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"
[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
