Читать книгу The Danube from the Black Forest to the Black Sea онлайн

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THE SKETCH-BOOK

The three canoes were as nearly alike in dimensions, lines, weight, and fittings as the skill of an old and famous builder on the banks of the East River, New York, could make them. They measured 15 feet in length, 30 inches in width, and about 18 inches in extreme depth. A deck of thin mahogany covered the whole with the exception of an oval opening about 6 feet long and 20 inches wide, which was surrounded by an oak coaming about 2 inches high. A series of hatches was fitted to this coaming, and these could be adjusted in various ways, so that the canoe could be converted in a moment from an open boat into a modified Rob Roy, or entirely covered up and locked as securely as a jewel-box. Like all similar craft, a good strong oaken keel made the backbone, and a great many small ribs of riven heart-of-oak were copper-riveted to this keel, forming, with the stem—and stern-post and a few cross-timbers, a light, strong, and not too rigid skeleton. The sheer-strake was of mahogany, and the others of selected white cedar. All the fastenings were of the best copper, and the trimmings and fittings of nickel-plated brass. One peculiarity of the construction was that the deck-boards and all the strakes ran from stem to stern without a splice. The weight of each canoe, empty, was about eighty pounds, but with the nickel-plated drop rudder, heavy brass folding centre-board, two sails with masts and spars, paddles and general outfit, the whole weight in cruising trim must have been fully 200 pounds, but we never verified this estimate, judging only by the fact that at no time during the trip were they too heavy to be lifted easily by two of us.