Chapter I.
The boys had talked all winter of the cruise which they hoped to take in a sail-boat during the coming summer, and they spent a great many Saturday afternoons at boat yards and places in New York, Jersey City, and Brooklyn, where sail-boats are laid up for the winter. They found several cat-boats that suited them very well, and that could be bought at a low price; but they did not find it so easy to convince Uncle John that a sail-boat cruise would be a safe enterprise for boys so young as Tom Schuyler, Jim and Joe Sharpe, and Harry Wilson. They did not say much about it to Mr. Schuyler, Mr. Sharpe, or Harry's father, for, as Joe pointed out, when Uncle John Wilson gave his consent, it would be time enough to speak to them. "If I go now," he said, "and ask father if I can go cruising in a cat-boat, he'll say, 'Most certainly not, my son; boys have no business with sail-boats.' But if Uncle John goes to him, and tells him all about it, he'll be perfectly satisfied, and say, 'My son, I think you had better do as Mr. Wilson suggests.'" Joe was quite right, for Mr. Sharpe, while he knew nothing about boats, had entire confidence in Mr. John Wilson's prudence and judgment; and though he would have been very apt to refuse to give his sons permission to go sailing—on any ordinary occasion—he would have consented to any plan proposed by so careful and trustworthy a man as Uncle John was known to be.
When the sail-boat cruise was first proposed to Uncle John, he was not inclined to think well of it. "You've been Moral Pirates in a row-boat," said he, "and now you want to try Moral Piracy in a sail-boat. To tell you the truth, boys, I don't half like the idea. To manage a sail-boat requires more coolness and judgment than boys generally have, so I don't think the Department will be able to put a sail-boat in commission this year."
It was not until Uncle John found that the water in the bays on the south side of Long Island, where Tom Schuyler wanted to cruise, was in nearly all places too shallow for drowning purposes, that he consented to say that he would "think about" the sail-boat plan. He thought about it for some time without seeing any good reason to approve of it. He told Tom that while it was true that the water in the bay was deep only in certain narrow steamboat channels, a sail-boat might capsize in one of these very channels. Besides, if one of the boys were to fall overboard, the sail-boat could not pick him up as quickly as he could be picked up were he to fall out of a row-boat. "After all," he added, "the real difficulty is that not one of you is accustomed to manage a sail-boat, and that is a difficulty which we can't get over."
The boys still continued to talk among themselves about their desired cruise, without giving up the hope that Uncle John would change his mind, and when spring came something happened that did make him change it. Tom received a letter from his friend Charley Smith, who was in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, saying that he would come and spend the months of July and August with him. Now Charley was a very fine fellow, nearly a year older than Tom. He had been two years at the Academy, and was already a good sailor. Tom immediately wrote to him and asked him how he would like to be captain of a sail-boat, and go on a cruise through the south bays. Charley was delighted with the plan, and wrote to his guardian—for he had no father nor mother—and easily obtained his consent.
Now Uncle John knew Charley Smith well, and thought very highly of him, and when Tom came to him and showed him Charley's letter, he said at once that the Department of Moral Piracy would be glad to put Captain Charles Smith in command of a cat-boat.
"My dear boy," he continued, "I hated to say no when you proposed your plan, and I am as pleased as you are now that I can conscientiously approve of it. Charley is perfectly competent to manage a sail-boat, and if he will take charge of the boat, and you and the other boys will obey his orders, you shall have your cruise if I can bring it about."
And he did bring it about, as Joe said he would. Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Schuyler, and Harry's father all gave their consent when Uncle John explained the matter to them; and when this important business was settled, Uncle John went with the boys to select a boat.
They found one at Gowanus which they all agreed was just the boat they wanted. She was twenty feet long, with plenty of beam, and with room under her forward deck to carry a good deal of cargo. She was only two or three years old, and was perfectly sound and very strong. There was a good copper pump fastened to the after-end of the centre-board trunk, and all she seemed to need to fit her for immediate use was a good coat of paint. The boatman from whom she was bought was ordered to deliver her at Harlem, and the boys went home delighted.
For the next few weeks the boys went to look at the boat at least twice a week, and devoted most of their spare time in drawing up lists of things to be taken with them on the cruise, and to studying the Coast Survey charts of the south shore of Long Island. Tom contrived a plan for making a cabin to be used at night. He had small iron sockets placed at each end of the cockpit so as to hold two upright sticks. Across these an oar was laid for a ridge-pole, and over the ridge-pole was stretched a piece of canvas, the sides of which were tied to rings fastened on the outside of the washboard. In this way the cockpit was entirely covered, and in the cabin thus formed the boys could lie or sit on the bottom of the boat and keep perfectly dry in the heaviest shower. Of course this cabin, or tent, could be used only when the sail was furled, and the boom hoisted a foot, so as to be out of the way, but it was not intended to use it except at night, when the boat would be at anchor or moored to the shore.
The various lists of stores drawn up by the boys showed that their cruise in the Whitewing had taught them what things were necessary and what things were unnecessary for a long boating expedition. Uncle John had cushions made for the seats, not, as he told the boys, because they needed cushions to sit on, but because these cushions could be laid on the bottom of the boat at night and used as mattresses. This particularly pleased Joe Sharpe, who had put down on his list, "Thirty pounds of tenpenny nails for a bed." He said, in explanation of this:
"I'm tired of sleeping on coffee-pots and tin cups, as I used to when we slept in the Whitewing, and I thought some good big nails would be a good deal more comfortable. However, if Uncle John supplies mattresses, I'll cross off the nails, for I don't think they would be quite as comfortable as a mattress."
As on their former cruise, the boys decided to wear only blue flannel shirts and trousers, and to take neither coats nor waistcoats. Of course each one had a change of clothes, besides a blanket and a rubber blanket, but Harry's proposal that they should take rubber overcoats with them was voted down. When Uncle John came to look over their lists, he found scarcely a single article which could be spared, with the exception of Tom's cannon. This was an iron cannon about a foot long, and with an inch bore, and the boys were so anxious to take it with them that Uncle John consented, telling them that it might prove useful in the way of ballast should any of their sand-bags be lost overboard.
"I DON'T LIKE HER AT ALL."
It was decided not to paint the boat or to name her until Charley Smith should see her. On the 1st of July he arrived in town, and was met by the boys, who instantly carried him to Harlem to show him the boat. They expected that he would be delighted with her; but what was their dismay when, after looking at her for a few minutes in silence, he answered Tom's question, "How do you like her?" by saying, gravely, "I don't like her at all."
"Why, what in the world is the matter with her?" demanded Tom, while the others looked wonderingly at the young sailor who did not like their beautiful boat.
"Nothing that can't be cured," answered Charley. "The trouble with her is that she's a cat-boat, and a cat-boat is just the meanest kind of boat in the world."
"Can't we turn her into a dog-boat or a horse-boat?" asked Joe. "To tell the truth, boys, I don't believe a cat-boat can be good for much if she is anything like a cat. I wonder if cat-boats can climb back fences and howl?"
"I always thought that a cat-boat was the best kind of sail-boat anybody could have," said Tom. "There's only one sail and three ropes to handle."
"There are two reasons why a cat-boat isn't fit for a cruise where you are liable to meet all kinds of weather," replied Charley. "One is that you can't run before a gale with her. You've no sail except the mainsail, and even if you close reef it and drop the peak, you will sometimes have more sail than the boat ought to carry. Then, when you're scudding, the boom is apt to roll under, and if this happens when it is blowing hard, and there's a good deal of sea on, you'll capsize so quick that you won't have time to put on your overshoes."
"But what good would overshoes do you in deep water?" asked Tom.
Charley smiled, but did not answer him. "The other reason why I don't like a cat-boat is that she won't work to windward with her peak dropped. If you are sailing in a wind, no matter how hard it blows, you must keep the peak up, or you can't keep the boat from falling off. I don't care how many rows of reef-points the sailmaker may have put on the sail, you can't reduce it to more than half its original size if you expect the boat to beat to windward. If a cat-boat is caught in a heavy gale blowing directly off shore, she can't carry sail enough to work into the lee of the land, and she is liable to be blown a hundred miles out to sea."
"What kind of a boat ought we to have, then?" inquired Tom, who did not understand everything that Charley said, but who knew that he must be right.
"A jib-and-mainsail boat, of course," replied Charley. "If you have to scud, you can scud all day under your jib, and keep as dry as a bone, and you can work her to windward with the mainsail close reefed. If you have your jib sheets led aft, the boat can be handled by one man just as easy as a cat-boat. The only thing a cat-boat is good for is sailing in a dead calm on a mud-bank."
"But how can you sail if there's a dead calm?" asked Tom.
"What we ought to do with that boat," Charley continued, "is to step her mast about eighteen inches aft of where it is stepped now. Then we can rig out a bowsprit and put a jib on her. She ought to be lengthened at the stern too, so that we could reach the end of the boom and put in a reef without going ashore to do it."
"We might make the bowsprit ourselves," said Tom; "but we couldn't lengthen her ourselves, and it would cost a good deal to get it done."
"I'll undertake to lengthen her myself," said Charley. "It won't cost us anything but the price of a few nails and some pieces of wood."
"How on earth would you go to work?" cried Jim. "Do you mean to saw her in two, put a piece in, and nail her together again?"
"Perhaps," said Joe, "he means to steam her, and then stretch her. If you can bend wood by steaming it, you ought to be able to stretch it."
BUILDING THE "OVERHANG."
"I'll show you what I mean if you fellows will only pay attention," replied Charley. "Now here's her transom, this flat board at her stern, where her name ought to be painted. You see it's all above water, and that the end of every plank is nailed to it. Now the first thing to do is to take four pieces of joist—I believe that's what carpenters call it—about four inches square, and bolt them to the transom. You want to put them about six inches apart, and they must be just as long as the transom is deep."
"I don't quite understand," said Tom, "what you mean by saying they must be as long as the transom is deep."
"I mean that each piece that you bolt on must reach from the level of the deck, that is, from the top of the transom, to the lower edge of the transom."
"Oh, now I understand," exclaimed Tom.
"Very well. Now you want to take four pieces of inch plank, two feet eleven inches long, and fasten them with screw-bolts to the side of each piece of joist, so that they will extend in a straight line from the stern. To the ends of these planks you must nail a new transom, which will have to be smaller in every way than the old one, because the lines of the boat, when carried out three feet, will approach each other. After you have put braces between the pieces of plank, so as to keep them firm, you must carry out your planking and your deck to the new transom, and there you have your boat lengthened three feet. The lengthened part will be all 'overhang,' but the boat will be all the prettier for it."
"Won't she be very weak?" asked Tom.
"Not if you do the work carefully. The new planking mustn't all begin at the old transom, or she wouldn't hold together; but if you cut every other one of the old planks off at the first timber (rib, I suppose you'd call it) forward of the transom, and fasten the end of the new plank to this timber, and follow the same plan in carrying out the deck planks, she'll be strong enough. We'll leave a hole in the deck for the rudder head to come through, and will have to move the iron rod that the sheet-block travels on a couple of feet further aft. I'd like no better fun than to lengthen her, if you fellows would like to have me do it, and we can get the tools."
The boys were greatly pleased with Charley's proposal. The boat, when lengthened, and sloop-rigged, would, they thought, be a real yacht, and altogether a much more imposing craft than a cat-boat. The matter was laid before Uncle John that night, and he willingly agreed to pay the cost of carrying out Charley's plans. "He is right," said Uncle John, "about the rig, and I suppose he is right about lengthening the boat. He shall have whatever he needs; but I hope you'll all remember that if the Department spends all its money in fitting out this boat, you'll have to turn round and keep the Department in food and clothes for the rest of its days."