For the rig we chose the sharpie leg-o'-mutton,
with the leach cut full to destroy that distressing bag-and-nigger-heel
combination that usually afflicts this type of sail. The mainsail had
15-foot hoist, 11-foot boom rising one foot aft, and 18-foot leach. The
mizzen had 10-foot hoist, 6-foot boom, rising about 14 inches, and
12-foot leach. This pair of sails were made of American drilling and
staked out on the floor of the big dock where we boys kept all our
boats. A twine run around nails driven in the floor at the corners of
these sail areas gave us something to cut to, and to get fullness in
the leach we cut the gores of the sail perpendicular to the leach,
instead of parallel to it as you would do with an ordinary mainsail. We
allowed 4 inches of outcurve to the leach, bending a thin batten over a
nail from peak to clew so as to get a fair curve. The sails were cut to
these limits and then sewed up and hemmed all around, for a
leg-o'-mutton sail of this size does not need a bolt rope. Brass
3/8-inch grommets were next put in at the end of every gore and midway
between each, and the sails were ready to bend on the spars.
To make these latter we discovered that the planing mill
carried round spruce in stock, in 14-and 16-foot lengths, thus doing
away with the necessity to work them up from square stock as I had done
with my sailing batteau. All this round stock needed was a little
tapering at gaff and boom ends and mast tops and you were ready for the
spar varnish. The mainmast was of 2-1/2-inch round spruce, main boom
and mizzen mast of 1-3/4-inch stock, and mizzen boom of 1-1/4-inch. The
rig was all made ready down at the club in three days of work, after
the daily swim, and we all pitched in and helped Harry out, as we
wanted him along on a big consort cruise down the bay. Both sails were
lashed to boom and mast by a running white cotton rope around the spar
and through the grommets, as no halyards are wanted on this rig; they
are a nuisance except on large sail dories. To step the mainmast all
that was needed was a 2-3/4-inch hole in the bow sheets, a stout oak
mast step bolted to ribs and keelson, and a 3/8-inch iron rod run
through the ribs at the bow sheets clear through the boat and upset on
the outside. This is essential, to brace the boat to withstand the
strain of the rig, or the pressure of the sail on the bow sheets will
strain the planking and make her leak forward. We had the village
blacksmith cut this rod for us and upset it over wide iron washers,
using an axe at one end as anvil and an ordinary hammer to upset the
other end.
The mizzen mast was stepped by simply screwing a
galvanized iron U-clamp to the aft rowing thwart and putting a mast
step in the grating below this thwart. This U-clamp can be bought at
any pipe fitter's, of the size to go around a 1-1/4-inch iron pipe.
Around the mizzen mast we also put the yoke for managing the rudder,
for, of course, you should not sit way back in the extreme stern to
handle a two-sail rig. The mast went through a hole in the yoke, and
two wire cords led back to the yoke on the rudder, so that a boy
sitting amidships could steer nicely.
This boat went like a racehorse. I took the first spin in
her, a leg out to sea and a leg back again, while the rest were in
swimming near shore. I got back so fast that I nearly ran down two of
them! The mizzen sheet was simply cleated fast and took care of itself
on either tack, as it was led down to a pulley block on the stern
transom and thence for'd to its cleat. My principal attention was on
the mainsail, the sheet of which was held in the hand and never
cleated, for this boat was nearly as lively as a sail canoe. And fast!
She beat most of the power boats that we met going our way, when I
shipped Harry and Raymond, my old mate of the Margaret, for a
crew and "beef to windward."
In bringing a sharpie about you use your mizzen to help
out the rudder. Get a good full on her, and then put the helm down
hard. This will throw her in stays where she will most likely hang, so
at this point back the mizzen, that is, push its boom out to windward
by hand, when the wind will fill it and shove her stern around so that
the mainsail will fill off on the other tack. With our 3-inch rockered
keel she still made a good deal of leeway, and was so slow in stays
that we could generally beat the W.B. ("world-beater") as Harry
called her, in tacking to windward, so later we added a keel board. To
make the rocker (I should have told you before), you strike a long
curve from one end to the other of your keel plank, making it 3 inches
deep for about 5 feet amidships and then tapering gradually to 1-1/2
inches at bow and stern, and this is easiest carpentered by dubbing
down with a hatchet and finishing with a jack plane. To add a 5-foot
keel board, we got a piece of 7/8-inch dressed oak board 8 inches wide,
sawed a slant at each end of it and put in three carriage bolts through
the top of this board, so that by putting the ends of these bolts
through three corresponding holes in the keel we could screw it fast
with galvanized iron wing nuts by hand. To put it on, of course, you
had to beach the W.B. and turn her over on her side, but, with
a light boat like the St. Lawrence skiff, this was easy for a couple of
boys to do when you were off for a long sail. With the keel board added
she was less lively, made less leeway and stood up much stiffer in a
blow. In all, I do not know of a better rig than this leg-o'-mutton
sharpie for a long, fine round bottomed rowboat, such as one finds In
thousands on all our lakes and the salt water bays and sounds of the
Atlantic Coast.
Another exceedingly popular small sailboat with us boys
was the Barnegat duckboat. As you will note from the plans herewith of
a typical boat of this type, she is built something like a wide,
shallow slipper, a "punkin' seed" as she is called in many localities.
The bottom is round, with a shallow dish curve, and the deck is almost
a duplicate of the bottom. There is a small cockpit amidships, a mast
hole a short distance for'd of this, and a centerboard trunk for a
dagger type centerboard is generally built in at the same time the boat
is made. As a cruiser, a ducking craft, and a fast racer in blows that
would put many a larger craft under three reefs, it is hard to beat the
Barnegat duckboat. With their high, rounded decks they are a most easy
craft for a boy to slide overboard out of, so the stern deck is
generally enclosed by a high board frame, secured to the decks with
hooks and eyes, and inside this frame go also the two wooden, folding
oarlocks.
N.H. BISHOP'S CLASSIC SNEAKBOX
"CENTENNIAL REPUBLIC"
[Editor's note: I added this so the
discussion of
sneakboxes makes more sense; a gunning or cruising sneakbox is not
like a racing sneakbox in rig.]
We boys knew these boats well, and sailed them in all
kinds of weather. I had an aunt down at Barnegat Bay, and whenever I
visited her she knew just what to do with me, and that was to give me
the exclusive possession of a small duckboat and sail and turn me
loose! It was just a little sprit sail, of some seven feet hoist and
eight foot boom, say, ten feet to the peak, and I was in a perennial
condition of wet feet with her, for she sailed with her whole lee rail
awash and I was a regular Roll-Down Joe -- I never spilled wind unless
she was positively going to upset! These small duckboats were steered
with an oar out astern through the sculling chock, and were simple and
primitive to handle, but how they could go! With a gun, some snipe
stools, a wad of fishing tackle and some bait, a boy could be so happy
for week on end at Barnegat that Heaven itself would have to go some to
beat it! Inside the cockpit coaming the baymen always put a sort of
wooden rack in which sedge grass could be stuck so that the boat
herself, by covering her decks with seaweed and anchoring her off a
point, would be an excellent duck and snipe blind. Although wet in a
heavy sea practically no water gets over the cockpit coaming, and, as a
boy's boat, they are one of the safest types imaginable.
Naturally the fame of such a boat would extend far and
wide from its birthplace in Barnegat Bay, and soon the "punkin' seed"
was developed into an able, fast racer, culminating in the Butterfly
Class of the Bayside (L.I.) Yacht Club, where a fleet of 21 of these
boats were ordered built at Barnegat, N.J., and raced every Saturday on
Long Island Sound.
THE BUTTERFLY CLASS
These were 14 feet long by 4 feet 6 inches beam and
usually had a crew of two to three boys, or one man. The sail area was
increased to 106 square feet, that is, boom, 12 feet, rising 14 inches;
hoist, 9 feet 6 inches; head, six feet; leach, 16 feet, with about 3
inches fullness. The sprit was retained for simplicity and made rather
long, 14 feet, stepped low down so as to throw plenty of draft into the
sail. All sprits are stepped alike, a slip noose around the mast and an
eye for the foot of the sprit to rest in. To set the sail the sprit is
slipped into a pocket in the peak (or an eye in the bolt rope at the
peak usually), and the peak is then raised until the foot of the sprit
rests in the "slippery Jim," as we called the sliding sprit rope. Then,
to tauten the sail arid throw wrinkles into the luff, you just raised
the noose up along the mast and it would stay fast wherever put. A
simple rig and the best for small boats of twelve to fourteen feet
L.W.L.
Charley Hall was the only one of us boys that owned a
sailing duckboat. She was sixteen-feet by five-feet beam and had
standing rigging, that is, the mast was stepped in her and held so by
wire shrouds, the sail raised with throat and peak halyards, and she
had a traveler over the tiller so that the main sheet block could cross
the boat on either tack, the sheet pulling so hard as to require a
block instead of being held by hand or over a cleat as with the smaller
duckboats. She was an able, fast boat; could beat the Margaret, hands
down, and no weather was bad enough to make her stay in if Charley
could get in reefs enough. But the smaller 14-foot boat, with its
simpler rig, we found the handiest type. She could do anything the big
boat could do, and then some, for you were not handicapped by standing
and running rigging, could leave the sails at home when the wind was
wrong or in working up a crooked salt creek, and you could pick the
whole boat up by the bow and camp under her, as she was so light.
As this boat is so easy to build I will outline here the
plans of her construction.
All the ribs are steam bent over the same mold, both
bottom and deck, usually of 3/8-inch by 1-inch oak stock. The keel is
simply a broad plank, 1-inch stock, a quarter inch heavier than the
3/4-inch cedar or white pine planking of which the rest of the boat is
built. The keel plank is tapered from about 8 inches amidships to 3 at
the bow, and 5 at the stern, in long easy lines, and is then bent up
forward and aft to fit the sheer. The frames are then screwed onto the
keel in pairs, riveted together at their ends, the transom secured to
the keel with a knee and a yellow pine chine is bent around inside the
frame joints, securing them all together longitudinally and taking the
place of the sheer strakes of the batteau construction.
The planks are next gotten out, three on a side, and
planed to an easy taper bow and stern, so that they lie side by side
over the ribs. They are riveted to the ribs, or secured with galvanized
iron clout nails, and where deck and bottom meet are finished with
smooth joint, and usually a low molding or gunwale is run around the
deck at this point. The cockpit coaming, and cockpit ceiling, screwed
to the frames, is next put in and the boat is done and ready to caulk
and let swell tight. She needs a skeg, sawed out of pine board, and a
center board trunk if you are going to sail her.
The centerboard trunk should of course be built before the
planking goes on while the boat is still in the keel and frame stage. A
slot is cut in the keel between the ribs just for'd of the cockpit, two
posts let in and the trunk sides screwed to these posts and screwed to
the bottom from the under side of the keel. The top of the board ends
in a corresponding slot in the deck planking, and a dagger centerboard,
12 inches by 3 feet long with a stop head, is shoved down through the
trunk, and it is removed entirely and stowed below when not in use.
The mast hole is cut in the deck partner plank and the
mast step screwed securely to the keel plank. Some boys of my
acquaintance, not feeling expert enough in their carpentry to plank
this duckboat, have built her as above described, fitting the planks as
closely as they could, and then put a canvas deck and bottom on her
just like a canoe, painting it to get her watertight. Such a boat will
do nicely anywhere but in rocky waters.
Down Boston way, where one sails a good deal on the open
ocean for pleasure and the heavy ocean swells run right into the
harbors in an easterly blow, the demand for an able, deep sea boat has
brought another favorite boy's sail craft into existence -- the sail
dory. The Barnegat duckboat is too low and shovel-nosed to live in a
heavy ocean sea. The choppy and comparatively low seas that get up on
inland waters and such wide bays as Barnegat and Great South Bay she
manages very well, albeit somewhat wet.
But suppose one end of her is held up on a comber six feet
high, while her nose is rammed into the breast of another of the same
height, -- you can readily see her whole for'd deck going under and the
boat swamped. What is wanted is a high, lifting bow, and high sides, a
deep, narrow boat, non-capsizable because of her depth, and
non-swampable because of her high sides and bow, -- in a word the
deep-sea Viking type of boat. Such a craft is the sail dory, such as
you will see on Long Island Sound and Down East from Buzzard Bay to
Maine. In addition to this the dory is light enough and flat-bottomed
enough to be easily beached, another fine feature for a boy's boat, as
going ashore on a strange coast is half the fun!
In general, the dory construction consists in a somewhat
narrow, flat bottom board, usually in three planks, a natural-bend stem
piece secured to this bottom board at one end, and a deep, narrow
transom stern secured to the other end of the bottom plank with a bent
knee. Four frames, sawn out of natural-bend rib stock, give you the
ribs and around these are wrapped the side planking, four planks on a
side. You will see that she is rather an easy boat to build, not as
simple as a batteau but considerably easier than a narrow-planked
round-bottomed rowboat which only an expert ship carpenter can put
together.
The original Swampscott Dory was 18 feet long by 4 feet 6
inches beam, 30 inches deep forward and 28 inches aft. It carried a
rig, as shown in the illustrations, of a wide shallow leg-o'-mutton,
13-foot 6-inch foot, 11-foot hoist, 16-foot leach, and a jib of 8-foot
hoist, 6-foot foot and 7-foot leach. A centerboard was let in between
the first and second frames for'd, giving you room enough for a 3-foot
board. About two hundred pounds of ballast in sand bags ought to go on
her bottom, and so rigged and ballasted she makes a very able, fast
boat for a boy of twelve to fourteen years.
It seemed to me that a sail dory would be a splendid
proposition for cruising in Barnegat Bay down near the Inlet where the
ocean rollers come into the bay and the distances are so great that a
very neat sea gets up in the bay itself. Such a boat could live in
weather that would either send the duckboat to port or else make a very
wet boat of her, and so I ordered the largest and best of the sail
dories, the decked 17-footer, as made by the Toppan or Cape Cod Dory
Companies. This boat was wider than the regular dory, being 5 feet 6
inches beam for 17 feet of length. She was about the same depth fore
and aft, but was decked over, with a 10-foot cockpit about 4 feet wide,
and a traveler astern to lift the main sheet block over the tiller.
This boat, the Bee by name, carries much more sail
than the smaller and narrower type of dory. She has 17-foot hoist,
18-foot boom rising two feet, and 14-foot hoist by 8-foot foot for the
jib. The rig is standing, that is, there is main halyard, jib halyard,
jib downhaul and wire rope shrouds for the mast. She will take four to
six people easily, and for a cruiser for four boys is unsurpassed.
Seaside Park is the furthest point by rail to the hunting
and fishing grounds of Barnegat, and from there down to Cedar Creek is
six miles further before the shooting gets good, and ten miles to the
Inlet where you get channel bass in the surf, also weaks and croakers
and bluefish, small weakfish in the bay, and snipe and ducks in their
season. Further on, down towards Great Bay and Little Egg Inlet, the
water is still rougher and the shooting and fishing splendid. To reach
those places requires a long roundabout trip by rail, and we have also
tried rowboat and sand tramping with a camp on the beach for several
days to get to it. Sand camping is the hardest of all sorts of outdoor
camping; the sand blows into everything, the mosquitoes and flies are a
pest, and the wind blows so hard that even your fire gets blown out!
The big sail dory changed all that. Now we take the train
for Seaside Park, hoist our sail and are away for the delights of a
cruise in those waters. Decoys, provisions and a cockpit tent are kept
aboard under the bow deck, so that all we have to bring is the rods,
guns, ammunition and bait. A water butt takes care of the all-important
water problem, and we go ashore to fish and shoot wherever we please,
as you can beach her anywhere. At night, we top up the boom and tie the
ridge of the cockpit tent underneath the boom, fastening the sides down
to staples outside the cockpit coaming. A scrim front and rear curtain
keep out the mosquitoes, and we have four ticking bags which we fill
with dry seagrass on the beach and put one on each side of the
centerboard and two up in the stern sheets. The grating is taken up out
of the bottom and hung just below the cockpit seats, with turn-out
cleats for the purpose, and so you get two stories, so to speak, for
our tent, and there is plenty of room for four to sleep aboard.
In the morning the little alcohol yacht stove is pulled
out in its tin galley box, and a breakfast of coffee, bacon, eggs,
fried fish and creamed potatoes is furnished by the cook -- which is
me! Then a lunch is put up and we have the whole day ashore fishing or
in the snipe blinds. Returning at nightfall, a big feed is cooked up
aboard the boat, and a little later we are ready to turn in, for "early
to rise" is the only rule to get good fishing and shooting. No sand, no
mosquitoes, no wind blowing everything to kingdom come -- it's a great
improvement over our old camping days on the beach, and now we can go
forty miles, when ten used to be our outmost limit.
THE 17-FT CLUB SAILING DORY Bee
The smallest sail dory is the 14-foot open sailing boat,
virtually the Gloucester fishing dory with a sail stepped in her. The
hoist for this would be 10 feet, boom 13 feet, rising 12 inches. The
simplest possible spar rig would be a horizontal sprit, running from a
slippery Jim on the mast to a pocket in the clew. The mainsheet is bent
to a ring in the clew bolt rope and there you are! This makes a very
nice boat for young boys, but rather too small for youths of sixteen
and up. If you live in a town where there are shipyards, especially in
New England, it will not be so very hard to build yourself a sail dory
of the 17-foot or 18-foot size.
Dory side planks have so very much sheer to them that the
plain lumber mill board will cut to a lot of waste, so regular white
pine dory stock is kept on hand by most Down East shipyards. This is
natural-bent tree, sawed into 5/8- or 3/4-inch stock. Then the ribs,
which are of tamarack (or, as it is often called, hackmatack), are
sawed out of natural crooks, which are kept in stock at the shipyard.
Enlarge the frame patterns I give you in the illustrations to fit the
size you want on big sheets of brown paper, cut out and take to the
shipyard where you can try them on the stock and pick out what you will
need and have it sawed out on the bandsaw at the yard. In the same way
the stem is gotten out of a 5-foot piece of 2-inch oak, natural curve,
and with it the stern knee. For bottom board you will want 7/8-inch
white pine stock, 6 or 8 inches wide, in the 14-foot merchant length,
ordinary dressed lumber boards, and, for side planks, dressed white
pine, 5/8-inch stock, 20 feet long, about 10 inches wide, for the six
side planks, and 14 for the two garboards. These will be natural sweep
stock.
Enlarge your bottom plan to full size, and get out the
three bottom planks to make up, the center plank being full width, as
in it you must cut the centerboard slot and so do not want the
centerline to be a crack. Now clamp together and tack with a few cross
pieces, and then set up your four frames, screwing through the bottom
with No.10 brass screws, allowing three feet for the centerboard frame
and the rest spacing about even, some 2 feet 10 inches apart.
Plumb and set up the stem and stern knee, and secure to
bottom board with three or four galvanized iron screws each. The frames
and stern transom are then beveled to fit the planking, the angles
being gotten by running strips of light stuff around, touching all the
frames. The stem knee has of course been rabbeted to receive the
planking before setting up.
You are now ready for the garboard planks, the spiling of
which will be shown from the frame flats. Bend your wide garboard plank
around and mark the pattern points on it direct. The bottom line can be
scribed with a pencil and the upper points marked and joined with a
long flexible sweep strip. Saw it and its mate out with the rip saw and
nail on with galvanized iron clout nails, about 10d. is right, clinched
on the inside of each rib. Bore holes in the plank and rib before
driving the nails, to prevent splitting, and do not nail anything until
the garboard is a perfect fit everywhere. The bottom planking wants
about 1-1/4-inch rocker on it before scribing the bottom line of the
garboard
Note that the bow and stern of the garboard are much wider
than the midships, about 12 inches for'd and aft and 6 inches amidships
is about right. Also note that the first two planks come in line on the
stem and stern, there being no knuckle, and are almost carvel fitted at
the center frames. The next two lap and are beveled to a fit and
clinch-nailed together.
The planks can be wrapped and marked in place or a spiling
taken from a straight strip, either way you prefer. After the garboards
are on, the craft will be strong enough to turn over and build upside
down, as that is much the easiest way to plank her. After the planking
is finished you will want a 2 x 7/8 inch oak gunwale wrapped around
outside, and a 2 x 7/8-inch pine riser secured around inside about 8
inches below gunwale to rest the thwarts on. The centerboard trunk is
made of two oak posts of 2 x 7/8-inch stock (same stock as gunwale) and
two wide 17- or 18-inch white pine boards, 3 feet long, are screwed to
each side of the posts over a white lead and wicking filler, making a
tight trunk, with about an inch of the posts sticking down below the
trunk.
The posts are then notched half an inch to give the ends
of the trunk something to bite on when in place, and a 3/4-inch by
3-foot slot is then cut in the center bottom board of the dory. (See
construction drawings in Part One, Chapter IV.)
Drive in the posts, with a turn of lamp wicking, soaked in
white lead paste completely around the slot, and secure with galvanized
iron screws driven up through the bottom of the dory into the bottom
board of the trunk. This job should be tight enough to squeeze out
paint all around. The center board is next gotten out of 5/8-inch
dressed oak and hung by a white pine pinion driven through the side of
the trunk in the lower for'd corner and the dory is ready for sails.
Brace the mast step thwart by knees to the planking and put in the step
with the grain running across the boat.
18-FT DECKED RACING DORIES
