The Yacht Club; or, The Young Boat-Builder — John Shaqi
The Yacht Club; or, The Young Boat-BuilderOptic, Oliver
General
The Yacht Club; or, The Young Boat-Builder
Optic, Oliver
Sailing -- Juvenile fiction; Yachts -- Juvenile fiction; Young men -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction
The Sea Foam was a sloop yacht, thirty feet in length, and as handsome
as a picture in an illustrated paper, than which nothing could be finer.
It was a fact that she had cost twelve hundred dollars; but even this
sum was cheaper than she could have been built and fitted up in Boston
or Bristol. She was provided with everything required by a first class
yacht of her size, both for the comfort and safety of the voyager, as
well as for fast sailing. Though Mr. Ramsay, her builder, was a ship
carpenter, he was a very intelligent and well-read man. He had made
yachts a specialty, and devoted a great deal of study to the subject. He
had examined the fastest craft in New York and Newport, and had their
lines in his head. And he was a very ingenious man, so that he had the
tact to make the most of small spaces, and to economize every spare
inch in lockers, closets, and stow-holes for the numerous articles
required in a pleasure craft. He had learned his trade as a ship
carpenter and joiner in Scotland, where the mechanic's education is much
more thorough than in our own country, and he was an excellent workman.
The cabin of the Sea Foam was about twelve feet long, with transoms on
each side, which were used both as berths and sofas. They were supplied
with cushions covered with Brussels carpet, with a pillow of the same
material at each end. Through the middle, fore and aft, was the
centre-board casing, on each side of which was a table on hinges, so
that it could be dropped down when not in use. The only possible
objection to this cabin, in the mind of a shoreman, would have been its
lack of height. It was necessarily "low studded," being only five feet
from floor to ceiling, which was rather trying to the perpendicularity
of a six-footer. But it was a very comfortable cabin for all that,
though tall men were compelled to be humble within its low limits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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