBOATS AND KNOCKABOUTS 81 behind it and throw it around suddenly and vio- lently, sweeping everything before it, and, if the wind is strong and the boom large, the craft will most likely capsize with her own momentum. Yet if this same jibe is performed intentionally, and the boom hauled close aboard before throwing her around with the helm so as to get the wind on the other side of the sail, it can be done without much danger and is often done so, in cruising and racing, when the course changes from dead be- fore the wind to a broad reach. Many a time we had to "wear ship" with the old square-rigged sloop of war Portsmouth, on which I spent many of my youthful days! When wind and tide to- gether make it impossible to tack the ship, the alternative is to let her fall off until dead before the wind, and then come up on the other tack, "wear ship" it is called by F 3. — Stem piece, with measurements for making pattern -d-y/« - ^- 2-sri -2 -/%• * i/W i RL1 IP X /0" J >l_J-v5lM FRAMING DESIGNS FOE AN 18-FT. SAIL DORY Courtesy "Yachting' BOAT BUILDING 97 garboards on the turn of the counter. Then work in two oak corner knees, 6 inches on a side, to fit snugly in the corners between the inside of the garboards and the inside of the transom. These are secured by two No. 14 brass screws 2% inches long, driven through the outside of the garboard, and two more driven through the outside of the transom. These knees are very important, for strength in securing the garboards to the tran- som. Even now you dare not take off the clamp, but must first secure the garboards by nailing on all the bottom planking, with the clamp still on the transom. Turn the boat over and "spot" the garboard plank edges for bevelling (Fig. 8). To do this, take a strip of wood 2x1 inches, perfectly true and straight, and lay it across the bottom of the boat at various places, marking down from it the outside of the garboard the correct distance that its inside edge is below the under surface of your strip. Eun a thin batten through all these points, and scribe a line, which will be the bevel line to plane to. Finish smooth and true with your plane, and then put on your bottom planks, beginning at the transom. The plank furthest aft overlaps the transom and nails to it, so the latter must be bevelled to match. When you get forward to the 98 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING small planks up at the bow, it is time to stop and put in the keelson, in which I am a great believer, for the additional strength it gives, besides keep- ing the bottom planks from springing (though plenty of small rowboats have been built with- out keel or keelson). However, we will put one in our boat, as she is to be an able deep-sea cruiser. Get it out of %-inch yellow pine, dressed, 6 inches wide and 14 feet long; and the cheapest thing to do is to pick out a nice 12-inch board at the mill and have them rip it in half for you, get- ting thus keel and keelson at the same time. The keelson goes inside the boat, from stem to tran- som, and is bent to fit snug along the bottom. Each plank is nailed to it with four 8-penny gal- vanized clout nails, driven through from the bot- tom and clinched (first boring for them with the breast drill) and setting the heads in to take putty. The keelson will bend up the counter easily if you begin nailing at the bow end first and cross-cut it half through every inch where the turn of the counter begins to get bad. An oak knee is worked in from keelson to transom, thus strengthening the latter. All the bottom plank nails are 10-penny gal- vanized, driven down into the garboard edges, three to the plank and set to take putty. When all BOAT BUILDING 99 of the plank ends have been trimmed off with the cross-cut saw and the rough ends planed smooth, yon are ready for the sheer strake planks, which are now to be nailed to the stem the same as the garboards. But, as they must come in flush, to fit into the rabbet, so you must first cut a bevel on the tops of garboards, beginning about 16 inches back from the stem; and cut a corresponding bevel on the bottoms of the sheer strakes. In order not to get a thin shim edge that will not calk well, cut this bevel with a notch, as shown in Fig. 11. Having fitted them, nail fast to the stem and wrap the planks around the mold, over- lapping the garboards an inch. Nail with 8-penny galvanized iron clout nails every three inches, bor- ing for each to avoid splitting the edges of your planks, driving the nails from outside and clinch- ing inside on the garboard. It takes two boys to do this, one holding an axehead against the spot where the nail will come through. When you get aft nearly to the transom it will be time to take off the clamp (which was on the garboards all this time) and you had best secure them by tacking a few strips across the top of the boat, here and there, and wrapping a rope around the boat near the stern, tightening' it by driving a wedge in between the boat bottom and 100 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING the rope. I once ruined a nearly finished batteau by taking the clamps off at this time without proper security. It was a single-plank, ten-foot dinghy, and the strains in bending the planks were very severe. After nailing on the bottom boards and transom, I took off the clamps without putting in the corner knees, and while working at them there was a sudden rending crash, and the whole boat flew apart in a second. The side planks tore loose from transom and bottom planks, great strips of wood being torn off the bottom of the side planks, and the only thing to do was to cut up those side planks until I got to good sound wood again, a loss of about two inches in depth of the sides. It is a classic accident; one that will happen to all youthful boat builders unless warned. However, we have got to get off our clamp from the garboards, to wrap in the sheer strakes, so we will do it now, putting the clamp on as soon as possible and drawing the sheer strake planks in until they lie flat against the garboards and are snug to the transom. Then drive and clinch the lap nails aft to the stern, drive in nails through sheer strake into the transom, and work in two more oak corner knees flush with the gunwale. Then trim off with a saw any overhang of the. BOAT BUILDING 101 sheer strakes (which should be left long enough for the purpose). Next, put in the sill for the stern seat. It is a piece of % x 4-inch oak, and is fitted in on edge about 24 inches forward of the transom, securing with two screws, one each side, driven through from the outside. It should come about six inches below the gunwale and should notch to fit over the tops of the garboard strakes. When this is in you can safely take off the clamp for good, and can handle the boat without fear. Turn her over and put on the keel, first trimming off the surplus stem true with the top sheer and bottom rocker. The keel is to go under the stem and have a large screw driven through it up into the stem. But, before this is done, all the bottom planks must be calked or you will not be able to get at the seams under the keel. Calking takes three operations: (1) opening the seam with a calking tool (the No. is right for small boats) ; (2) calking the seam with cotton, sold for the purpose in balls of wicking; (3) ' 'paying' ' the seam, as painting over the cotton is called, and puttying over the paint. It is quite a job, but when done the keel can go on and is best secured to the bottom with No. 12 brass flat-head screws, countersunk to take putty over their heads. Slot the keel back four feet 102 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING from the stern, with two saw cuts an inch apart, leaving a central tongue which you will spring up over the skeg. Now screw fast these two keel sides under the counter, trimming off at the tran- som. Next, fit the skeg. It will be about eight inches deep, as you can find out exactly by bend- ing the tongue of the keel until it comes in true line with the bottom. Hold an eight-inch board with its edge touching the bottom of the boat, the board being exactly in the line of the keel. Now scribe from the bottom with a stick 8 inches long and having a pencil on the end of it, making a curve on the board parallel to the curve of the bottom, or ' ' counter ' ' as it is called at this point. Saw out with your rip, and you have the skeg, which can then be driven in snug under the keel tongue, fitting tight in the slot between the keel strips up under the counter. Trim off at the tran- som and put on the stern post, made of 2 x %-inch oak, screwed to the back of the transom with 2-inch brass No. 14 screws, also driving them through the post into the skeg. Finish the job by driving screws down through the keel strip into the skeg and also from the inside of the boat through the bottom planks into the skeg. We are now ready to take out the central mold. Before doing it, its place must be taken with some- BOAT BUILDING 103 thing equally strong, and that is the central row- ing thwart. This goes in just aft of the mold, and you first get out two side braces of % x 8-inch yellow pine, 16 inches long, and tack to each of them a block 8 x 8 x % inches to take care of the lap of garboard and sheer strake planks. These side boards are secured by brass screws driven through from the outside, and then the thwart is cut, of 8 x %-inch yellow pine, and set in to come about 8 inches above the bottom of the boat. It should drive snug, so as to spread the boat a trifle and free the central mold. Take this out, and the boat is nearly done. Get two yellow pine 1%-inch half-round pieces of molding, 14 feet long, to be bent later around the gunwale over the wash board cracks for fenderwales. Work in an oak breast-hook in the bow, just aft of the stem and fitting snugly to it. Two oak knees to the rowing thwart, and the boat is done, as a row- boat, barring the stern seat, which can be fitted in, in white pine, left-over, bottom planks. But we want a sail batteau of her, with deck, washboards and centerboard. Put in the center- board first. The construction I have shown in Figs. 1, 2 and 3 is the easiest to make and put in. The sides of the trunk are 12 x %-inch white pine, 30 inches long, and are secured to the posts with 104 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING brass screws, some lamp wicking and white lead paste being run along between the posts and trunk boards, not only to make it tight but to make it a trifle wider, so that a %-:mch yellow pine center- board can swing freely inside. Saw this center- board out, building it up of 4 x %-inch yellow pine strips, strung on two %-inch iron rods by drilling holes for the purpose, and finally planing the whole thing flat and true. About 26 inches long, 12 inches deep at forward end and 16 inches aft is about right for this board. Swing with a white pine plug, driven through both sides of the center- board trunk and passing through an inch hole in the lower forward corner of the board. The posts must be long enough to go through keelson, bottom boards and keel "and then some"; say, 3% inches longer than the height of the trunk. Slot through the keel, keelson and bottom boards with compass and rip-saw, calk all the seams in- side with a hook calking iron, and then lay lamp- wicking soaked in white lead paste around the slot, set in the posts and trunk and draw down tight with long, 4-inch No. 16 brass screws, driven up through keel, bottom boards and keelson, into the bottom of the centerboard trunk planks. To put on the deck you first want a set of deck carlines, spaced about eight inches. These are of BOAT BUILDING 165 2 x %-inch oak, and are planed with a slight crown on the tops. Secure by toe-nailing to the sides on top of a "riser" strip, rnn around two inches below the gunwales, inside on the sheer strake. The first thing to go on these carlines is the plank- sheer, which continues aft to form the washboards. Four inches wide is plenty, and it must be gotten out in two pieces to a side. By stretching a string across, from the stem to a point on the gunwale about 6 feet 6 inches aft from the stem, you will find a place where the height of the curve from stem to this point and from inside corner of tran- som and sheer strake to the same point will be the same height, 4 inches. As you want the plank- sheer to be four inches wide, it is obvious that such a curved plank can be cut from a board eight inches wide, but six feet long for the plank-sheer and eight feet for the washboard. Lay one of the 6-foot boards down on the deck with its outer edge just touching the gunwale about 3 feet 3 inches from the bow. Then scribe the outline of the gunwale on the under side of the plank, and batten a parallel line four inches away from it, which second line will just end inside your plank corners. Do the same thing with the 8-foot plank, laying it on the gunwale just touching at a point 4 feet from the stern, and scribe your line. Bun 106 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING a second parallel line four inches from it, and saw ont both planks. They will meet end to end over a block placed a foot aft of the carline which forms the nail strip for the front cockpit coaming, which latter crosses the boat five feet aft of the bow. Make the port side plank-sheer and washboard precisely as described for the star- board side, and meet the two plank-sheers on the breast-hook, laying one on top of the other and sawing a neat cut down the centerline of the boat to bring them snugly together. Nail them to breasthook, carlines and gunwales. The wash- boards will need little triangular blocks under them at intervals of about 18 inches along the inside of the gunwale, these blocks being 4 x 4-inch triangles, gotten out of %-inch pine, and fitted snug to sheer strake and under side of wash- boards. The cockpit coaming goes on next. About twenty feet of 4 x %-inch oak will do, and it should be molded half-round on the upper edge. Eun this across the front of your cockpit, nailing to the carline, and around the inside of your wash- boards, letting it hang down maybe % inch below the under side of the washboards. They are called by this peculiar name, you will find out as soon as you begin to sail, because these BOAT BUILDING 107 boards are awash most of the time when tacking. Without them you cannot sail much in a stiff breeze, because the water will always be coming over the gunwale, but with them you can "roll her down good." The next thing to go on is the king plank, or "mast partner," as it is called in larger boats, be- cause there are two of them for large masts, each cut out half-round to pass a big mast. With a small boat like ours a single 6-inch yellow pine %-inch dressed plank, five feet long, suffices, and you nail it fore and aft, fitting snugly into the angle between the plank-sheers, resting on the breast-hook, and fitting snug against the cockpit coaming aft. It is nailed to all the carlines, and you then have left two triangles to fill on the deck, in between the plank-sheers, the king plank, and the forward edge of the cockpit coaming. Fill these with narrow 2-inch strips of %-inch white pine, nailing each strip to the carlines, and then calk the whole thing, every seam in the deck, for it is just as important to have your deck tight as your bottom. Next wrap around your half-round fen- derwales, covering the crack between washboards and gunwales, and then make your bowsprit, working it out of a piece of 2-inch square spruce, six feet long, and let it stick out three feet beyond 108 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING the bow. Bolt to king plank with %-inch galvan- ized iron through bolts. Add a wire bobstay and a galvanized iron, two-ring withe (Fig. 9), over the end of the bowsprit ; put your oarlocks in their proper places on the washboards; put in rudder gudgeons; main and peak halliard cleats on the cockpit for 'd coaming ; two jib sheet cleats on the inside of the sheer strake, aft, just in front of the stern seat ; a main sheet cleat on the inside of the transom ; jib downhaul and halliard cleats on the for'd cockpit coaming; centerboard cleat on the centerboard trunk; a chain plate to port and starboard, six inches aft of the mast hole on the outside of the sheer strakes; and you are ready to rig her, for details of which see Part One, Chap- ter I. A word about the lower mast step. This is one of the most strained blocks in the boat and must be put on with four heavy screws, well sunk into the keelson. Two screws will not do, as the mast will surely split the step in half. To get the position of the step wait until your mast is in, when you can find it by eye. The mast should rake back about 6 inches, coming forward maybe three inches when you set taut on the wire rope jib stay. A more complicated boat to build than the bat- teau is the dory. Except that it has a set of frames, around which the strakes are wrapped, BOAT BUILDING 109 its details of construction are much the same as with the batteau. You have the flat bottom to begin with, only this time the planks run fore and aft, and on these the frames, stem and transom are first set up, after which the planks are wrapped as described in Part One, Chapter II. When we come to the clinker built boats we are getting into real fine work and you have hard garboard planks to fit to a rabbet in both keel and stem. The plank- ing is beveled and secured to the ribs as shown in Fig. 12. To build such a boat as the various skiffs shown in our chapter on catboats and knockabouts, you first set up keel or bottom plank and then on them the stem and stern transom, secured by dead- woods and the stern knee. Molds taken from the designer's lines are next set up at equal stations along the keel or bottom plank, and the garboard and upper strakes are put on around these molds, usually working both ways from garboard up and from sheerstrake down, so as not to come out with a lumpy, uneven sheerstrake. After this the ribs are steamed and shoved down inside the boat until they touch the planks equally all around. These ribs are very small and numerous, about % x 1% inches wide being right for quite a large skiff. When all are in place and secured, the keelson is bolted over the ribs where they cross 110 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING and all the thwarts are put in and kneed to the ribs, and the clamp (as the oak strip that runs along inside the gunwale is called) is riveted through all the rib heads to the sheer strake. The molds are then knocked out and the boat is ready for paint. In still larger boats, carvel built, that is, with planks nailed to the ribs and abutting against each other so that the skin is a flush sur- face, the keel, stem, stern hook and transom are first set up and spiked to all the deadwoods with drift bolts. Next the rabbet is cut, and, as the angle of it constantly changes, the "bearding line" or inner line of the rabbet must be found from the plans and the rabbet chiselled true at various spots, when it can be cleaned out fair and true joining these spots, and it will then fit the gar- boards when they are put on. Next all the ribs or " frames' ' are bent to agree more or less with the set of molds taken from the plans. These molds are spaced from two to three feet along the keel and battens are run around them from stem to stern to get the fair lines of the model. The ribs are then put in and faired up, also bevelled to lie flat against the future planks, fore and aft, and then their floor timbers are nailed to both ribs and keel. This holds them firm in their shape, in addition to which battens are tacked across each. BOAT BUILDING 111 pair of ribs and across the bend of each rib, so that it will hold its shape until the planks are on. In large boats every third rib is sawed out true to the next mold, which is taken from the lines. This gives additional stiffness, as this third rib is always of much larger stock, say 2x3 inches for a 30-foot boat, and they further hold the model true, since they agree with the molds. The two most important planks are then put on — the garboards and sheer strakes. To fit the garboards a spiling is taken of the line it must make to fit into the stem and keel rabbet. This is always a peculiar wavy line, when the plank is out flat, and, as it must fit snugly, the only way to find it is to tack on a flat batten, called the spiling, which roughly fits the line of the rabbet. The exact fit is then scribed on it by a marker and pencil, the marker always touching the edge of the rabbet line and thus transferring its contour to the spiling bat- ten. Cutting this line out on the batten and lay- ing it on the garboard planks you mark the bot- tom lines of each of them. To get the top lines, each rib is divided into as many divisions as there are to be planks, the narrower planks being at the round turn of the bilge, and these distances are laid off on the garboard plank up from the rabbet line along each rib line as drawn out on the gar- 112 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING board plank. A batten is run through these points and getting at this line with your rip-saw you have the outline of the most important plank and the hardest to fit. Take time and get it on right, for a leaky garboard means a leaky boat for the whole of her life. To get these carvel-built planks on snugly, the chain clamp is brought into play, sometimes hooked over the keel to draw a plank snug against its lower neighbor, sometimes hooked over the sheer strake (or taffrail if same is al- ready on) to hold a plank tight against its upper neighbor while the holes are being drilled for the nails or the rivets driven through planks and ribs. Each plank, where it passes a rib, should be hol- lowed out slightly with an adze, and the edges of the planks are not cut square but bevelled slightly to open about 1/16 inch on the outer seam (Fig. 7), so that you can calk the wedge-shaped crack thus formed, and when she swells shut she will crush the inner edges of the planks tight. A boat perfectly planked, with edges meeting square, would simply burst herself when she went over- board, for there would be no room for all the planks to move in when they swelled under the influence of the water. In order not to add up any errors in building up a planked boat edge to edge, ship carpenters BOAT BUILDING 113 always stop planking at about the fifth plank up from the garboard and begin planking down from the sheer strakes. The final plank is apt to be very- irregular in shape, but is not noticeable if it occurs on the side of the ship, while it would be painful to see if up just under the sheer strake. Further and more elaborate details of how to plank a large carvel-built boat are given in our chapter on building a power cruiser. You will note that making molds or frames from plans is an essential feature of boat building. The "lines," as they are called, of many of the boats in this book are given in the illustrations, and you can build the boat from them. Enlarge to the size you have selected. This is best done with an architect's rule giving you choice of scales from 3/32 inch = 1 foot up to 3 inches = 1 foot. Lay off the lines on coarse building paper, full size, both body plan and sheer plan. The reason for this is that your lines as enlarged from the body plan will never agree with the lines as enlarged from the sheer plan, but will be out from % to ^ inch, due to errors in enlargement, and you must correct these errors until both sets of lines agree, and yet sweep fair curves with no wriggles or dog's-tails in them. Then, when you make molds from your enlarged and corrected full-size body 114 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING plans, they will be true and the planks when put on them will run in fair sweeps, with no flats and hollows. For boys around eighteen to twenty years old it is not hard to lay out a knockabout from our plans and build her complete. None of the tim- bers are very large, and the construction is, in general, simple. A centerboard modification of the accepted deep-keel type is more agreeable to the youth's pocketbook, for a lead or even an iron keel is not to be thought of for persons of ordi- nary means. But sand or gravel ballast is cheap, and simply requires the manufacture of a dozen 10-ounce duck canvas bags, about 30 inches long by 18 inches wide, which will each hold a hundred pounds of beach stones, to be picked up for noth- ing on any beach along our shores. These are stowed in the bilges, and you then have a ballast that will insure stability. The rest is a matter of a few hundred dollars for lumber and hardware, and you have a racing boat which would cost some $2,000 at the shipyards. And, in all boat construction, do not overlook the knockdown frame idea. It saves a mountain of hard labor and insures a hull that will be true to design. Buy the frame, knocked down but fitted, and buy the plank patterns. Lay out the BOAT BUILDING 115 latter on your plank stock and have your planking sawed at a band saw, and the whole job will cost but a couple of dollars, whereas if you rip them yourself, not only is it a back-breaking job, but you are sure to spoil more than two dollars ' worth of planks in mistakes and slips. Calking, paying and puttying seams, fitting the planks, nailing them fast and countersinking and upsetting rivets, planing the skin of your ship to a fine smooth surface that will take paint without showing tool marks, sandpapering the whole thing to a fine polish, — all these are long-winded jobs, and quite enough for a gang of youths to undertake with a large boat. With a small one all these are but details and the main building operations are not overlong in time. Even a couple of twelve-year- olds can make a good job of a batteau; and older boys around fifteen years of age can make a sharpie which is a batteau some twenty feet in length with flat or else skipjack dead-rise bot- tom; or they can tackle a 17-foot sail dory. Around seventeen years a boy has proficiency and honesty enough to try a lap-strake skiff or catboat. By honesty I mean intolerance of any faulty work, and nerve enough to scrap spoiled work instead of trying to make it go in the boat, where it will worry you from that time on. A boy that is hon- 116 SAILING AND BOAT BUILDING est enough with himself to take the consequences of his mistakes in measurements and carpentry and not try to foist them off on his boat, has learned one of the great lessons of life. He'll do to trust with a man's job, as soon as he knows enough! PAET TWO: CANOEING AND CRUISING PART TWO: CANOEING AND CRUISING CHAPTER I HOW TO BIG AND HANDLE AN OPEN CANOE Probably of all craft the open paddling canoe gives the most sport, the greatest change of scene, and the most ease of woods travel with the least effort. Compared with rowing a boat, riding horseback or back packing through the forest trails, the canoe is paradise, as the work of pad- dling is so divided among the muscles of the whole body as to make none of them ache, and one sits down comfortably, not with bumping seat and strained knees as on horseback. A down-stream canoe trip, particularly on a wild river where there is plenty of fish and game and one camps nightly along the banks, is one of the most enjoy- able outings a boy can take, and none of it is too hard work for the unformed muscles of youth. Wherefore, owning a canoe is the ambition of every man living within reach of lake, stream or bay. Nowadays they are very cheap — as boats go — a good canvas canoe, staunchly built, canvas 119 120 CANOEING AND CRUISING covered over wooden sheathing, being had from such a concern as the Detroit Boat Co. for as little as $20. One of the best canoes in the world, the White guide's model, is only $28, and the extra- well-built canoes of the Morris company cost around $40, so the youth from twelve to twenty has a wide range of choice in the quality pur- chasable. I should not advise trying to build such a canoe. Later on in these chapters I will tell you how to build a decked sailing canvas canoe over a spruce and ash frame. I have built four of these canoes, my first offense being at the age of twelve, and they all cost about $7 for material alone, so that the material for the much-ribbed and sheathed open canvas canoe would run at least $14 and one will get a better boat for $20 than could possibly be built by an amateur. In choosing a canoe the first question comes up, shall we have a keel or not 1 This has been argued pro and con by many an experienced woods voy- ageur. The keel adds staunchness but increases her draft at least an inch, so that she may stick in getting over a ledge or a down tree while the other would slip over. On the other hand the keel- less canoe will get her canvas badly scraped if the ledge is sharp and she touches, and, in lifting over THE OPEN CANOE 121 trees when heavily loaded, she is apt to buckle or "hog-back" amidships. My own Morris, which has done over a thousand miles of wilderness river travel, has a keel an inch deep, and she bears few scars on her bottom, most of them being on the turn over the bilge, yet going over dams and down trees is her specialty, — I should say at least a thousand of the latter have passed under her keel first and last! A compromise measure, adopted by recent canoeists and suggested by the writer, has been to put on a flat strip keel of hard maple about % inch thick and three inches wide, which will protect her from scraping yet only increase her draft a tiny bit. In picking a canoe, the safest and fastest model has a quite flat bottom, with a sharp, round turn to the bilge. The tippy ones are those deep and round on the bottom with no bilge, having no more stability than a barrel. The flat bottom draws but little water, slides over the stream like a duck, and it makes her a prime sailer because she is so staunch. The dimensions of my own canoe, a faster canoe by hours than many another model which she has raced down stream, are : length, 16 feet ; beam, 33 inches ; depth amidships, 12 inches ; depth bow and stern, 24 inches ; width of compara- tively flat bottom, 24 inches. The cheaper type 122 CANOEING AND CRUISING $20 canoe, one of which is owned by my boys, has the following dimensions : length, 15 feet 6 inches ; beam, 31 inches; depth amidships, 12% inches; depth, bow and stern, 22 inches ; width of compara- tively flat bottom, 16 inches. This latter canoe is much more tottly than mine, hard to sail and nowhere near so staunchly built. Both canoes weigh about 60 pounds. Having purchased the canoe, the first thing to learn is how to paddle her. The sign of the novice is his reaching far ahead for his water. Do not let yourself do that ; you have no leverage there, most of your strength is to be put in as the left wrist passes your left hip, the while your right hand is sweeping the top of the paddle forward. This will put your shoulder and body into it and the motion can be kept up all day without fatigue. If paddling with another fellow in the bow, the stern man is always captain, and he is to correct with a turn of his paddle any deviation from the true course during each stroke. Your mate may be weaker than you, and the canoe then tends to swing towards his paddle side, which is gener- ally opposite to yours. In that case, correct him at the end of each of your strokes with a turn of the paddle. If paddling alone it makes a vast difference where you sit as to how the canoe be- THE OPEN CANOE 123 haves. Abandon the rear seat and find a place kneeling somewhere just forward of the rear cross brace. Here you can paddle on one side indefi- nitely, holding the paddle blade at a slight angle inwards from straight across. If you find that the canoe tends to sheer away from course opposite from the side where you are paddling, move a bit further forward and alter the angle of your pad- dle slightly until you get her balanced just right. It is the only way to win a race, for the time lost in correcting your course at each stroke, as you would have to do sitting in the rear seat, will lose you out every time. Eiver paddling, especially in rapid white water, is full of kinks which you have to know and use instantly. If the bow man, never embarrass the stern man by striking at rocks, etc., with your paddle. You will do no good whatever, and may upset the canoe. The water always takes care of the bow, the stern is the thing to be swung clear with the paddle. You report "Kock ahead !" and be sure that he sees it, and then leave it to him. His stunt is to back paddle the stern of the canoe away from the position of the obstruction when the current will swing the bow, as it is flowing faster than the canoe is going. The bow man's hard work comes going around bends. The river 124 CANOEING AND CRUISING tends to swing the canoe into the main eddies and yonr aim is to keep out of them, cutting across in the still water. If you want hard work going down stream just let the canoe stay indefinitely in the deepest and fiercest waters! And so the bow man must anticipate the river each time and get his bow headed out of the eddies and into the quiet part of the bends, as here the stern man can aid but little. As soon as the bow is right the stern man puts in his strength and shoves her ahead across the head of the bend. Never back paddle at these times, you lose all your steerage way and put yourself at the mercy of the current. Down trees and shallows require instant deci- sion as to where to take them and agreement at the same time between bow and stern as to what they are going to do. Don't argue or fight when the river is bearing you swiftly on the obstacle ! All other things being equal, the stern paddle has the say. There is usually a hole around one end or the other of the tree through which the canoe can be snaked. Occasionally it is advisable to cross the stream without going either up or down, and to do this, bow back-paddles lightly and stern paddles forward heavily, which will have the effect of holding the canoe stationary at a slant upward THE OPEN CANOE 125 to the stream. The current will then take her across. In approaching a down tree which cannot be gotten around, back her and let her swing about gently until broadside to the stream alongside the log. Pull out the heaviest duffle and set on log. One man stands on the log on either side of the canoe, and between them she is slid over. Most of the duffle can be left aboard. In rocky waters, go ahead and look over the rapids before ven- turing out, for once started there is no turning back. More than once you will need to have the courage to be a coward, — for it takes a brave man to say "No!" when an inexperienced crowd want to run a rapids that better men than any of them have portaged around. If there is a portage trail it is a pretty fair sign that most canoeists go around instead of shooting the rapids. Look for a landing, apparently much used, or a blazed tree, or tin can on a sapling. If you have decided to run, see that all duffle is lashed securely and go to it, the stern man being the responsible one. As the current splits over rocks it forms a cushion which will float your bow away if the stern man but guides it in the current and takes care to keep his stern clear. Keep where there is plenty of cur- rent and water, but avoid the main bend, if pos- 126 CANOEING AND CRUISING sible, particularly if there are many rocks. Back paddle and let her come down easy at all points of danger. The stern paddle should be heavy, of hard maple and copper shod, five feet long, 28-inch blade, 6y 2 inches wide. The bow paddle is lighter, of spruce, five feet long, 26-inch blade, 5% inches wide. If upset in a rapids, hang to the canoe and let the paddles go; you can find them some- where in an eddy down stream later, but to swim after them in rough water is folly. One man takes the bow and the other the stern, and you work her ashore as soon as possible, build a conflagra- tion and dry out everything. In traversing, i.e., crossing, a lake or bay, look carefully at your whitecaps first, or indications of wind if the water is calm. A canoe lightly loaded will live in an incredible sea; heavily loaded she becomes logy and a death trap. Once in November I came spin- ning down the Metedeconk Eiver with seven miles of white water behind me in which even a heavy 25-foot launch made desperate weather. I had my boy and a chum along and all our duffle, but one look at the whitecaps made me decide on a back- packing expedition for them along shore, while I took the canoe alone. I left 50 pounds of duffle in her and started down wind for a point three miles THE OPEN CANOE 127 away. It was sure a wild ride! The seas were three to four feet high, white-capped, and the wind so strong that it blew the canoe bodily across the waters. Gradually I worked the canoe out abreast of the point, but I blew down on it so fast that I suddenly realized that I would clear it, if at all, only by the most desperate paddling. As it was, I ran into the big combers off the point, the second one of which picked up the canoe broadside and curled her over as if to dash her bottom up on the shoals. "No you don't !" I gasped, and, shoving hard down on the weather gunwale with my elbow, I righted her and took the sea aboard. It filled her a third full of water, but, before the next comber could pour in its cap, I had flown around the point and was in the still water under its lee, where the boys soon joined me. So, if you must traverse, and the seas are high and choppy, better make it in two trips lightly loaded than try to do it in one and get swamped. When you see a sea about to curl aboard, give the canoe a flip so she shows her bottom to the wave, when it will go under you and all will be well. If any come in and there are likely to be more, lay to, and one boy (bow) starts bailing. Always have your paddle tied to the crossbar by about eight feet of small cotton rope 128 CANOEING AND CRUISING in making a traverse and have the duffle loose. If swamped or upset, hang to your paddle and regain the canoe, for it's a drowning matter if she gets away from you. In reasonably still waters one boy alone can bail out an upset canoe. There are two good methods, rocking it out and shoving it out. In the first, swim around to the stern of the canoe and get the water inside rocking from side to side so that it flops out at each reverse. As soon as enough is out to give her a few inches of freeboard get aboard over her stern and dash out the rest with your hands. " Shoving' ' the water out also de- pends on the momentum of a body of water. Swim astern, and, grasping the stern breasthook, give her a smart pull towards you. The water will slop out in a torrent over her bows. Then shove away from you with all your strength and the water will come rushing aft and slop out over her stern. Keep this up until about half emptied, when get aboard over her stern and dash out the rest with your hands. No boy under sixteen years is strong enough to be successful with either of these methods, but by lying down in her when she is awash the water can be dashed out if you are patient and do not try to move about. I do not believe that a single man or boy can bail out a THE OPEN CANOE 129 swamped canoe in a heavy blow. Stick to her, for she is your only hope, and get overboard all the heavy duffle. If the water is not too cold, take time to get out some twine or fish line and buoy- mark rifles, axes, etc., by lowering them to the bot- tom and tying a floating duffle bag at the surface anchored by the gun. This leaves the canoe free ; right her and get into her still awash. Watch your chance to get water out and do so at every oppor- tunity. Sooner or later she will drift ashore, and, if you feel yourself getting numb, rest your head on bow or stern cross brace and keep quiet. If the water is cold, act quickly; heave out all duffle, right the canoe, get in and bail steadily with your hat or any container. You may beat out the waves, and at least will keep exercising while you drift to the shore. But upsets and the like seldom happen more than a few times in a lifetime with a staunch canoe, most of which are more able than a row- boat of the same size. The portage is the surest preventative of disasters, and how to do it right is worth knowing. Two men, each carrying an end of a canoe under their arms, will work much harder than one man alone carrying it properly. Even carrying it upside down, with an end over each man's head is preferable, but the time-hon- 130 CANOEING AND CRUISING ored Hudson Bay method is to lash the paddles to the middle and forward thwart braces, the blades of the paddles resting on the middle thwart. Then, when you turn the canoe over, your head will go between the two paddles and the blades rest on your shoulders. With a coat or sweater bunched up on each shoulder you can carry an or- dinary 60-pound canoe with ease while the other boy packs the duffle. Keep your baggage low in weight if you are going to have many portages, for double tripping it means three times the time and work lost. Suppose you have a two-mile portage from one lake to the other. With a single trip that is two miles to the lake, launch the canoe and on your way ; with a double trip you have two miles there loaded, two miles back empty, and two miles there again loaded — six miles! Ever hike six miles along a woods trail, with no load at all? I'd rather do that two miles in one lap if I had to stop and rest every five minutes ! CANOE SAILING If one has but a moiety of the real Indian spirit in him he will have a pronounced aversion to any- thing even in a remote degree resembling work. Paddling a canoe comes under this head; you don't realize this until once under sail in the same THE OPEN CANOE 181 canoe, where she goes right along like a greased eel with no more effort on your part than the exercise of a little skill and judgment. And, if you give her all the sail power she is really capa- ble of, you will get such exciting hikes, such breathless speed, such a glory of existence out of that canoe as you never dreamed of. A full-pow- ered sail canoe is in the same class as regards thrills and sport as a game fish or carnivorous big game, — any of these will keep your hands full mastering their tricks with all the resourcefulness at your command. Far be it from me to utter a word counter to the delicious memories of day- long paddles in the open Indian canoe, down green-arched rivers, across long whitecapped lakes and down rushing streams. But I have other memories; — of the open ocean and the green-sedged marsh; of wide estuaries and hill- rimmed bays, where the decked canvas canoe, heeled down to the cockpit coaming under the stress of her great white sails, tore and raced over and through the long ocean swells, — when every black catspaw put you out over the pickle with your toes hooked under the opposite coam- ing and that little witch lay down and shot through the whitecaps like a flying fish! And these breathless memories far eclipsed the best 132 CANOEING AND CRUISING sport that the Indian canoe affords, — taken strictly and solely as canoeing. If yon have no portaging to do and your river or chain of lakes affords reasonable sea-room, I prefer a single sail and a pair of lee-boards for the open model canoe. Take along a leg-o '-mutton sail, eight feet hoist by nine feet along the foot, of American drilling, hemmed and provided with grommets every foot along the luff. This takes but little space in your kit and can be bent to a spruce sapling as a mast with plenty good enough results. Spread it with a sprit of light spruce or birch which you can cut in the woods. She will go right along with such a rig, but will make leeway like a floating leaf if you have no lee-boards. For canoe voyag- ing I prefer these of the folding, collapsible type. The sail for my Morris, which I have used for over four years in lake and bay cruises, has a 2-inch diameter mast, 6 feet 9 inches long; and a lateen rig, 10-foot 2-inch head, and 11-foot 2-inch foot, with 10-foot 6-inch leach. The jaw is at- tached to bring the mast 19 inches from the fore peak of the sail. The sail is made of light 4-ounce duck canvas and with it she is very fast. The mast is stepped with a cross brace, attachable with brass hooks and wingnuts, and the foot step i§ screwed stoutly to three ribs, giving the mast TO SWING CANOE OVERHEAD The canoe is the famous Peterboro wooden canoe used in the Hudson Bay country. PADDLES LASHED Lashed to rear and forward thwarts the blades form a yoke which rests on the shoulders. CARRYING SINGLE A yoke makes this much easier; cannot be done in a strong- wind. GETTING BREAKFAST IN THE CANOE TARP. CAMP After bedding- is cleared away, breakfast can be served on a camp table under the tarp. DAN BEARD OR CAMPFIRE TENT A roomy model for a party of four canoe voyagers. THE FORESTER TEIMT. WEIGHT 4% LBS. Designed by the author for canoeing and hiking in cold weather. With an open fire in front, the walls are at such an angle as to reflect all the heat down on the bedding. THE PERFECT SHELTER TENT. WEIGHT 3% LBS. Designed by the author for summer cruising and hiking. Sides and front are of mosquito bar, with a changeable side piece to go on windward side. THE OPEN CANOE 183 a very slight rake backwards. The lee-boards for this rig are gotten out of inch spruce and are 30 inches long with a 12 x 20-inch blade. They are secured to stout shoes on the ends of the cross piece by brass wing nuts passing through holes in the shank of the lee-boards. The cross piece is 1 x 5 x 38 inches long. To make your own lee-boards whittle out of clear spruce two blades about the size and shape of your broad double paddle-blade with square stocks 3 by % inches. Get a pair of brass 3-inch hinges and cut a length of clear spruce 3 by 1 inches, a foot longer than the canoe is wide. Lay it across the gunwale of your canoe and mark where the two shanks of the lee-boards will come to fit snug up to the gunwale. Screw on the hinges, fac- ing inward so that the lee-boards will fold toward each other. The length of the lee-board does not need to exceed 24 inches, all told, and should fine off to a thin edge much as does a broad-blade canoe paddle. Having screwed the hinges fast, erect the two lee-boards so that they stand upright bringing up hard-and-fast on the ends of their own shanks. They should then stand a little outward. Get two heavy brass hooks, such as are used aboard ship for doors and skylight hatches, and screw the eye of these hooks onto the back of the pad- 134 CANOEING AND CRUISING die, and the shackle of the book onto your spruce cross-rail, letting the hooks come over at about 45 degrees and planting them so that when each hook is snapped into its eye it will hold its lee- board upright, firm and solid. To use the board set the cross-rail across the canoe with the lee- boards in the water on each side of the canoe. The cross-rail is lashed to the cockpit coaming by a couple of turns of marlin around two cleats screwed to either side of the coaming inside, be- low where the rail will cross, i.e., a little forward of amidships. Twelve inches wide by 24 inches long is plenty lee-board enough for an ordinary 16-foot canoe. For canvas-decked canoe I have used a number of different sails, including leg-o '-mutton and la- teen, but have finally come to prefer the Canadian Club canoe sail, with short stubby mast and long gaff cocked up almost vertically. This sail has less spar weight than the lateen, practically the same weight as the leg-o '-mutton, and has not the bad leach of the latter, because the batten keeps it flat and well spread. It is a wonder for quick reefing as one can lower the gaff, tie the batten to the boom at both ends and the middle, and hoist away again in less than three minutes. In making it, avoid too heavy spars. For a 12-foot THE OPEN CANOE 135 canoe, the boom and gaff of the mainsail should be six feet long, each of 1%-inch clear spruce, tapering to % inch at each end. Batten, 1*4 x % inch 4 feet 10 inches long and mainmast 5 feet 6 inches long, of 1%-inch spruce, tapering to % inch ; material of sail, American drilling. Mizzen sail boom and gaff 4 feet each, of 1-inch spruce, tapering to % inch, batten lx% inch 3 feet 6 inches long. Hoist of mainsail, 2 feet 6 inches, of mizzen, 1 foot 6 inches. You will note from this that only two mast rings are needed on the main- mast and one on the mizzen. To cut out sails the easiest scheme is to stake out the dimensions, either on a lawn or in a large empty room, and run a string around the stakes or tacks, giving the outline of the sail. Lay the canvas parallel to the leach (rear outer edge of sail), and cut as many gores as will be needed, allowing an inch of hem. Leave 1% inches overlap along the line of the batten, and when the two parts of the sail are done, turn under and sew; the overlap, forming a sort of pocket 1% inch wide into which the batten can be slipped. Along the head, foot, and luff of the sail will be wanted brass %-inch grommets, which are little brass eyeholes through which the lashing rope is run. These grommets space about 9 inches, and are easily put in by punching a hole 136 CANOEING AND CRUISING in the hem, slipping in the male half of the grom- met, putting on the ring and turning over with a fid, or, in lieu of any such nautical implement a large 20-penny wire nail. To make the spars buy the stock from a door- and- sash mill in the rough square or rounded if they keep it. They will rip it off a clear plank for you for a few cents more than the cost of the plank. Work the spars round with a jack-plane and a spoke-shave, finish to a nice taper each way from the middle (except the mast, which tapers from the foot), sandpaper and varnish with marine spar varnish. Whittle the jaws for the gaff out of natural bend maple forks giving them the proper twist so as to seize the mast when the gaff is cocked up taut. All the running rigging, lashings, reef-points, etc., should be of white %-inch cotton rope and the blocks (pulleys) of %-inch galvanized iron. The main sheet (rope) is single and is held in the hand while sailing (it pulls about as hard as a large dog). The mizzen sheet is made fast on a cleat on the rear deck after trimming true to the wind. It should pass through a brass screw-eye on the rudder-head, so as to sway clear at each tack. The rudder is best managed by a yoke on the head of it, with steer lines running flat over the rear deck and through screw-eyes along the inside of THE OPEN CANOE 137 the cockpit. The steer rope is endless and taut throughout its length. To steer you can grab it anywhere, and wherever you leave it the rudder will stay. Most of canoe steering is done by sails alone. A centerboard can be done without in a canvas canoe, as the 3-inch fin keel gives her plenty of grip on the water, but an 8 in. x 36 in. keel board fastened to the keel with carriage bolts and ring nuts as described in Part Two, Chapter III, is a great aid. A word to the inexperienced as to the value of the mizzen or dandy. With it a canoe is far safer than with the mainsail alone, because the tendency of the dandy is always to shove you up into the wind. The minute you spill the wind out of the mainsail (too strong a catspaw) the dandy shoves you safely up into the wind unless checked by the rudder. "Without it the canoe would simply knock down and probably fall off the wind, thus filling the mainsail again just when you don't want it, and, unless you check her immediately with the rudder, you are in for very serious trouble in- deed. With the dandy astern she will be much faster, safer and quicker to mind her helm, and the only reason I do not advocate it for the open Indian canoe is because of the high curling stern of the latter. CHAPTEE II CANOE CRUISING There are two kinds of canoe cruises, both of them splendid outdoor recreations for boys, the lake and river cruise in the open canoe, with the paddle as motive power, and the decked sailing canoe where the paddle is of secondary impor- tance and a pair of bat wing sails eats up the miles of distance between you and your destina- tion. Both are fine sport, and both constitute the easiest form of travel in the open. Do not take sails on a canoe cruise unless you are going to have plenty of use for them, as they are heavy and much in the way in stowing duffle ; and do not take an ounce more weight in any case than is positively necessary. I would set a limit of fifty pounds of belong- ings to every man on the trip. Even if there are only trifling portages, such as lifting over down trees, around obstructions on the banks or over dam sites, too much duffle becomes a burden, and when afloat its weight brings the canoe danger- ously low down in the water and puts a lot of work 138 CANOE CRUISING 139 in paddling on the voyageur's shoulders. The same canoe that will fly along like a fairy when properly loaded, will act like a submerged turtle when just a wee bit overloaded. And it is so easy to take too much ! One of my first canoe trips was nearly spoilt by just this duffle trouble. We both swore ourselves black in the face that not a pound extra would be taken, but this is what we actually did take: — For guns we took the shotguns as a matter of course, and, as if that was not enough, the rifles also, in case any long range shots might offer, and then, piled on that, a revolver each for snakes and turtles, ammunition in generous quan- tities for the three, — let's see, that makes 26 pounds of extra useless weight, not counting the shotguns, which are doubtful commodities in a summer trip and apt to get you into trouble with game wardens, as snipe are the only game birds shootable in September when we went ; then, as we might have a few miles sailing, we took along the sails, 25 pounds more, mostly in the way, and only used once, for we had head winds on all the other open stretches ; then we took along a sack of pota- toes when we knew well we would pass lots of farms, another useless 20 pounds of weight — the wonder to me is that she floated at all when we set forth ! As it was she had just three inches of 140 CANOEING AND CRUISING freeboard, and was as logy as a water-soaked tree trunk. Well, we had a strong northwest wind to face the first thing ; five miles of it. Did we hoist the sails and tack? We tried it, but made as much leeway as headway and finally ended by paddling the whole distance, arriving by nightfall where we had allowed to reach in but three hours on the schedule. All the blankets, etc., were soak- ing wet, from water shipped aboard off the white- caps, and we were half the night drying them out so that we could get off to sleep. Our first portage was a hummer ! Only around a dam, a few hundred feet, but it took five trips to do it — fire-arms, bedding, grub, cook outfit, tent and sails (now soaking wet, and all weighing twice what they would dry). Again tribulation camped on our trail when we struck long reaches of shallow water. She drew so much that we both had to get out and wade, towing her up stream. The end of the second day saw eleven miles of progress and 150 miles to go. On the third day we passed under a railroad bridge, went into camp and shipped back home by express the sails, guns, ammunition and spuds, and kept only the fishing tackle, tent, bedding and cook outfit, with a few provisions. Then we made easy CANOE CRUISING 141 progress, but our bad start had cost us two days' fishing at the lake which we were headed for. This little sketch of how not to do it brings to mind several points taught us by hard experience. In the first place everything in a canoe that water can hurt must go in a waterproof duffle bag, either side-opening or end-opening. For clothing, blank- ets, tent, etc., the 11 x 24-inch brown waterproof end-opening duffle bag costing a dollar is the thing. It will take folded blankets and tents easily and they can be pulled out without trouble. For food the side-opening bag 8 x 22 inches, with rows of pockets inside, is the thing. When you go ashore for the night campment, drive in two up- right stakes to windward of your cook fire and hang up this bag by the grommet holes in the lip, put there for that purpose. All your main food sacks are now in plain sight, in rows along the bottom of the kitchen bag, where each can be chucked back as used ; and in the pockets are small bags of salt, tea, baking powder, soup powders, etc., while the knives, forks, spoons, chain pot- hooks and the like are handy in the top pockets. This duffle bag has a stout maple rod sewed into one lip, and to fasten it up you roll the other lip around this rod until the bag is rolled tight and then secure with rope around the bag or a pair 142 CANOEING AND CRUISING of school book straps. As these side-opening bags are rather expensive to buy I will give you the way to make them yourself. Get a yard of ten- ounce brown paraffined duck canvas at a ship chandler's or awning maker's. It costs forty cents a yard, and comes 28 inches wide. Cut off an eight-inch strip along one edge and out of this strip make two circular ends for your bag, 8 inches in diameter. Get a %-inch maple dowel from a pattern shop or department store or hardware store, and cut it 20 inches long. Sew a hem along both lips of your bag, and slip the rod into one lip and secure by sewing over the end of the hem. Now sew the circular ends half around to the side of your bag and fill in the rest of the space with a khaki end-cloth as shown in the pattern, finish- ing the whole thing with an edging of gray tape. Sew inside two khaki strips 8 inches wide by 30 inches long, to make two rows of three pockets each. Each pocket is 8 inches wide and will take ten inches of your cloth, the back of the pocket being the wall of the bag. Put two school straps around the bag, about a foot apart, and join with a strap riveted around each of the two straps to make a carrying handle, or else just get a ten-cent shawl strap at the five-and-ten-cent store and use it in lieu of the school-book straps. Total cost: CANOE CRUISING 143 canvas, 40 cents, khaki, 20 cents, shawl straps, 10 cents ; all together, 70 cents. One bag will hold all the food four men will need on a week's canoe trip, and keep it dry and handy to use. For food sacks the standard sack for bulk food is 8 inch diameter by 10 inch depth, and they cost fifteen cents each. To make them yourself get from a sporting-goods store two yards of paraffined mus- lin, cut out eight-inch round bottoms, and 10 inch high by 24 inch circumference sides, sewing the sides around the bottoms and turning inside out. It can all be done on a domestic sewing machine, using a heavy needle and number 40 cotton. Fin- ish the food sacks with a foot of white tape, sewed up near the top of the bag for a tie-string. You will also need three plain rectangular 4 inch by 9 inch bags, and four small 3 inch by 6 inch bags of the same paraffined muslin. To make paraffined muslin yourself, buy the ordinary unbleached mus- lin and steep in a mixture of a pint of turpentine with two bricks of paraffine dissolved in it. It will not dissolve cold, but if your tin can of turpen- tine is warmed in a kettle of hot water it will dis- solve the paraffine readily. Hang the muslin out to dry after soaking in the solution. The large food bags are to be marked rice, FLOUR, SUGAR, OATMEAL; the 9 X 4's, CORN MEAL, 144 CANOEING AND CRUISING prunes, coffee, pancake flour ; and the small 3 by 6's, tea, cocoa, salt, raisins. Milk goes in its own cans of evaporated cream; eggs, in a 3 by 5 inch tin can with friction top (holds 14 fresh eggs broken into it) ; potatoes and onions in an ordi- nary muslin flour sack; meat, bacon, butter, etc., in 8-inch friction top tin cans, costing 25 cents each, two will be plenty. All these provision sacks except the spud sack will go in the side opening grub bag; will weigh, all told, for a week's cruise, about thirty pounds and will make about 150 pounds of cooked food. Eain and spray, upsets and hard knocks will then make no difference to the grub pile ; it is the only way to stow and carry food in a canoe. The cook kit to be taken along may be any of the well-known outfits, such as the nesting alumi- num set for four, the Forester, Stopple, Boy Scout, etc., or it may be plain set of nesting tin pails, three of them one inside the other, a couple of fry pans and some 7 by 2 inch tin mixing and baking pans. Each man has his individual table set, of knife, fork, and spoon, cup, and nine-inch tin or aluminum plate, and you will want a wire grate and a folding reflector baker or an aluminum one with cover on which a fire can be built like a Dutch oven. The wire grate should have a cloth THE CANOE TAKP. CAMP An old canoeist's dodge. Canoe is turned on its side with all duffle on shelf made by lower rim and tarpaulin stretched as shown. A light, roomy canoe encampment. ' • j ! I | 4 \ %*£^L.*«m IN CAMP IN A CRUISING DECKED CANOE The author is just putting his head out from under the mosquito bar of the canoe cockpit tent. His chum is sleeping out under one of the canoe sails as shelter, the sleeping bag being rainproof. the side-opening grub rag (opened and closed) On a canoe trip the food is best carried in paraffined muslin food bags inside a stout, side-opening, waterproof grub bag. READY TO GO OVERBOARD AGAIN The author putting in reefs before hitting the lake. A whitecap breeze is blowing outside. The night was spent under this tree, hauled up. // / ifiisiiii THE "VABMINT ' UNDER FULL SAIL This canoe was built by a "Field and Stream" subscriber from the plans and directions given in this chapter, when published in the "Field and Stream" magazine. THE "WATERAT IV" WITH FULL SAIL SET AND COCKPIT TENT DETAILS OF STEM CONSTRUCTION, DECKED SAILING CANOE. "WATER AT IV" DETAILS OF. STERN CONSTRUCTION, DECKED SAILING CANOE "WATERAT IV" CANOE CRUISING 145 bag to pack in as it gets very sooty and will soon get the rest of the things in the canoe dirty if uncovered. For a tent there are several special canoe types* on the market, the Hudson Bay, Dan Beard, Canoe Tent, and Forester being four types that have made good on long canoe trips where each night a new camp is made. You want something quickly and easily put up, with a few pegs and few poles. Canoe-cruise regulations call for a heavy meal at breakfast, an all-day paddle with a bite of lunch eaten in the canoe at midday, and a rousing feed at night. One usually looks out for a good site and a spring along about four o 'clock, as camping and cooking after dark is a nuisance and takes away the pleasure of the cruise. Wherefore you want a tent that can be quickly put up, almost any- where. The Hudson Bay tent calls for a handy tree and a pair of shears in front (for it is too much to ask, to expect two trees to grow just the right distance apart at the right place, with a level bit of ground in between them!). The Canoe tent needs one short pole and two long rear stakes; and the Forester, three ten-foot saplings. These are easy to find in any thicket along a lake or stream bank. All three tents take eight to ten short pegs, and are put up in ten to fifteen min- 146 CANOEING AND CRUISING utes time. Never pitch on a sloping ground site unless the slope runs from head to foot of the tent, a side slope is very uncomfortable to sleep on and the boy furthest uphill will be continu- ally rolling down on the others in his sleep. One man can put up the tent, while the others get night wood, water for the oookee and browse for the tent bottoms. The man elected cook sets about preparing the evening meal. He will need about 45 minutes to do a good job, and will want good hot woods to do it with, so see that he has plenty of dry, hard maple, blackjack oak, white oak, pignut hickory and white birch to do with. The surest way to have a slow meal that is forever cooking, is to give the cook any old dry trash wood, such as balsam and pine. There is little heat in them, they are "out" most of the time, and the pot is forever boiling. But blackjack and maple will not only start the pots up in no time but their coals will keep them going after the flames have subsided. Get the boiled things going first, the pots over the fire amid the flames, and the pota- toes and onions peeled into the "mulligan," a handful of rice added and some salt, and you can put the cover on and let her simmer. Add soup meat if you have it, or grouse breasts, chunks of CANOE CRUISING 147 deer meat, cut up rabbit, any old meat component ; add a bouillon cube for each man when the stew is nearly done, thirty-five minutes later, and she will taste fine and keep you in good health. Fry your fish dipped in egg and rolled in corn meal and set some one to tending the fry pan over a bed of coals while you make up the corn bread batter, squaw bread dough, or doughgods. These re- quire for a hot high fire a couple of blazing logs lifted up off the main fire and set on the edge of the wire grate, and the baking tin is then put under them on top of some coals, or the reflector baker, with its pan full of biscuits, is set in front of them. Boil rice in the other pot, and tea in the pail. For breakfast use your flap- jack flour for pancakes, and have coffee, fish fried in bacon grease with bacon on the side, and potatoes cubed and creamed. Plenty of these, with lots of fruit, will run you all day long. Aim to get the canoes in the water by eight o'clock, stop paddling about noon for an hour to serve a cold lunch of ham or sardines with chocolate, cheese, raisins, nuts, and some Graham crackers, and be on your way again in an hour. At four the definite stop for the day is made. Pick a good site, on a point if possible to get away from flies and mosquitoes, and be sure to pitch somewhere near a spring. 148 CANOEING AND CRUISING Any river that is inhabited, — that is, has farms and small towns on its banks, — is unsafe to use for drinking or cooking water. My twelve-year- old boy got a case of typhoid fever from one of onr canoe cruises, where there was bnt one town on the river bank. The rest of us were badly physicked and just missed typhoid, but he had a severe case which nearly cost him his life. Since then I have always insisted on a spring for water or else boiled it before using. And, by the same token, refrain from dipping up the river water in a cup and drinking it, unless the river is wholly wild, like the Allagash in Maine, or the Lumbee in North Carolina, or Wading Kiver in New Jersey, all of which streams give fine canoe trips. In lieu of a sail, a good thing to take along is a tarp for a floor cloth made of some light water- proof tent textile. If you have a mast step screwed to several ribs of your canoe, and a detachable cross bar, with a two-inch hole in it for a mast hole, and two brass hooks with wing nuts to se- cure the cross rail to the gunwale, you can easily cut spars at the lake bank and rig the 'Harp" as a sail when you have a long down-wind traverse to make. Without the step and bar it is rather awkward to rig anything that will stand wind pres- sure and not become dangerous from coming CANOE CRUISING 149 adrift and upsetting the canoe in a gust. In mak- ing any traverse, study your weather and white caps before venturing out, for it is braver to say "No!" and stay ashore windbound than to be foolhardy and go out and get swamped. If you must make the traverse and the waves are high, do it with canoe lightly loaded in two trips, as a logy, heavily loaded canoe is a dangerous thing in choppy seas. In river work, haul her over logs, down trees and the like by getting out on the log, one on each side, and sliding the canoe over between you with the duffle aboard. In navigating rivers keep cut- ting across the heads of bends, the bow man an- ticipating the river at each bend and getting the canoe headed for the shallows, when the stern man can then exert his strength and shove her ahead. Keep out of the full force of the current in the bends; it only makes you paddle twice as far and hard, and the force of the current is al- ways throwing your canoe broadside onto alders and rocks in the elbow of the bends. In running a rapids, be first sure that they are safe, as they change almost daily with the height of water. Look for a portage trail if you know nothing about the rapids and if there is a landing above the rapids, with a clearly defined trail through the 150 CANOEING AND CRUISING forest, it is a safe bet that the rapids are dan- gerous and have been portaged by better men than you. In running white water the stern man has the say and the bow man should not embarrass him by attempting to fend off with the paddle, etc. Only do this when it is clearly evident that the stern man has not control enough to prevent her ramming. As a rule, the water parting around a rock will carry her bow clear if the stern man guides her and sees that the stern follows clear. In general, back paddle so that the current flows faster than the canoe is going, and let her down easy at the difficult spots. In any event, keep out of the main force of the current if there is an easier passage, and always go along a rapids on foot ashore before running it. In many rivers and broad creeks there is plenty of white water not dangerous, only exciting. Follow the current where it is clearest of rocks, and, in passing one, back the stern of the canoe away from the rock, letting the current carry the bow clear. In all rapids running the duffle should be lashed in by your tracking line; in traversing a lake everything should be free and clear, as you may need to empty her in a hurry. In both cases stick to the canoe in case of upset, get her ashore in the rapids, and dump the water out CANOE CRUISING 151 of her in the lake, letting the duffle float where it will until the canoe is ready again. In both cases the paddles should be lashed to the canoe with about six feet of cotton rope, as they may be your only hold on the canoe, and if she once drifts away from you in a lake you are lost. Two men treading water can lift a canoe clear enough to turn out most of the water, and then can get aboard from bow and stern simultaneously, being careful to jump at the same moment so as to bal- ance the weight. One man alone can hardly empty a canoe unless over sixteen years of age and husky. If strong enough you can rock it out, or "shove" it out, either by swashing it from side to side, let- ting it slop out, or by giving it smart shoves to and from you, when the momentum of the water will slop it out over bow and stern alternately. A boy of twelve is not strong enough to do this and had best get inside the canoe and lie down in her awash. She will not sink, but will lie with about an inch of gunwale exposed. Keeping her on an even keel, the water can be dashed out of her if reasonably calm, but with a sea on the best way is to go astern and kick her ashore, climbing in and lying down in her when tired. Sooner or later she will drift ashore. Keep cool, play safe and do not start anything rash that you may not 152 CANOEING AND CRUISING be able to finish. The canoe will always float her- self and you, and if not too cold you will arrive safely in time, even if you have a mile or so to drift. In river travel the banks are near, and if you stick to the canoe no eddy can pull you under. As a matter of fact upsets are extremely infrequent in canoe travel. I have yet to have my first one in over thirty years of canoeing in river trips, and in my sailing canoes have but three upsets in all that time to record. The second great branch of canoeing is that of canoe sailing in the great open bays and lakes, where the wind is too strong and the seas too heavy for an open type canoe to live. The wooden- decked sailing canoe has always been a popular 1 ' poor man's yacht,' ' but for boys she is so heavy to paddle that until you get sixteen years or over it is too hard work to be fun. However, we boys did not let that worry us. We built decked canvas-covered sailing canoes that weighed about forty pounds, and had two sails, mainsail and jig- ger, and they could beat anything of their inches that carried canvas, and live in a sea that sent big catboats into harbor with three reefs in their sails. These craft I built four of ; my chums two or three apiece, and, for long cruises down the great salt- CANOE CRUISING 153 water bays of the Atlantic Coast, sleeping in the canoe every night, they were simply Jim Dandy ! Thirteen feet long by 32 inches beam and a foot deep was the preferred size, with a six-foot cock- pit in which you could sleep when the canoe was hauled out on the beach and the sand banked up around her. Contrary to the general impression spread by writers who do not know, the canvas- covered canoe is not "limp and logy" ; instead she is fast and lively ; she will not sink when capsized, but will keep herself afloat and you, too. And she paddles like a bird with the double-blade paddle, which the wooden sailing canoe would never do on a boy's strength. We cruised in ours for weeks at a time. Some- times it would be but a day's expedition up some big salt marsh creek after railbirds and snipe; others, it would be a fishing trip down the bay to some favorite bank, where the canoe would be moored to an oyster stake while its crew attended to the fish market ; again it would be an extended consort cruise of two or more of these canoes, when both of them would be hauled out on the beach and the cockpit tents set up, while a board running from one canoe to the other would make the eating table. Many a night have I dozed off to sleep with the strong salt breeze strumming 154 CANOEING AND CRUISING through the guy ropes of my canoe cockpit tent, the mosquitoes humming a lively tune outside, while within there would be solid comfort from the muslin mattress filled with fragrant sage and making the round contours of the canoe as com- fortable as your bed at home. I have paddled out into a roaring sea that even a large sloop would respect, in those able little decked canvas canoes, setting up a rag of sail and beating to windward like a flying fish, and only once in hundreds of miles of such canoeing have I been upset. It was during a squally northwest blow and I was snipe shooting on Marsh Point on the Baritan. I got thirsty and so set sails for the opposite shore a mile away where I knew there was a spring of iron water, highly prized by us boys because we believed that drinking it would make us strong! As the tide was running out strongly it took sev- eral tacks to make up for the drift in getting across, and in one of them my rudder jammed. Its regular pin had been lost and it was therefore hung with a couple of makeshift copper lashings to the screw eyes. At every other gust the canoe was knocked down to her cockpit coaming, but that was nothing unusual, — one simply jammed one's toes under the lee rail and hiked out over the pickle! But this rudder jamming was an- CANOE CRUISING 155 other matter; I couldn't steer now, except with a paddle blade, which is "nix" in a decked canoe, as it will not let you hang out to windward when the gusts come. Several times I was nearly un- balanced by the knockdown puffs, and finally one got me and I was pitched bodily overboard to leeward, taking the canoe with me. I remember leaping headlong into my own mainsail, and then a smother of salt water. When I came up, the first thing I noticed was my precious moccasins wavering down through the water. They had come off my feet while doing the dive into the mainsail. I dove for them with both eyes open, and got them both by great good luck. Next I felt inside the canoe for my gun; it was lashed in securely, thank goodness! Then I loosened both main and mizzen halliards and unstepped the masts, which released the canoe so I could right her. The next stunt was to roll up the two sails and stow them inboard, and then go swimming after the paddles. I was a great little retriever, and soon had all the canoe belongings back in the cockpit, which was awash in the whitecaps. I was half a mile from shore, and so I went astern and turned myself into a human propellor, so that, helped by the strong wind and sea, I had soon kicked her where I could touch bottom and begin 156 CANOEING AND CRUISING to wade with her. A fish hawk had been fol- lowing me interestedly, and now he swooped down and flew off with a white package left behind in my wake. I suddenly realized that that was my package of lunch he was making off with, with all my sandwiches in it ! A frantic grab for the gun was futile, as he was already out of range — I owe that fish hawk a grudge to this day! However, there were two hard-boiled eggs and a couple of boiled crabs in the canoe, and so, taking off all my clothes and spreading them abroad in the marsh, I sat down on the paddles to a lunch of egg and crab while the clothes dried out. About four o 'clock the snipe came up the marsh in great flocks of fifty or a hundred apiece and I had some royal shooting. It was too dark to see the gun sights and the shells all shot before I was ready to go home. Outside the draw-bridge to the open sea, the waves were high, as I could tell by the big, smooth swells in the river, but she shot through the draw in great shape under paddle alone and made the two-mile trip in the dark, open sea without incident, hurdling the big whitecaps like a huntsman. A great little boat! — I use the mate to her now, and in one of these chapters will tell you how to build one for yourself at a cost of $7.50, complete. In paddling against a head wind CANOE CRUISING 157 with such a craft you had best leave the dandy up, as it not only keeps her head staunch to the wind, but every side puff fills the dandy and you can just feel her shoving you along! In the paddling canoe with sail I have had two upsets in thirty years, one of which was in a how- ling southeast gale when we ran aground on a point and she turned a summersault over her own lee- boards ; and the other was in a squally northwest wind when I was navigating a narrow, crooked lake under sail. While the canoe was "in stays,' ' — that is, luffing and coming about on another tack, — a sudden gust blew out of the wall of forest, broadside on, and knocked her over as if you had struck her with a giant hand ! No amount of sea- manship could have avoided this, as the sail was perfectly loose and free, but a broadside gust from an entirely different point of the compass from that in which the wind is blowing is likely to hit you unexpectedly in narrow waters sur- rounded by high banks of forest, and so it is al- ways much safer to use paddle only in such places. As to the other upset, the leeboards were straight down, and you should always avoid a point likely to have a shoal on it when tacking in a high wind for, if she strikes bottom with the leeboards, you 158 CANOEING AND CRUISING will have the ignominy of upsetting in a foot and a half of water ! As to rigs for canoes, I have tried them all; leg-o '-mutton, bat wing, lateen and Canadian Club or battened leg-o '-mutton ; and have settled on the latter for all my later canoes. Leg-o '-mut- ton is a slow sail, because of its bad leach, and its spars are so long as to be unstowable in a canoe with six-foot cockpit. Bat wing is too com- plicated a sail for most men to make, and easily gets out of gear. Lateen has not only too long spars, but is unreefable, and is a danger- ous sail before the wind in a heavy blow. The Canadian Club, shown in our illustrations, has comparatively short spars, a good flat leach, and is easy to reef and stow. The dimensions given are right for a twelve-foot canoe, a larger sail can be carried, but you will have to reef it most of the time. A single set of reef points in mizzen and mainsail gives you canvas for a heavy blow, while reefing her down to her battens will give you a rag that you can navigate a gale in, like the time last summer when I crossed Green- wood Lake in ten minutes in Waterat IV, the present representative of the canvas-covered decked sailing canoe in which I navigate. Taken all in all, canoeing is a great sport, and CANOE CRUISING 159 one that appeals particularly to men and youths who have the adventurous exploring spirit in them. I have sailed everything from a full-rigged ship to a canoe, and, to this day I still keep three canoes in my fleet of pleasure craft, one of which, Waterat IV, is still the unbeaten crack of this section ! CHAPTEB III HOW TO BUILD A DECKED CANVAS CRUISING CANOE Any man in the least acquainted with tools can build this canoe. I made my first one when I was twelve and two more when I was sixteen and nine- teen respectively. The first one had no sails and only a little cockpit three feet long, so that, while she was good for day cruises and paddling up creeks after snipe and rail birds, you could neither sleep in her nor sail her. The second had a six- foot cockpit and leg-o '-mutton mainsail and jig- ger. Also a gaudy awning-canvas tent which went over the cockpit, and I had many a glorious cruise in her, sleeping at night in the canoe after haul- ing her out on the beach and banking sand around her to keep her steady. She had one defect which you should be warned against — she had a kyak bow and stern, little low six-inch oak blocks screwed to the keel at each end, just high enough to take the six ribbands of the frame. Easy to make, but, gee! she was a wet boat in heavy weather! That kyak bow would shoot through every wave like a dagger, and in spite of an eight- 160 DECKED CRUISING CANOES 161 een-inch hood over the cockpit for'd, a deluge of sea water would come aft and most of it would stay in the canoe. But she would go like a streak, and when I was seventeen I sailed her across Prince's Bay in a bird of a southeast blow, soaked to the ears with salt spray but cheerful as a clam at high tide. It was some hike, believe me ! I stung another boy with her for $5 and built No. 3, which had a 14-inch bow and 12-inch stern, was fourteen feet long by 32 inches beam. She had lateen-rigged mainsail and jigger, weighed 42 pounds, and was a corking little boat. I had her for ten years and cruised in her for weeks at a time. She finally died of numerous broken ribs, a bunch of kids using her holy bottom as a jump- ing stand one winter when she was left out in the yard. Number Four is shown in the accompanying il- lustrations. She is 16 inches deep at the bow and 14 at the stern, 10 inches amidship, fourteen feet long, 33 inches beam and weighs just 40 pounds, exclusive of her sails. She will cost you $7.00 to build, not including her sails, and for an all-around cruiser is hard to beat, as she will live in water that would drown an open canoe, is a dry, rain- proof and mosquito-proof home to sleep in at 162 CANOEING AND CRUISING night, and will sail dozens of miles where you would paddle one. Most of our writers of boys* books advise build- ing a canvas canoe of barrel hoops. That is con- clusive evidence that they never built a canoe in their lives, for of all the material to give you a cranky, unsafe, tippy canoe the barrel hoop is king. The reason is because it is round — just the shape to roll over — and can 't be made to hold any other shape. Look at any good Indian model canoe (Morris, White, etc.) and you will see that it is flat-bottomed with a fair round bilge or turn- up from bottom to sides and it is hard to upset because you must submerge one side before the other can come up. Now any kind of a barrel hoop has been steamed round, there is not' a flat spot in it anywhere, and to make a canoe even passably steady you want at least 20 inches of flat bottom before curving up over the bilge. The ideal rib stick is one that will tend to keep flat and yet permit a sharp bend upward at the bilge. There is no wood better for this purpose than black ash, though white will do. Go to any wagonmaker's shop and ask him for a board of black ash about five feet long, an inch thick and five inches wide. He will charge you fifteen cents for it. Take it to the nearest wood-working mill DECKED CRUISING CANOES 163 and get them to rip it up for you into strips one- eighth inch thick. You will get some twenty canoe ribs out of the board. While at the mill ask to see their No. 1 spruce stock. Tell them you want one board, planed both sides, sixteen feet long, free from knots. Have this ripped up into strips a quarter-inch thick until you have sixteen of them. You will have half your board still left and from it you will have two %-inch pieces ripped off and two 2-inch. Next, you want a piece of 2-inch by 3-inch white oak six feet long, two pieces of %-inch half-round yellow pine moulding sixteen feet long, two pieces %-inch quarter-round ditto and one piece 2% x %-inch beaded white pine for a cockpit coaming. Have them all wrapped up into a bundle, pay your mill bill, which should be about two dollars, and march home with the en- tire material for your canoe frame on your shoul- der. The bundle will weigh thirty pounds. Arrived home the first thing to do is to set to work at that stick of 2 by 3-inch white oak, for out of it you make the stem and stern knees. From the drawings herewith you will get the angles for bow and stern pieces. Saw across the top of the stick at this angle and again a parallel cut 14 inches from the top. Saw it straight across 9 inches further on and take the two pieces so 164 CANOEING AND CRUISING obtained and stand the 14-inch piece up on the other. You will at once see that you have, roughly, the bow knee. Draw the curve of the bow on both pieces of wood and saw off the super- fluous wood beyond the curve. You now must work both pieces into triangular shape and the best tool to do it with is a camp axe. Your stem should be half an inch thick at the extreme front so as to give room to screw on a brass stem-band, so draw two lines %-inch apart down the center of the front face of the blocks. Hew from these lines back to the rear corners with your axe until you have dubbed the stem and keel-piece roughly triangular in cross section and finish smooth with a plane. Now nail the stem to the keel-piece and you are ready to fit the deadwood, the triangular piece which holds both of them together. Take off the angle for this on a piece of paper from your already assembled stem and keel-piece and transfer the angle to your piece of oak stick, being careful to saw out the block with true cuts square across. If well done the deadwood block will fit snugly and you can screw it home with 2%-inch, No. 14 iron screws into stem and keel-piece. Work over the deadwood block until you get a true fit, as this is what takes the shock if you ram anything (and DECKED CRUISING CANOES 165 you're always ramming things on a canoe cruise). Drill screw-holes in the deadwood a little larger than the screws and just a little smaller than these in the back of stem and keel-piece. The bow knee is now done and the stern is made the same way. The next job will be to cut a shallow %-inch rabbet on stem and stern and keel-piece to take the canvas, and six notches on a side for the ends of the ribbands. The top notches must be deep enough to take two ribbands one on top of the other, y 2 inch deep. Now saw out the places in both stem and stern keel blocks to take keelson and keel, as shown in the working drawings, and the long job on stem and stern knees is done. The canoe will go ahead with a rush from now on. Take one of your %-inch strips and cut it 13 feet long for a keelson. Cut a shallow notch in the center %-inch by 1 inch and cut one like it at every foot each way to within one foot from each end. Turn the notches down and screw on the stern and stem knees at each end of the keel- son. Follow with a ribband nailed along under the keelson and of the same length, and then fit the keel, rockering it 1% inches each way and screwing from underneath to the keelson with long 3-inch screws or bolts. By rockering is meant tapering along the under side of the keel, which is 166 CANOEING AND CRUISING made out of one of your 2-inch spruce strips and should taper down to %-inch deep at each end, beginning five feet from the end. The job is best done with a hatchet and finished to a line with the plane. Now you are ready for the center mould. Make it of box boards as shown in the illustrations and set up over the middle notch in the keelson. Now take the first of your ash ribs, slip it through the middle notch and bend it snugly around the mould board, tying together across the top with a piece of string so that the rib cannot fly out straight again. Now take four ribbands, slip them in pairs over the ends of the mid-rib, bend them in at bow and stern and nail them temporarily over their notches with thin brads. Do not cut them off un- til everything else is done, as there will be a lot of taking up and letting out before the bottom is even and smooth. Put on all the other ribbands, five on a side, spacing them evenly along the mid- rib and tacking them in place by brads driven through ribband and rib into the edge of the mould board. Tack them temporarily over their notches at stem and stern, letting each ribband take its natural curve. You are now ready for the ribs, only the last two of which at each end will have to be steamed. DECKED CRUISING CANOES 167 Beginning each side of the mid-rib, shove in a rib down between the two ribbands of the gunwale, through the notch under the keelson and up between the opposite pair of gunwale ribbands. Tack it with a brad half-driven through the keel- son and rib and then push down the ends of the rib on each side until you get a true flat, almost like that of the mid-rib with almost as sharp a bend at the bilge. Lash tight with twine around the gunwale. You will also have to lash the mould- board down, as the tendency of the ash rib is to raise it and make your bottom not flat and safe but round and cranky. Put in the other ribs the same way, working in pairs towards bow and stern, always trying to have each curve a little less than the one before it and keeping them as flat across the keelson as possible. The last two will have to be steamed, easily done by simply wrap- ping a soaking towel of scalding water about the rib and letting it stand ten minutes while you drip on more steaming water from the tea kettle. The ribs just behind the stem and stern bend up from the keel so sharply that they simply must break, so, to put them in, whittle a block to shape and screw it down on the keelson, cut the rib in two and screw the lower ends of it to the block. 168 CANOEING AND CRUISING Tie the ribs to the ribbands wherever they cross and then turn the canoe frame over. Yon will find it all hills and valleys — flat spot here, a bnlge there, two halves of the same rib uneven, a lop- sided place somewhere else. What it needs is patient adjustment, shoving down the end of a rib in one place to give her more bilge, letting it np somewhere else, pulling a ribband in a little flatter or letting it out a bit, but finally the whole bottom will come out smooth and fair and is ready to rivet. Whether to use copper rivets or clinched copper nails I leave to you. All my canoes except this last one were done with 2d copper nails clinched inside and all were staunch and strong. In this one I used rivets (No. 1 — %-inch long) but it was a tedious job as they all had to have holes drilled for them, a shallow countersink made to sink the rivet-head flush with the ribband, and the little burrs are most exasperating to keep on while you are hammering over the rivet head. With cop- per nails it is just a drill hole with the brad awl, insert the nail and clinch over. However, do them all but the gunwale, which will be all out of shape from the pressure of the rib ends, and then untie your twine and adjust the gunwale to get a fair and pretty sheer. Secure with brass screws DECK FRAMING OF THE "WATERAT IV " Note center mould to left. AFTER STRETCHING CANVAS BODY VIEW RIB-BANDS OF THE 'WATER AT IV' Note center mould to left. ROUNDING THE MARK An exciting moment in a race of decked sailing canoes with bat-wing rigs. •^r?