For safety on the water, as nearly as safety can be assured, there is nothing to compare with a catamaran, for they are practically “non-capsizable,” and if not damaged to the leaking-point one or the other of the two boats will float and hold up several persons. Fig. 1 gives a good idea for a rowing catamaran that any boy can make from some boards and light timbers. It is provided with a seat and oar-locks so that the occupant may be seated above the water far enough to row easily.
The boats are fourteen feet long, eighteen inches wide, and fourteen inches deep, including the bottom and deck.
Pine, white-wood, cedar, or cypress, three-quarters of an inch thick and planed on both sides, will be necessary from which to construct the boats. At the bow the ends of the sides are attached to a stern-piece of hard-wood as shown in Fig. 2. Having poured boiling water on the forward ends, they may be drawn around a spreader sixteen inches long and twelve inches wide provided with two U-cuts as shown in Fig. 3. These are placed at the bottom, so that any water may be run to one end of a boat where it can be pumped out.
The first spreader is placed three feet from the bow, and three or four more of them should be fastened between the sides as shown in Fig. 4, the last one being three feet from the stern where the sides begin to curve up to the upper edge of the stern and to the deck.
The bottom is of three-inch pine or white-wood boards seven-eighths of an inch thick and well leaded in the joints and along the edges where the bottom and top boards join the sides. Before the top or deck is placed on, the interior of the boats should have two or three good coats of paint.
Three cross-stringers of spruce two and one-half by four inches and six feet long are securely attached to the boats, and on these the deck of four-inch boards is made fast as the illustration will show. Between the middle and forward stringer, at the ends, two boards are attached on which the row-locks may be fastened. These boards are eight or nine inches wide and cut away at the front so that they are not more than two or three inches wide.
The high ends are braced with round iron braces as shown in the illustration, and where the oar-locks are mounted a short plate of wood is screwed fast to the inside of each piece.
Near the front cross-piece a seat is built and braced with a board. With another boy at the stern sitting on the deck this catamaran will be well balanced and will prove very seaworthy, as well as a light boat to row.