If you choose, a small seat or deck may be inserted in the stern, through which the helm extends and which will help to steady it. The top of the helm, or protruding ends of the small pipe may now be bent over toward the bow, as shown in the diagram, and by holding some hard substance under it, the end may be flattened with a hammer and two holes drilled through the flattened end for the rudder-line, as in [Fig. 239]. These lines work the rudder and extend on each side of the boat through some clothes-lines pulleys, as shown in [Fig. 239].
If you slice off the ring from a common rubber hose and slip it over the inside pipe before you fasten it in place, it will prevent the water from spurting up through the rudder pipe when the boat is speeding.
Any boat will leak if not carefully built and the simplest kind of a craft carefully put together is as water-tight as the most finished and expensive boat.
For a gasoline tank any good galvanized iron vessel will answer if it holds five gallons or more of gasoline. It can be placed in the bow on a rest made for it. Of course the bottom of the tank must be on a level or higher than the carburetor of the engine; the tank is connected by a small copper, or block-tin pipe, which you procure with the engine.
This boat, if built according to plans, should cost ten dollars or less, not counting the cost of the engine. The cost of the latter will vary according to the style of one you use, and whether you get it first or second hand.
A ten-horse power engine drove a boat of this kind at the rate of eighteen miles an hour.
For beginners, this is as far as it is safe to go in boat-building, but thus far any one with a rudimentary knowledge of the use of tools can go, and, if one has followed the book through from chapter to chapter he should be a good boat-builder at
The End