"But how can you sail if there's a dead calm?" asked Tom.
"What we ought to do with that boat," Charley continued, "is to step her mast about eighteen inches aft of where it is stepped now. Then we can rig out a bowsprit and put a jib on her. She ought to be lengthened at the stern too, so that we could reach the end of the boom and put in a reef without going ashore to do it."
"We might make the bowsprit ourselves," said Tom; "but we couldn't lengthen her ourselves, and it would cost a good deal to get it done."
"I'll undertake to lengthen her myself," said Charley. "It won't cost us anything but the price of a few nails and some pieces of wood."
"How on earth would you go to work?" cried Jim. "Do you mean to saw her in two, put a piece in, and nail her together again?"
"Perhaps," said Joe, "he means to steam her, and then stretch her. If you can bend wood by steaming it, you ought to be able to stretch it."
BUILDING THE "OVERHANG."
"I'll show you what I mean if you fellows will only pay attention," replied Charley. "Now here's her transom, this flat board at her stern, where her name ought to be painted. You see it's all above water, and that the end of every plank is nailed to it. Now the first thing to do is to take four pieces of joist—I believe that's what carpenters call it—about four inches square, and bolt them to the transom. You want to put them about six inches apart, and they must be just as long as the transom is deep."
"I don't quite understand," said Tom, "what you mean by saying they must be as long as the transom is deep."