It
would be an almost endless as well as unprofitable task to go over the names and characteristics of all our various kinds of boats in detail.
Of heavy-sterned and clumsy river craft, we have an innumerable fleet.
There are also Torbay Trawlers, which are cutters of from twenty to fifty tons; and the herring-boats of Scotland; and cobbles, which are broad, bluff, little boats; and barges, which are broad, bluff, large ones; and skiffs, and scows, and many others.
In foreign lands many curious boats are to be met with. The most graceful of them, perhaps, are those which carry lateen sails—enormous triangular sails, of which kind each boat usually carries only one.
India-rubber boats there are, which can be inflated with a pair of bellows, and, when full, can support half-a-dozen men or more, while, when empty, they can be rolled up and carried on the back of one man, or in a barrow. One boat of this kind we once saw and paddled in. It was made in the form of a cloak, and could be carried quite easily on one’s shoulders. When inflated, it formed a sort of oval canoe, which was quite capable of supporting one person. We speak from experience, having tried it some years ago on the Serpentine, and found it to be extremely buoyant, but a little given to spin round at each stroke of the paddle, owing to its circular shape and want of cut-water or keel.
Of all the boats that swim, the lifeboat is certainly one of the most interesting; perhaps it is not too much to add that it is also one of the most useful. But this boat deserves a chapter to itself.