23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver". Part X.
For the coaming quartered oak should be used, or else mahogany, if you decide to finish her off in that wood. Fit the oak clock rails, as shown, forward and round off the head of the stem, so if you go alongside of a larger boat or up to a dock you do not have a sharp corner to cut and dig into things.
The main bulkhead at the after end of the cabin will have to-be put up before you can put on the oak coamings and finish the cockpit. In fact, this would be the first job to be done after the boat is planked, because you cannot even lay the cabin top until the up and down staving forming this bulkhead is complete. All this bulkhead stuff, both for here, the forward end of the cabin, and for the after end of the cockpit, can be of the same style of material, that is, either white pine or cypress tongue and groove staving, about 3 inches wide, with a bevel taken off each edge, so they form a narrow V groove when fitted together. This is an easy style to clean up and to paint. That is one reason why it is so largely used on boats in preference to any narrow scratch bead-work, which anyone who has ever tried to clean up on a boat will fight shy of in the future.
The inside of the boat, from this main bulkhead to the stem, is sealed up with the same material laid horizontal, beginning up under the clamp, and working down to the floor line. It is hardly necessary to tell one how to lay the cabin floor, or how to build the plain, boxlike partitions and cupboards which have been shown in the accompanying plans for the dishes, stove rack, etc.
Transom of 23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver".
The transoms are constructed by simply putting up a framework of about 1 l/2 x 2-inch spruce, to give you the shape desired, nailing a corresponding cleat on the floor and then staving its sides up and down with the same kind of staving. Some amateurs may prefer to cut a wide, plain pine board and fit in her. It will do just as well, and perhaps look as well as the staving that we have shown. Make the seat tops of wide pine boards, so arranged that they can be taken up in sections, to get at the space below the cushions, to store provisions and duffle. The space forward of the mooring post has been bulk-headed off and fitted with two little doors to be used as a coat room, to hang up wet oilers, to lay sea boots away, and to hang heavy coats. We have not used this as a rope locker; as it is generally supposed to be used, but prefer to keep our cable coiled down on deck around the mooring post, and stopped to the deck with short pieces of line in small eye-bolts, where it will dry out and not rot. There remain two difficult things to be done about the cabin top, and that is the construction of the companion way slide and doors, and the skylight. To assist the novice in constructing these I have shown detailed drawings of these two fittings. The subject of building the skylight alone is one that could fill a book; in fact, in my experience in running shipyards, I have had as many as six or eight boats a week come to the yard and their owners plead with me to come out and make their skylights tight. Anyone who has done any amount of boating knows how disagreeable a leaky skylight can become in wet weather. For that reason is very careful in constructing this one, to make all your joints tight, and try and get a little comfort in Beaver. The companionway slide is comparatively simple, when you study out the accompanying detailed plan. Oak chocks or saddles are to be fastened to the cockpit floor where your seats are to be built, to accommodate the cylindrical tanks, one on either side, one for fresh water and the other for gasoline, as shown in the plans. When these are in place, fasten the cleat that holds the after end of the seat across that bulkhead, and on the after side of the little square locker in the forward end of the cockpit put a corresponding cleat. Then build your seats of the long, narrow slats as shown in the plan, held together by cleats underneath these slats, but do not nail them fast at the ends. Leave them so you can lift this slat seat right up out of place, so that you can get at your tank whenever necessary by taking out a couple of screws.
On the after-deck get out two square oak frames of 1-inch square stuff, the size of the hatches you have formed in the deck there and build two square covers out of about 3/4-inch stuff, and for tightness sake, cover them with canvas, held around the edges with a small half-round oak molding and paint them.
We have made no attempt in 23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver" to make the cockpit floor a water-tight one, because the floor level is only a few inches above her load waterline, but if one prefers, he could caulk it, and put lead pipe scuppers in the after corners, but if one does this, I would advise raising the cockpit a few inches higher than shown in the plans, so there would be no danger of the water coming, back through the scupper when the boat settles by the stern when running hard.
The steering gear of 23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver" is made as simple as it is possible to make it, and is all get-at-able in case of a breakdown. Sheaves set in oak chocks are bolted to the deck, as shown, and the tiller ropes lead outside the coaming on the port side, then in and over her steering wheel, which is bolted to the after bulkhead between the box over her engine and the locker on the side which enables a man to steer either right-handed or left-handed.
It is hardly necessary to go further into the details of building such a boat, as they are all of such minor importance that even a boy would know enough to go ahead and complete the job, and we feel we have fully explained the difficult parts, where the amateur would need some help.
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