A Quiet Cove.
Oak is handsomer in appearance, but is too heavy and splinters badly at the edges when exposed to wear and tear. It is usually the best available wood for keels and timbers.
Spanish cedar splits too easily to be used for planking, but makes a handsome deck, and is strong enough when properly supported by carlines.
Butternut is a little heavier than cedar, but is somewhat harder and tougher, and is far more beautiful in color and grain. In point of texture and toughness there is small choice between the two. If one is willing to paddle a pound or two of additional weight for the sake of appearances, let him choose butternut. If not, white cedar is best. Clear butternut can be had in longer and wider strips than cedar.
For stem and stern posts hackmatack is given the preference, by nearly all builders. For the timbers, carlines, and interior braces of all sorts, tough, nonsplitable woods are used, different builders having different favorites.
The masts technically denominated the "main" and "dandy," may be of white-ash, spruce or pine—the last being lightest and weakest. They should be carried up without any taper, a short distance above the deck—say three feet for the main and two for the dandy. This is not very essential, it merely makes them bend more symmetrically under sail pressure. Ash is heavier than spruce, but more slender and graceful spars may be made from it, owing to its greater strength. The Commodore having tried both, rather prefers ash. Some members of the New York Club have used bamboo for masts with satisfactory results; for its weight it is certainly the strongest of spars, and in appearance it is all that can be desired, except that it does not taper quite enough at the top to suit a fastidious eye. This objection might be overcome by using a topmast of pine or spruce.
It is almost always convenient to have the masts of a canoe jointed, so that they can be readily stowed below decks. The simplest and cheapest way is to place the mast so that it shall be an inch and a quarter or less at the joint, that being the largest regular size of fishing-rod ferrules. Such joints have been fully tested and are strong enough. The device known as the "sliding gunter" is a brass fitting which holds the main topmast and slides up and down the mainmast, operated by a halyard. It works very well when in perfect order, but is apt to give trouble when the parts get wet. Moreover it necessitates a clumsily large lower-mast, since this part must be deeply grooved to receive the topmast-halyard over which the "gunter" slides. The Vice who has tried the sliding gunter rig has decided to adopt a simple nine-foot mast with a mainsail like that shown in the illustration on page 107, and a ferrule joint. The sail runs up and down on rings as do those of the Red Lakers, and having throat and peak halyards attached to the gaff, the peak can be dropped or raised without lowering the sail. This has the effect of reefing and shaking out without the bother of tying the reef-points shown in the sketch referred to, on the lower part of the mainsail.
The Red Lakers, by the way, are reefed by means of a small brass S. hook carried at the peak of each sail. The sail is lowered away and this hook passed through any one of the rings on which it runs. When hoisted again the sail is of course correspondingly reduced in area.