THE LAND YACHT.
Only one thing of importance occurred between our Christmas holidays and
Eastertide: this was Bill's invention of the tricycle sailboat or land
yacht. We had returned to school with sailing on the brain. Our skate
sail served us well enough while there was any ice, but as spring came
on we wished we had our canoe with us, or even the old scow to sail on
the lakes near the school. Once we seriously considered building a
sailboat, but the project was given up, as we had few facilities for
such work. But Bill wasn't easily baffled, and I wasn't surprised to
have him come tearing into the room one day, yelling, "I've got it! I've
got it!" In his hands were two bicycle wheels, which I recognized as
belonging to a couple of bicycles we had discarded the year before.
"What are you going to do with them?" I inquired.
"I'm going to make a tricycle sailboat."
"What?"
"A tricycle sailboat, a land boat, or anything you've a mind to call it.
I mean a boat just like our ice boat only on bicycle wheels instead of
skates. We can sail all over south Jersey on the thing. Come on down and
help me build it."
THE FRAME OF THE YACHT.
[Illustration: Fig. 215. The Backbone and Crosspiece.]
I followed him to the shed at the back of the school and found that he
had already procured a couple of scantlings for the frame of the boat.
The sticks were 2 inches thick and 4 inches wide. The backbone was cut
to a length of 10 feet, and a 5-foot link was sawed off for the
crosspiece. The two pieces were securely nailed together about 3 feet
from the forward end of the backbone. The crosspiece was set on edge,
but a notch was cut in it about 1 inch deep to receive the backbone. We
might have braced the frame with wooden braces, as in the ice boat, but
we thought that this time we would vary the design by using wire bracing
instead, thus making the frame much lighter. I asked Bill how he
proposed to tighten the wire. Turnbuckles were the thing, but I knew
that they were rather expensive.
"Just you leave that to me," said Bill. "I've a scheme that I think will
work out all right."
A SIMPLE TURNBUCKLE.
[Illustration: Fig. 216. An Eye Bolt.]
[Illustration: Fig. 217. Stretching the Guy Lines.]
At the hardware store of the town we bought a pound of No. 16 iron wire,
eight large screw eyes and six eye bolts, with nuts and washers. Both
the screw eyes and eye bolts had welded eyes and the shanks of the eye
bolts were 6 inches long. A pair of screw eyes were now threaded into
the backbone at each side about 18 inches from the end, and at each end
of the crosspieces an eye bolt was fastened. I began to see Bill's plan.
He was going to draw the wire taut by tightening up the nuts on the eye
bolts. To get the best effect the hole for the eye bolt had to be
drilled in on a slant, so that the bolt would pull directly in the line
of the wire. To get just the right angle we ran a cord from the screw
eye on one side to the point where the bolt was to be inserted, and
traced its direction on the crosspiece. The hole for the eye bolt was
now drilled parallel with the mark we had traced. The same was done at
the other end of the crosspiece. A pair of screw eyes were now screwed
into the backbone at the fore end and a pair of eye bolts were set at a
corresponding angle in the ends of the crosspiece. The crosspiece was
notched at each side so that the nuts and washers on the eye bolts would
have a square seating. Then we stretched on the wire guy lines, drawing
them as tight as possible, with the eye bolts held in place by a turn or
two of the nuts, after which we screwed up the nuts as far as we could,
thus drawing up the wire until it was very taut. This done the second
nut was threaded onto each bolt against the first so as to lock it in
place and prevent it from jarring loose.
STEPPING THE MAST.
[Illustration: Fig. 218 The Frame with Wire Braces.]
Our next task was to step the mast. We found in the shed an old
flagstaff 15 feet long and 3 inches in diameter. The lower end of this,
for about a foot, we whittled down to a diameter of 2 inches, and drove
it into a hole in the backbone 12 inches from the forward end. The mast
was stayed by a wire stretched from the head to an eye bolt at the fore
end of the backbone. The end of the mast which projected below the
backbone was stayed with wire running forward to an eye bolt and aft to
a screw eye on the backbone, and also with a pair of wires running to
screw eyes threaded into the crosspiece near the ends. We couldn't very
well use eye bolts on these wires except at the fore end, but we
stretched the wires as tight as possible before the screw eyes were
screwed all the way in, and then, as we turned the screw eyes, the wire
was wound up on them and drawn fairly taut. Fig. 219 shows a side view
of the frame, and wires marked 1 and 2 are the same as illustrated in
Fig. 218, which is a top or plan view of the frame.
MOUNTING THE FRAME ON BICYCLE WHEELS.
[Illustration: Fig. 219. Bracing the Mast.]
We were now ready to mount the frame on the bicycle wheels. We used only
the front wheels of the bicycles with the forks in which they were
journaled. The shanks at the top of the forks were firmly driven into
holes in the crosspiece near the ends. For the steering wheel Bill took
the front fork and wheel of his new bicycle, letting the shank into a
hole at the stern end of the backbone.
THE TILLER.
[Illustration: Fig. 220. The Tiller.]
[Illustration: Fig. 221. The Seat.]
For a tiller we used a piece of an old rake handle. A small hole was
first drilled into the handle and the end of the stick was then split
through the hole, permitting the projecting shank of the fork to be
driven tightly into the hole. The split wood was now tightly closed onto
the shank by means of a bolt (see Fig. 220). In the rubbish heap we
found an old chair. The legs were sawed off and the seat was then firmly
nailed to the backbone. The back of the chair was cut down so that it
just cleared the tiller.
A "LEG-OF-MUTTON" SAIL.
[Illustration: Fig. 222. Leg-of-Mutton Sail.]
[Illustration: Fig. 223. The Sailor's Stitch.]
[Illustration: Fig. 224. Laying Out the Sail.]
Everything was now completed but the sail. This was a triangular or
"leg-of-mutton" affair, of the dimensions given in Fig. 222. It was made
of light canvas, 30 inches wide, of which we bought 14 yards. Out of
this we took one strip 18 feet long, one 13 feet, one 8 feet, and one 3
feet long. We had no sewing machine, and therefore had to sew the strips
together by hand. The selvedge edges of the strips were lapped over each
other about an inch and then they were sewed together sailor fashion,
that is, each edge was hemmed down, as shown in Fig. 223. The strips
were sewed together so that at the foot each projected at least 21
inches below the next shorter one. This done, the sail was cut to the
dimensions given, allowing 1-1/2 inches all around for the hem. The hem
was turned over a light rope, forming a strong corded edge. At the clew,
tack and head loops were formed in the rope which projected from the
canvas, and at intervals along the foot the canvas was cut away,
exposing the rope so that the sail could be laced to the boom, as
illustrated. The boom was a pole 11 feet long attached to the mast by
means of a screw hook threaded into the end of the boom and hooked into
a screw eye on the mast, after which the screw hook was hammered so it
would close over the screw eye to keep it from slipping off. The sail
was raised by a halyard passing over a block at the top of the mast. The
sheet was fastened near the end of the boom, passed through a block on
the backbone, back of the tiller, and through another block on the boom,
and was led to a cleat within easy reach of the chair seat.
A SAIL THROUGH THE COUNTRY.
[Illustration: Fig. 225. A Sail on the Land Yacht.]
Our land yacht proved to be quite a successful craft in the flat country
around the school. Of course, we could not sail everywhere; a country
road is too narrow for any tacking when it comes to sailing against the
wind. We hadn't thought of that when we made our trial trip. A strong
east wind was blowing and so we ventured forth on a road that led due
west from our school. Off we sped before the wind for two miles, until
we came to a sharp turn in the road. Then we began to think of turning
homeward. But this was a very different proposition. The wind was dead
against us and to try to tack from side to side of the road was useless,
because we would hardly get under way on one tack before we had to swing
around on the other tack, losing all our momentum. It ended up by our
lowering sail and ignominiously trundling the yacht back to school.
After that we carefully selected our course, and never sailed away from
home before the wind unless we knew of a roundabout way that would lead
us back to port on a couple of reaches (long tacks).