But it won't do to brood over your troubles, and lay the blame on the ice-men or the snow.
Why can't you build another boat for the next sailing season, and let your ice-boat go for a little while? You are still on good terms with your friend the carpenter? and you haven't bothered the life out of the blacksmith with the iron-work of your ice-boat? You must call them to your aid again, and also make friends with the painter.
With your experience in boat-building, you ought to make something nice this time. Suppose you try to build a flat-bottomed sail-boat, large enough to hold you and several of your friends. A sail-boat is much harder to build than any that you have yet tried; but that is no reason why you can't do it.
In the first place, you want two pine boards for the sides, twelve feet long, twenty inches wide, and one inch thick, well seasoned, and free from knots or checks. Cut as shown in Fig. 1, using divisions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to guide you. You must be careful about your measurements, or you will have a leaky boat.
Get a piece of oak for the dead-wood, or stem, eighteen inches long, four inches deep, and six inches thick. Follow the measurements carefully, and take particular notice of the difference between the top and bottom in Fig. 3. The keelson is made of white pine, nine feet long by seven inches deep and five and a half inches wide. Get the curve of the bottom from the side; it commences at the dotted line on Fig. 1, thence aft to section marked 4. You must allow, however, for the mortising in the back of the dead-wood, as shown in the side elevation, Fig. 6. Cut four boards, following the patterns marked 1, 2, 3, 4, Fig. 5; these are intended to mould your boat on. No. 5 is the stern, which is to be made of oak one inch thick, and is a fixture. The others are to be removed just as soon as the bottom is nailed on. Fasten the sides to the dead-wood with good-sized brass screws. Then put the moulds in their respective positions, as marked in plan Fig. 2; bend and nail the sides to them. Screw the stern-piece in place, and turn the boat over, and with plane and straight-edge prepare for putting on the bottom. Use white pine seven-eighths of an inch thick. Fasten with galvanized nails, making the joints as tight as possible.
Cut an opening in the keelson for the centre-board trunk, as shown in Figs. 2 and 4, then nail in position from the bottom. Saw through the bottom board into the keelson, for your trunk comes through, and is flush with the bottom of the boat. Be careful that the ends of the boards are nailed to the keelson at the opening. Take out the moulds, and put inside a ribbon of oak one by three inches. Screw to the sides and bottom. This, you will find, stiffens the sides very much. Also put in ribs of oak one inch square, mortised into the ribbon, and cut off flush with the top of the side, twenty inches apart. These are not absolutely necessary, but will give your craft additional strength. You might get in a heavy storm, you know, or experience severe head-winds.
Thwarts of pine one and three-quarter inches thick are to be placed in next, with the exception of the one amidships. These serve the place of moulds, and keep the sides in place, to be held in position by oak strips underneath them. Screw them to the sides, and the thwarts to them. The forward one serves as mast step, and the after one as support for the rudder-post. Your deck beams are made of oak one inch thick and two inches deep, three forward and one aft. These beams must be cut with curved tops so as to make a crown for your deck, that it may shed water. The stern piece shows the height of the crown aft. Forward of the cockpit it ought to be two inches above the side, then a gradual sweep to the stern. The deck may now be put on, and planed flush with the side. Put an oak ribbon one by three inches on the outside, flush with the top of the deck. Fasten to the sides with brass screws. The lower edge of the ribbon might have a bead cut on it. It makes a finish, you know.
Make the centre-board trunk of pine twenty inches wide, one and three-quarter inches thick, and five feet long; ends one and a half by two inches, fastened in by brass screws; the trunk to be rabbeted, and fitted into the keelson, and running through flush with the bottom. Make the centre-board of yellow pine four feet six inches long, one and a quarter inches thick, and two feet wide, dowelled with galvanized rods. This will stiffen and weight it at the same time. Fasten in the trunk with a pin at the lower end forward. Don't put your deck on before your trunk is in, just because the deck is spoken of first. Speaking of that, you must strengthen the narrow part of the deck with brackets, as shown in Fig. 4.
