FOREST AND STREAM. [Feb. 23, 1907 
the nails or rivets began to pull into the soften 
ing wood, besides several frames were cracked 
“But why should my boat be the only one t< 
give way; they were all built alike at the sam< 
c a oav 
SOME LEAKY BOATS. 
When a horse gets sick they ring up a veteri¬ 
narian; when the carriage breaks it goes to the 
blacksmith or carriage builder, and just so when 
anything goes wrong with a yacht they hasten 
in to the yacht builder to tell all their troubles. 
It would fill a good sized ledger to* enumer¬ 
ate all the little troublesome jobs a yacht yard 
has to contend with in the course of a year. 
From putting up cup hooks to suit some finicky 
owner to re-rigging the racer that tows in on a 
Saturday afternoon with the splintered stump of 
her mast sticking a foot or so above the deck, 
telling its own tale, the rest of the mast, to¬ 
gether with broken boom and gaff, lay across the 
deck amid a confused tangle of sails, ropes and 
wire. Fler crew sitting about with' a look of 
utter disgust depicted on their faces. 
caulked off. Whoever built the boat cut the 
rabbet beveling instead of nearly square. A 
* little “gain,” as this bevel is called is all right; 
the edge of the plank is not supposed to be 
exactly square on account of having to fit it 
in, but they had cut it with such a rank bevel 
that every time a caulking iron was driven in 
the seam it acted like a wedge lifting the plank off. 
When the owner saw this condition he let us 
take the garboard off and chisel the rabbet out 
properly. Thereafter the plank was put on new; 
when caulked the strain acted equally sideways 
on both plank and keel and the boat stayed tight. 
We learned afterwards the boat had had new 
garboards put on every year for the past three 
years. All because the rabbet was cut with too* 
rank a bevel. 
time ?” 
“Let’s go look at another one; there’s on< 
here hauled out.” So we took him across the 
yard to a sister boat. Sure enough her plank 
ing had pulled off at almost the same identica 
seam. She also leaked there, and her frame: 
were cracked. 
“Now, we said, “are you satisfied?” 
we can put in short pieces of frames alongside 
the ones just to draw that seam up.” 
He decided on the latter; a wise decision, too 
for these boats wtre like the famous “DeacotA 
One Horse Shay.” They were built so perfectly 
Such a wreck expects a yard to have the yacht 
re-rigged complete in time for Monday’s race. 
But of all the jobs coming to a yard the one 
that causes the most trouble and annoyance to* 
everyone concerned, a leaky boat is the worst to- 
contend with. The causes of these leaks are 
as various as could be imagined so* we will take 
one at a time. 
Case 1.—A fine, big, husky yawl came to the 
yard leaking in the garboard which by' the way 
is a popular place for leaks. An examination 
of that plank after she was hauled out soon dis-. 
covered the cause. The garboard forward was 
started off from the keel about a quarter of an 
inch. Her captain was looking at it and re¬ 
marked : 
“Dot hadn’t ought to leak; we had dot corked 
dis spring.” That was apparent, it had been 
Case 2 .—Was just after a race, a fruitful time 
with the yacht yards when a fin keel boat came 
in and was hauled out she was leaking so her 
owner was afraid she’d sink over night. 
“How is it,” complained her’ owner, “my boat 
has strained her keel when none of the others 
have? The boats have always been raced the 
same ?” 
She was one of five boats built at the same 
time some twelve years ago and had been raced 
hard all that time. 
Her construction was very light, yet very sym¬ 
metrical in all its proportions. A better built 
class of boats never were put afloat. Even 
wood and iron, however, will give out in time 
and these boats had had over twelve years of it. 
No wonder the metal fin had started to pull a 
plank off. The wood was losing its vitality and 
that everything was giving away at the same 
time. 
Case 3.-—A keel yacht had leaked all the sea¬ 
son before, so her owner wanted us to locate 
and fix the leaks before she was put afloat. Her 
construction we found was in our estimation too 
frail about the keel to swing the immense lead 
keel under her. She lacked proper floors to 
bind the heels of the frames to her keel. The 
frames coming down S shaped, and the whole 
strain of her lead really was now carried on 
her garboard, the bottom plank. 
She had shown her weakness before and some 
one had put brass straps between the wood and 
lead keel and bent these up outside her plank, 
letting them in flush and putting large brass* 
screws through into her frames. These straps 
naturally helped, but the brass at every screw 
hole had broken clear in two, showing there 
must have been a heavy strain on them. 
[to be concluded.! 
