It is almost impossible to upset a sailing catamaran even in a gale, and for boys a boat of this kind affords a great deal of comparatively safe pleasure.
A catamaran is about the easiest sort of a boat to make, and no matter in what locality one lives there is always material at hand from which to make one as the wood is similar to that used for house construction.
Fig. 5 shows a side elevation of a safe catamaran, and in Fig. 6 the deck plan is shown. In Fig. 7 an elevation view of the stern shows the arrangement of the boats, deck timbers, and rudders.
The boats are fifteen feet long, eighteen inches wide at the middle, and two feet deep uniformly from bow to stern except for a short distance at the bow where the keel rounds up.
They are in the form of a V, and at the ends the angle becomes more acute, so that at the stem and stern the lines are vertical.
Four feet from both ends the deck line begins to curve as shown in Fig. 6, and in Fig. 8 the cross-braces are shown. They are cut in at the bottom to slip over the keel and to them the sheathing planks are made fast.
In Fig. 8 the curved stem-piece and one side of planking is shown, and it indicates also where the curved stem-piece is joined to the keel, which extends in a straight line to the stern of the boats.
The keel is of hard-wood one inch and a quarter thick and six inches wide. The cross-braces or spreaders are of pine or other soft wood seven-eighths of an inch thick and made up of three pieces of wood with the grain running vertically.
The sheathing is of pine, cedar, or cypress three-quarters of an inch thick, planed on both sides, and three or four inches wide. Each board should be given a priming coat of paint before it is nailed to the braces, and where the planks are edged together white-lead and lamp-wick should be employed for calking. Galvanized boat nails are to be used for all the fastenings, but screws may be employed where it is necessary to have a very secure joint.