A Land-yacht
A few years ago the only kind of yacht known to the boys were those that sailed in the water, but in this advanced time, when many unheard-of things have been made possible, the land-yacht has made its welcome appearance. Down on the Southern coasts, particularly Florida and California, where the sand packs fine and hard, the land-yacht is an important feature both for pleasure and business, and if properly handled in a good breeze it will run from ten to twenty miles an hour. No end of fun can be had with a properly constructed boat, and the ingenious boy may employ old baby-carriage or bicycle wheels for the running-gear.
A yacht of medium size can be made on the lines of Fig. 1 at a comparatively small cost for the timbers and sail-cloth, spars and hardware. The leg-of-mutton sail is used in preference to the square sail, as it has the greatest area close to the ground and is less liable to upset and much easier to handle.
To begin with, obtain some spruce joist clear-grained and free from knots. They should be two-by-four inches and twelve feet long. Cut one of them eight feet long and use it for the main cross-piece to which the front wheels are attached. Form a V of two twelve-foot joist, and fasten them to the cross-piece as shown in Fig. 2. About ten inches of each piece should project beyond the cross-piece. The timbers are bolted fast and at the rear end they are bevelled and brought together, then bolted through from side to side as shown in the plan (Fig. 2). Three feet back of the long cross-piece a shorter timber is set in between the V-shaped frame as shown at A. At the middle of this timber a hole one inch and a half square is cut and into it a tenon on the butt-end of the bowsprit fits as shown in Fig. 3.
The bowsprit is seven feet long and is bolted fast to the long cross-piece. Where the end fits into the timber A two angle-blocks are nailed fast. Seat-planking is cut and screwed or nailed fast to the V-shaped frame as shown in both Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. The boards should be ten inches wide and cut to overhang the timbers an inch or two at both ends.
If the wheels from an old baby-carriage are to be used the axle should be cut in half with a hack-saw and each part clamped under an end of the cross-timber with U-shaped clamps having the ends threaded and provided with nuts and washers as shown at Fig. 4. The rear or steering wheel is set in a fork that a blacksmith will make from strap-iron, and a round piece of the same metal, having a square-headed upper end, will do for the rudder-post as shown at Fig. 5. A short axle threaded at both ends and provided with nuts will hold the wheel in place, and when the post is passed up through a hole made in the timbers a tiller can be slipped over the square shoulder and bolted fast so that it will stay in place.
The tiller is of hard-wood two inches broad at the rear end, one inch in thickness, and tapered so that it will be about an inch square with the corners rounded where it is grasped by the hand. The handle part of it should be bound with linen cord to improve the grip. Give the deck wood-work and timbering a few coats of red, buff, or light-green paint.
The mast-step is rigged over the forward cross-timber. Two upright pieces of board twenty inches long and eight inches wide are attached to the outside edges of the frame-joist with screws. On top of these a cross-piece is made fast so that the step presents the appearance of a bench. Two pieces of board six inches wide are fastened from the corners down to the bowsprit and cross-timber to brace the step as shown at Fig. 6. An iron brace is made fast to the top of the step, behind the mast, and to the bowsprit, as may be seen in the illustration.
