Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys

by Joseph H. Adams

A rowing sharpy can be converted into a sail-boat by partially decking it over, making a mast-step, and providing it with a lee-board if a centre-board cannot be arranged in the middle of the hull. Fig. 18.

The half-deck will keep out the water that might splash over the sides or come over the bow and stern, and the row-boat features need not be altered nor the seats removed, as the rib and brace work for the deck can easily be fitted and fastened over the seats, and so give additional strength to the deck.

A SAILING SHARPY

Just behind the front seat and at the forward edge of the back seat cross-ribs are made fast to the sides of the sharpy. Between these, and eight inches from the sides of the boat, additional braces are sprung into place and securely attached at the ends, and provided with short cross-braces as shown in Fig. 15. The deck planking is nailed to these ribs and the seats under them give a substantial support to both the ribs and deck. The opening or cockpit will be six feet long and varying in width, as the side decks are eight inches wide and follow the line of the boat’s sides. Amidships it should measure about twenty-eight inches.

The braces and ribs are made of three-quarter-inch spruce boards five or six inches wide, and to bend them in the segment of a circle (as they will have to be for the side-ribs) pour hot water over two of them and place the ends on boxes with heavy stones at the middle to bend them down to the required curve. Allow them to remain in this position for several hours to dry in the sun; they may then be cut and fitted to the boat. The decking is done with narrow strips of pine, cypress, or cedar one inch and a half wide and three-quarters of an inch in thickness. They are bent to conform to the side lines of the boat, and if they are fitted nicely and leaded the deck should be water-tight after it receives varnish or paint.

If straight boards are employed in place of the narrow planking the deck can be covered with canvas and first given a coat of oil, then several successive thin coats of paint. The canvas should be tacked down over the outer edge of the boat and to the inner edge of the cockpit. A gunwale-strip an inch square is to be nailed along the top edge on both sides of the boat, and one inch below the top of the deck nail a guard rail along each side.

To finish the cockpit arrange a combing in place to project four inches above the deck, and make the boards fast to the inner side of the ribs with screws as shown in the illustration of the hull of sailing sharpy. Fig. 15.

Ten inches back from the bow-post bore a hole two inches and a half in diameter so that a mast will fit securely in place. The hole should extend through the deck and front seat, and a step-block with a hole in it to receive the foot of the mast must be nailed fast to the bottom of the boat. The hole in this block is oblong, and the foot of the mast should be cut on two sides so as to fit in the block as shown in Fig. 16.

Spruce or clear pine sticks are to be dressed and planed for the mast and boom, the mast measuring fourteen feet high by two inches and a half at the base, and the boom thirteen feet long by two inches in diameter, both tapering near the end.