Boat-Building and Boating

Daniel Carter Beard

Boat-Building and Boating

EAN 8596547122012

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: DigiCat@okpublishing.info

Table of Contents

PREFACE

Boat-Building and Boating

BOAT-BUILDING AND BOATING

CHAPTER I HOW TO CROSS A STREAM ON A LOG

How to Build a Logomaran

A Logomaran

If You Have an Auger and No Nails

Fibrous Inner Bark

How to Make a Fibre Rope

A Dunnage Crib

CHAPTER II HOME-MADE BOATS

The Crusoe Raft

The Chump's Raft

A Chump's Raft of Logs

CHAPTER III A RAFT THAT WILL SAIL

The Deck

The Sail

The Keelig

CHAPTER IV CANOES

Slab Canoe

The Dugout

How to Build a Siwash Canoe

How to Make a White Man's Dugout Canoe

CHAPTER V CANOES AND BOATING STUNTS

Old Shells

Checks or Cracks

The Cause of Upsets

The Delights of a Shell

Stand Upright In a Shell

How to Land Where There Is No Float

How to Embark Where There Is No Float

Ozias Dodge's Umbrella Canoe

How the Canoe Was Built

Will Last for Years

CHAPTER VI THE BIRCH-BARK

The Tree

Dimensions

Bark

Difference in the Bark

Process of Peeling

Toasting

The Roll

Effects of Heat

The Woodwork

Ribs

Lining Strips

Seasoning

The Bed

Building

To Soften the Bark

Bow-piece

Patching and Pitching

Leaks

Bottom Protection

A Canvas Canoe

To Paddle a Canoe

To Carry a Canoe

CHAPTER VII HOW TO BUILD A PADDLING DORY

How to Calk a Boat so That It Won't Leak

CHAPTER VIII THE LANDLUBBER'S CHAPTER

Red and Green Lights

Parts of a Sail

How to Steer a Boat

How to Sail a Boat

To Sail Close-hauled

Coming About

In a Thunder-storm

What to Do

To Reef Without Lowering Sail

The Reef or Square Knot

To Shake Out a Reef

Lights for Canoe

Some Do Nots

It is Necessary to Learn to Swim

Boating-Clothes

How to Make a Bathing-Suit

Sunburn

Clothes for Canoeing

Stick to Your Boat

Life-Preservers

CHAPTER IX HOW TO RIG AND SAIL SMALL BOATS

How to Make a Lee-Board for a Canoe

How to Rig and Sail Small Boats

Simplest Rig Possible

Leg-of-Mutton Rig

The Latteen Rig

The Cat-Rig

How to Make a Sail

Hints to Beginners

CHAPTER X MORE RIGS OF ALL KINDS FOR SMALL BOATS

The Cat

The Sloop

Racing Sloops

Jib and Mainsail

Schooner Rig

The Balance Lug

The Standing Lug

Leg-of-Mutton Sail

The Buckeye

Sliding Gunter

Sharpies

The Sprit Leg-of-Mutton Sail

The Dandy Jigger, or Mizzen Rig

The Lateen Rig

The Ship

CHAPTER XI KNOTS, BENDS, AND HITCHES

How to Make a Horse-Hair Watch-Guard

Miscellaneous

Whiplashes

Splices, Timber-Hitches, etc.

CHAPTER XII HOW TO BUILD A CHEAP BOAT

The Yankee Pine

How to Build a Better Finished Boat

Side-Boards

Spreader

The Stem-piece

Don't

The Seats

The Keel-Board

The Skeg

To Fasten on the Skeg

A Guard Rail

To Transform an Ordinary Skiff or Scow Into a Sailing-Boat

CHAPTER XIII A ROUGH-AND-READY BOAT

The Stern-piece

Use Rope for Binding

Planing the Bottom

The Deck

Ready for the Water

How to Make the Sail

How to Reef Her

CHAPTER XIV HOW TO BUILD CHEAP AND SUBSTANTIAL HOUSE-BOATS

A Unique Navy

Some of These House-Boats

Big Square Sails

House-Boat as a Fashionable Fad

A Flat-Bottomed Scow

Building Material

Centrepiece

The Sides of the House-Boat

Make Four End-Pieces

Now for the Bottom

The Bumpers

The Hull May Now Be Painted

Twenty-Odd Ribs

The Cabin of this House-Boat

Deck-Ribs

The Boat May Now Be Launched

The Keel

Side-Supports for the Cabin May Be Erected

Use Ordinary Flooring

The Hatch

Upper Deck

The Rafters

Box In Your Cabin

This Roof

To Contrive a Movable Front

The Rudder

A Pair of Rowlocks

Two or More Ash Poles

The Locker

A More Simple Set of Plans

Canvas-Cabined House-Boat

Information for Old Boys

The Cost of House-Boats

For People of Limited Means

Street-Car Cabins

CHAPTER XV A CHEAP AND SPEEDY MOTOR-BOAT

The Stern-Board

PREFACE

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This

is not a book for yacht-builders, but it is intended for beginners in the art of boat-building, for boys and men who wish to make something with which they may navigate the waters of ponds, lakes, or streams. It begins with the most primitive crafts composed of slabs or logs and works up to scows, house-boats, skiffs, canoes and simple forms of sailing craft, a motor-boat, and there it stops. There are so many books and magazines devoted to the higher arts of ship-building for the graduates to use, besides the many manufacturing houses which furnish all the parts of a sail-boat, yacht, or motor-boat for the ambitious boat-builder to put together himself, that it is unnecessary for the author to invade that territory.

Many of the designs in this book have appeared in magazines to which the author contributed, or in his own books on general subjects, and all these have been successfully built by hundreds of boys and men.

Many of them are the author's own inventions, and the others are his own adaptations of well-known and long-tried models. In writing and collecting this material for boat-builders from his other works and placing them in one volume, the author feels that he is fulfilling the wishes of many of his old readers and offering a useful book to a large audience of new recruits to the army of those who believe in the good old American doctrine of: If you want a thing done, do it yourself. And by doing it yourself you not only add to your skill and resourcefulness, but, what is even more important, you develop your own self-reliance and manhood.

No one man can think of everything connected with any one subject, and the author gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to several sportsmen friends, especially to his camp-mate, Mr. F. K. Vreeland, and his young friend, Mr. Samuel Jackson, for suggestions of great value to both writer and reader.

Dan Beard.

Flushing, L. I.

, Sept., 1911.

Boat-Building and Boating

Table of Contents

Fig. 1.—The logomaran.

BOAT-BUILDING AND BOATING

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I

HOW TO CROSS A STREAM ON A LOG

Table of Contents

How to Build a Logomaran

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There

is a widespread notion that all wood will float on water, and this idea often leads to laughable errors. I know a lot of young backwoods farmers who launched a raft of green oak logs, and were as much astonished to see their craft settle quietly to the bottom of the lake as they would have been to see the leaden sinkers of their fish-lines dance lightly on the surface of the waves. The young fellows used a day's time to discover what they might have learned in a few moments by watching the chips sink when they struck the water as they flew from the skilful blows of their axes.

The stream which cuts your trail is not always provided with bridges of fallen trees. It may be a river too deep to ford and too wide to be bridged by a chance log. Of course it is a simple matter to swim, but the weather may be cold and the water still colder; besides this, you will probably be encumbered with a lot of camp equipage—your gun, rod, and camera—none of which will be improved by a plunge in the water. Or it may so happen that you are on the shores of a lake unsupplied with boats, and you have good reasons for supposing that big fish lurk in some particular spot out of reach from the shore. A thousand and one emergencies may arise when a craft of some kind will be not only a great convenience, but almost a necessity. Under these circumstances

A Logomaran

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may be constructed in a very short time which can bear you and your pack safely to the desired goal (Fig. 1).

Fig. 2.—The notch.

Fig. 3.—Top view of logomaran.

In the Rocky, Cascade, and Selkirk Mountains, the lakes and streams have their shores plentifully supplied with whim sticks, logs of fine dry timber, which the freshets have brought down from the mountain sides and which the rocks and surging torrents have denuded of bark. These whim sticks are of all sizes, and as sound and perfect as kiln-dried logs. Even in the mountains of Pennsylvania, where the lumberman's axe years ago laid waste the primeval forest, where the saw-mills have devoured the second growth, the tie-hunter the third growth, the excelsior-mills and birch-beer factories the saplings, I still find good sound white pine-log whim sticks strewn along the shores of the lakes and streams, timber which is suitable for temporary rafts and logomarans.

In the North Woods, where in many localities the original forest is untouched by the devouring pulp-mills, suitable timber is not difficult to find; so let the green wood stand and select a log of dry wood from the shore where the floods or ice have deposited it. Cut it into a convenient length, and with a lever made of a good stout sapling, and a fulcrum of a stone or chunk of wood, pry the log from its resting-place and roll it into the shallow water. Notch the log on the upper side, as shown by Fig. 2, making a notch near each end for the cross-pieces.

The two side floats may be made of pieces split, by the aid of wooden wedges, from a large log, or composed of small whim sticks, as shown by Fig. 3.

The floats, as may be seen by reference to Figs. 1 and 3, are shorter than the middle log.

It is impracticable to give dimensions, for the reason that they are relative; the length of the middle log depends, to some extent, upon its diameter, it being evident that a thick log will support more than a thin one of the same length; consequently if your log is of small diameter, it must be longer, in order to support your weight, than will be necessary for a thicker piece of timber. The point to remember is to select a log which will support you and your pack, and then attach two side floats to balance your craft and prevent it from rolling over and dumping its load in the water.

An ordinary single shell-boat without a passenger will upset, but when the oarsman takes his seat and grasps his long spoon oars, the sweeps, resting on the water, balance the cranky craft, and it cannot upset as long as the oars are kept there. This is the principle of the logomaran, as well as that of the common catamaran. The cross-pieces should be only thick enough to be secure and long enough to prevent the log from wabbling and wetting your feet more than is necessary.

Fig. 7.—The saw-buck crib.

Fig. 8.—The staked crib.

If You Have an Auger and No Nails

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the craft may be fastened together with wooden pegs cut somewhat larger than the holes bored to receive them, and driven in with blows from your axe.

If you have long nails or spikes the problem is a simple one; but if you have neither auger, nails, nor spikes you must bind the joints with rope or hempen twine.

If you have neither nails, auger, nor rope, a good substitute for the latter can be made from the long,

Fibrous Inner Bark

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of a dead or partly burned tree. For experiment I took some of the inner bark of a chestnut-tree which had been killed by fire and twisted it into a rope the size of a clothes-line, then I allowed two strong men to have a tug-of-war with it, and the improvised rope was stronger than the men.

How to Make a Fibre Rope

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Take one end of a long, loose strand of fibres, give the other end to another person, and let both twine the ends between the fingers until the material is well twisted throughout its entire length; then bring the two ends together, and two sides of the loop thus made will twist themselves into a cord or rope half the length of the original strand.

If you nail or peg the parts, use your axe to flatten the joints by striking off a chip, as in Fig. 4.

If you must lash the joints together, cut them with log-cabin notches, as in Figs. 5 and 6.

If you have baggage to transport, make

A Dunnage Crib

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by driving four stakes in cuts made near the end of the centre log and binding them with rope or fibre (Figs. 7 and 8), or by working green twigs basket-fashion around them, or make the rack saw-buck fashion, as shown by Fig. 7, and this will keep your things above water.

A couple of cleats nailed on each side of the log will be of great assistance and lessen the danger and insecurity of the footing.

A skilfully made logomaran will enable you to cross any stream with a moderate current and any small lake in moderate weather. It is not an especially dry craft, but it won't sink or upset, and will take one but a short time to knock it together.

CHAPTER II

HOME-MADE BOATS

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Birth of the Man-Friday Catamaran—The Crusoe Raft and Chump Rafts

Not

so very many years ago I remember visiting, in company with my cousin Tom, a small lake at the headwaters of the Miami. High and precipitous cliffs surround the little body of water. So steep were the great weather-beaten rocks that it was only where the stream came tumbling down past an old mill that an accessible path then existed. Down that path Tom and I scrambled, for we knew that large bass lurked in the deep, black holes among the rocks.

We had no jointed split-bamboo rods nor fancy tackle, but the fish there in those days were not particular and seldom hesitated to bite at an angle-worm or grasshopper though the hook upon which the bait squirmed was suspended by a coarse line from a freshly cut hickory sapling.

Even now I feel the thrill of excitement and expectancy as, in imagination, my pole is bent nearly double by the frantic struggles of those gamy black bass. After spending the morning fishing we built a fire upon a short stretch of sandy beach, and cleaning our fish and washing them in the spring close at hand, we put them among the embers to cook.

While the fire was getting our dinner ready for us we threw off our clothes and plunged into the cool waters of the lake. Inexpert swimmers as we were at that time, the opposite shore, though apparently only a stone's throw distant, was too far off for us to reach by swimming. Many a longing and curious glance we cast toward it, however, and strong was the temptation that beset us to try the unknown depths intervening. A pair of brown ears appeared