Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys

by Joseph H. Adams

Rows of hooks will accommodate clothing, and the lower berth should be at least twenty-two inches up from the floor to allow room to slide a trunk or two under it. These rooms can be ceiled and papered, or painted, as a matter of choice, but a few coats of varnish will render the wood-work in good shape and proof against dampness.

All the windows and doors in this boat can be of stock sizes, so that the cost of special sizes can be avoided. The sheathing may be of cedar shingles or of clapboards, as the cost is about the same. The clapboards should be painted, and will look better than shingles, although a very artistic effect is had by staining the shingles and painting the door and window casings in shades to match, preferably in the brown and olive-green shades.

The flooring of the upper deck should be of regular flooring boards with matched edges and planed on one side. Over this flooring canvas should be stretched and tacked, and afterwards given two or three coats of oil and varnish to make it water-proof, and finally treated to a coat or two of lead-colored paint. The seams should all be well laid down, and fastened with copper or tinned tacks, driven about two inches apart. It would be well to give the boards two good thick coats of paint before the canvas is applied, so that when the oil soaks through the canvas it will soften the paint somewhat, and help to hold the canvas in its proper place.

Leading from the fore-deck to the upper deck a stair or companionway is built, and anchored securely in place to the front of the house. The platform at the head of the staircase is braced over the front doorway by means of two iron rods that act as brackets, and which are screwed securely both to the under side of the platform and to the door-casing. This can be an open stairway composed of two side ways and eleven treads, the ends of the treads being anchored in grooves cut in the ways, and securely fastened with screws.

The rail around the deck is of common iron gas-pipe held in place by sockets and uprights. If the piping cannot be had, then hickory or hard-wood poles one inch and a half in diameter may be employed and held in place by uprights three inches wide and thirty inches high, through which two holes have been bored to receive the poles.

Around the fore and after decks a stringer three by six inches can be spiked down, and to the sides near the bow and stern large cleats should be bolted fast, by which the raft can be moored. Amidships at the bow a large post may be fastened, around which to attach a tow-line if necessary, and at the stern a rudder is arranged, with the post projecting up through the deck for a distance of a foot or eighteen inches. A mortise should be cut in the top of this post, into which the end of a tiller can be inserted when steering the craft, either when in tow or under sail.

A mast twenty-five or thirty feet long can be stepped amidships against the front of the house, and strapped fast to the upper deck with a horseshoe band. A step-block can be fastened to the deck into which the tenoned end of the mast will fit.

A yard-arm about twenty feet long, or longer if desired, can be arranged to hoist nearly to the top of the mast, and from which a large square-sail may be rigged so the lower corners will fasten to outriggers four or five feet long that can be temporarily braced at the sides of the boat when sail is set. This pole affords a good place from which to fly club or college colors, and from which to suspend lines of colored and Japanese lanterns to illuminate at night. This mast should be six inches in diameter at the base, and gradually taper near the top, and if a sail is to be used frequently, it would be a good plan to bobstay and shroud the stick with some standing rigging, so as to relieve it from the entire strain of a large sail.

The top of the house affords a living-room twenty-three feet long and twelve feet wide, and in that space a number of chairs, a table, hammocks, and benches can be accommodated.

For lake, river, and bay use this deck can be covered by a large awning, supported at the centre by a ridge-pole, and at the sides by upright posts that hold a stout wire in place, over which the striped awning canvas is caught. Drop-curtains at the sides will be convenient to ward off the bright sunlight, and this deck-room will be found the most delightful place to spend the pleasant days and evenings.