Canoeing, sailing and motor boating

Front matter

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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. Beginning 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 witness the army of inland bluejackets trained at the Great Lakes and other stations far from our seacoasts.

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, manage 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 pretentious of them — with always still another boat looming in the future, on paper ! His experiences afloat have given him golden memories, with future ones in store, and the knowledge and self-reliance 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 Spanish "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 seaman's names for things aboard a yacht.

It is believed that the book will have wide appeal, 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 expensive 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 Knockdown 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. Catboat 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 Ignition

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

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 carried 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 manufacturing center.

But we boys were of the sail period of the Bepublic ; 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 permission to own a boat, a sail boat of course, usually 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 precious frigate at about the age of fifteen and acquired 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 racing 18-rater knockabout. And, as the port had a flourishing yacht club, we boys were much in demand 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 overhauling 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 landlubberliness seems to have come to stay, the ancient 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-bottomed batteau, four and a half foot beam, that cost me ten dollars just as she lay, a common rowboat, in Capt. Milham's slip. I bought her with the money of my eleventh Christmas, having convinced Pater the summer before that I could outswim 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 permission 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 never pass), and my first work was to paint her and put her overboard. That meant a can of copper paint for her bottom, a can of white lead for her outside, and a can of buff for the inside coating. 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 contraption 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

"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 centerboard 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 gunwale, 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 be beaten, devised a heel board for his boat, preferring 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 running 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 underneath. 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 frightened 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 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 simple 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 disreputableness 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 the eleven-year-old "Cap'!!" of a sail boat myself! 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, washboards, 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 another season half found. During February conferences 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, 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 sixteenfoot 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 Saturday 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, 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 finished 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 disguise, 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 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 marlinspike 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 ordinary 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 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 seaman would tolerate a knot or a crown on the end of a reef point.

By this time I was allowed at large, as the mumps were about over, but bad not returned to school, and my first excursion was to the shipyards 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 riding high in the drydocks, their bulging sides covered 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, entirely 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 galvanized mast rings, six of them, were lashed to the luff of the sail at each point where a brass grommet 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 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 manner 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 location of this block on the gaff takes some experiment. 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 galvanized 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 masthead 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 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.