Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys

by Joseph H. Adams

A scow (Fig. 1) will be found the easiest of all boats to construct, but at the same time the hardest to row, since both the ends are blunt and vertical. A scow is for use in shallow water and is poled generally instead of being rowed. It is built in a similar manner to the punt, but the ends are not cut under. A good size to make the scow for general use will be fourteen feet long, eighteen inches deep, and four feet wide. It may be provided with two or three seats, and when complete both the punt and scow should receive two or three good coats of paint.

A Sharpy

It is not a difficult matter to make a sharpy like the one shown in Fig. 5, but care must be taken in its construction to insure good unions and tight joints.

Cedar, white-wood, pine, or cypress are the best woods of which to build small boats, and wide boards can be had at almost any lumber-yard. White cedar is somewhat more difficult to get than the other woods, but if possible it should be used.

To make this sharpy the proper size for a boy’s use, obtain two boards fifteen or sixteen inches wide, fourteen feet long, and seven-eighths of an inch thick, planed on both sides and as free from knots as possible. If the boards cannot be had fifteen inches wide, then batten two boards together with strips just as plain board doors are made. Before they are fastened, however, smear the joint edges with white-lead and embed a string of lamp-wicking through the middle. Use plenty of white-lead, and after the boards are pressed together and fastened the surplus lead can be scraped from both sides of the joint and saved for other joints.

From a piece of hard-wood cut a stem eighteen inches long and four inches wide, with bevelled planes, as shown in Fig. 6. A section or end view of this post will appear like Fig. 6 A. Against the cut-in sides of this post the bow ends of the side boards are to be attached with screws or galvanized boat nails.

The long side boards are to be cut at bow and stern as shown at Fig. 7 A and B. The bow recedes three inches and the stern is cut under thirty-four inches. Attach the bow ends of the boards to the stem-piece or post so that the top of the sides will be seven-eighths of an inch below the flat top of the post. If properly done you will then have a V-shaped affair resembling a snow-plough, which must be bent and formed in the shape of a boat.

From a board seven-eighths of an inch thick cut a spreader ten inches wide, forty-eight inches long at one side, and forty-two inches at the other, as shown in Fig. 8. Arrange this between the boards about midway from bow to stern, so that the bottom of the spreader is flush with the bottom of the sides; then draw in the rear ends of the boards and tie them temporarily with a piece of rope.

Drive a nail into the edge of each board near the end, to prevent the rope slipping off, for if it should do so the boards would fly apart and might break away from the stem-piece.

In order to draw in the ends to the proper position, insert a short stick between the ropes and twist it around until the rope is wound up; then if the end is not in far enough, slip another rope around the ends of the boards, and after releasing the first rope insert the stick and continue the twisting until the ends of the side boards are twenty-one inches apart. Before this bending process is begun, it would be well to pour a kettleful of boiling water over each side board to limber them, for dry boards are stiff and will not bend easily without checking or cracking. If it is possible to steam the boards they will yield still better to the bending process.