A PROGRAMME—SUBJECT TO CIRCUMSTANCES
The Hunkydory was an unusually large boat for a craft of that kind. She was about twenty-five feet long, very wide amidships—as dories always are—and capable of carrying a heavy load without much increase in her draught of water. She was built of white cedar with a stout oak frame, fastened with copper bolts and rivets, and fitted with capacious, water-tight lockers at bow and stern, with narrower lockers running along her sides at the bilge, for use in carrying tools and the like.
She carried a broad mainsail and a large jib, and had rowlocks for four pairs of oars. Sitting on the forward or after rowing thwart, where she was narrow enough for sculls, one person could row her at a fair rate of speed, so little resistance did her peculiar shape offer to the water. With two pairs of oars, or better still, with all the rowlocks in use, she seemed to offer no resistance at all.
It was the plan of the boys to depend upon the sails whenever there was wind enough to make any progress at all, and ply the oars only when a calm compelled them to do so.
“We’re in no sort of hurry,” explained Larry, “and it really makes no difference whether we run one mile an hour or ten. There aren’t any trains to catch down where we are going.”
“Just where are we going, Larry,” asked Dick. “We’ve never talked that over, except in the vaguest way.”
“Show the boys, Cal,” said Larry, turning to his brother. “You’re better at coast geography than I am.”
“Hydrography would be the more accurate word in this case,” slowly answered Cal, “but it makes no difference.”
With that he lighted three or four more gas burners, and spread a large map of the coast upon the table.