The bowsprit is seven feet long and is bolted fast to the long cross-piece. Where the end fits into the timber A two angle-blocks are nailed fast. Seat-planking is cut and screwed or nailed fast to the V-shaped frame as shown in both Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. The boards should be ten inches wide and cut to overhang the timbers an inch or two at both ends.
If the wheels from an old baby-carriage are to be used the axle should be cut in half with a hack-saw and each part clamped under an end of the cross-timber with U-shaped clamps having the ends threaded and provided with nuts and washers as shown at Fig. 4. The rear or steering wheel is set in a fork that a blacksmith will make from strap-iron, and a round piece of the same metal, having a square-headed upper end, will do for the rudder-post as shown at Fig. 5. A short axle threaded at both ends and provided with nuts will hold the wheel in place, and when the post is passed up through a hole made in the timbers a tiller can be slipped over the square shoulder and bolted fast so that it will stay in place.
The tiller is of hard-wood two inches broad at the rear end, one inch in thickness, and tapered so that it will be about an inch square with the corners rounded where it is grasped by the hand. The handle part of it should be bound with linen cord to improve the grip. Give the deck wood-work and timbering a few coats of red, buff, or light-green paint.
The mast-step is rigged over the forward cross-timber. Two upright pieces of board twenty inches long and eight inches wide are attached to the outside edges of the frame-joist with screws. On top of these a cross-piece is made fast so that the step presents the appearance of a bench. Two pieces of board six inches wide are fastened from the corners down to the bowsprit and cross-timber to brace the step as shown at Fig. 6. An iron brace is made fast to the top of the step, behind the mast, and to the bowsprit, as may be seen in the illustration.
Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 ]
A hole three inches in diameter is cut at the middle of the step-board, and through this the mast is slipped. A half-inch round iron is driven into the bottom of the mast after a hole has been bored with a bit. It should be long enough to project out about two inches. This steps into a hole bored in the top of the bowsprit, and with the three wire stays that are caught at the top of the mast and into the eye-bolts, shown by the arrow-heads in Fig. 2, the mast is held securely in place.