As decks, when cared for, are always varnished when a yacht is laid up for the winter, this varnish has necessarily to be removed prior to a start on a season's yachting. The best method by which this can be carried out is as follows:--Black ashes, Sooji Mooji, or one of the many preparations of caustic potash, should be procured from a ship-chandler, and mixed in an iron bucket with warm water in the proportion of one-third black ashes to two-thirds water, according to the strength required. As soon as the sun has set the mixture must be poured over the deck, which must be left well covered with it till an hour before sunrise. The mixture, which will have dried during the night, must now be treated with hot water and well rubbed into the varnish, and fresh buckets of water must be kept applied till every particle of the mixture with the varnish has been cleared off and out of the deck planking. If the mixture is applied or allowed to remain on the deck while the sun is up, it will be certain to eat into and burn it. There are two or three ways of laying decks. One is to have the planks nailed down to the beams, the nails countersunk, and the holes filled up with wood plugs to hide the nail-heads. This is generally done by men who have not had much to do with yacht-building. The common method employed is to drive the nails diagonally through the edge of the plank into the beam. Nails let in horizontally and driven into the next plank, two or three cotton threads having been placed between, keep the two planks in position. Each plank is similarly treated, and when all the planks have been fitted and jammed together, marine glue is poured into the seams. As soon as the glue has set and hardened the decks are planed, and finished off. The third method is not so pretty perhaps, but is believed from practical experience to be the best. The planks are mortised together, varnished, and then brought tight up. The whole deck is often built and made ready to fit before it is put into position, so that when it is laid on the beams, all that is required is to nail it down into its place. The writer has had experience with the second kind of deck mentioned here in nearly all of his yachts, and of the third method of laying decks in the 'Cyprus.' She was about five years old when he bought her, and that is a good age for a racing 5-tonner's decks to last sound and without a leaky spot to be found anywhere. Her decks were certainly kept varnished, for the simple reason stated above, that visitors might be always welcome, no matter what description of foot-gear had been supplied to them by their bootmakers.