WORKING PLANS OF A CATAMARAN.
HOW TO BUILD A CATAMARAN.
BY F. S. C.
By this time, boys, you must be pretty well tired of winter sports—ice-boating, coasting, skating, to say nothing of cold fingers, frost-bitten ears, and red noses. There is no doubt but what you are as much pleased to see the grass looking a little green, and an occasional bud here and there, as older people. You perhaps have wished it might be spring for another reason, that is, to find out what was to be done with your ice-boat. If you remember, at the time the plans came out you were told to take particular care of your craft, as it could be put to good use in the spring. Well, with a few changes your ice-boat is to become a catamaran.
In the first place, you must unrig her. Take off the mast bench, side boards, floor, and stern pieces, and also the runners and rudder; then unfasten the runner plank, and move it back one foot six inches, and bolt it to the keel. Now call on your friend the carpenter, and get a plank of the same dimensions as the runner plank. Bolt that to the keel at the extreme end (one bolt will do). Have cut two pieces of pine plank five feet nine inches long, four inches wide, and one and a half inches thick; place them as in the plan. Replace the mast bench, and bolt it to the forward plank and sides as shown; bolt also the sides to the plank aft.
Perhaps it would have been better to have commenced with the hulls, and left the frame until afterward; but it makes very little difference, as it all has to be done. Now build the hulls. You must get four boards (white pine) twelve feet long, half an inch thick, and eighteen inches wide, not a check or a knot to be found even with a microscope. As you must be pretty well acquainted with the carpenter now, he will take particular pains to get the kind you want. Make the boards as in Fig. 1. At 1, 2, 3, 4 draw lines; cut the sheer line and the bow. The moulds (Fig. 4) 1 and 3 to be made of oak one and a half inches thick, and 2 and 4 of pine one inch thick. Take measurements carefully, as they are intended to remain in place, and not be removed after the hulls are formed over them.