My old lifeboat was the best sea-boat of her size I have ever come across. Once I was caught with her in a north-wester in the Gulf of Heligoland, and had to run to Cuxhaven before a really heavy sea. That little boat acquitted herself in a way that astonished us; presenting as she did a sharp stern to the steep following seas, she showed no tendency to broach to, but steered with beautiful ease, rising like a duck to every roller. Why more of our little cruisers are not constructed with these lifeboat sterns I could never understand. Anyone who has run before a high breaking sea in both styles of craft will appreciate the enormous difference between the behaviour of the long-countered vessel and the one with the pointed stern. The latter is undoubtedly the boat for comfort and safety in a sea-way. [Illustration: A Danske craft.] In such a boat as I am describing one could sail, single-handed, if one was so minded, to Finland or to the furthest depths of the Gulf of Bothnia, and run less risk than one would in most vessels four times her size. We have now got a good sea-boat almost as safe as a lifeboat--but the next question is, how will she sail? A double-ended craft like the one I am speaking of will run or reach as well as anything of her size; but, being of such light draught, though she will turn to windward well enough, maybe, in smooth water, she will be a very slow boat, making scarcely any headway, but considerable leeway, when she encounters the tumbling waters of the Zuider Zee or Baltic on a breezy day. This, of course, must be remedied by some means; for we cannot always have fair winds and smooth waters. And now I am coming to my greatest heresy--I would not make a hole in the bottom of my boat and pass the orthodox centreboard through it; but I should sling on either side of her the heterodox leeboard. In this country we are not accustomed to see leeboards on pleasure craft, and they are considered to be ugly. In Holland, where they also know something about small yachts, elegant polished oak brass-bound leeboards are invariably attached to the brightly polished little oaken vessel. One soon comes to consider a leeboard as an ornament. The appearance of a long double-ended boat is distinctly improved by these wing-like appendages. Finding that my lifeboat was so unsatisfactory on a wind, I got a Dutch shipwright at Harlingen to fit two shapely oaken leeboards upon her, which suited her well, for she herself was of polished teak. I remember that when her leeboards were once temporarily removed we felt quite ashamed of her, so lank and naked did she appear in our eyes. But the leeboards were still more useful than they were beautiful. When I put out with them into the choppy Zuider Zee I was astounded at the success of my plan. The vessel turned to windward as she had never done before, and I soon came to the conclusion that I had almost arrived at the ideal of a shallow-water cruiser.