28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk". Part VI.
There is one little point in the construction of 28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk" that I wish to draw your attention to particularly, and that is the knee on the after quarter, just above the half round moulding. This is called a quarter badge, and it is just such little fittings as this that set off your boat and add to her shippy appearance. Do not try to make this out of half inch wood and plaster it on, for it will not stand. It is not like putting interior trim in a house, but get it out of one thick oak or hackmatack knee, as shown in the accompanying sketch, in which you will see that the knee itself is about two inches larger than what shows on the outside. By making the knee about two and a half inches thick you can cut a rabbitt in it and fasten the ends of the planking to it, leaving the little quarter badge extending out about a quarter of an inch beyond the planking and yet it will be solid enough not to curl or crack in the weather. While we are talking about knees just consider the, two little sketches here shown. Most people do hot think the mere outline of a knee has anything to do with a boat's looks, but in this they are wrong. Just as quickly as a house architect would notice a house built without eaves, so can a man used to water and ships spot a clumsy, amateurish shaped knee as shown in the upper figure. Such a knee, while it might, be useful and appropriate in building a. chair or a table, will make Mollyhawk look clumsy if it is used at the after end of her cabin or the forward end of the little raised deck aft," the turtle deck, as you might call it, where on either side a knee is shown which fills up what, would otherwise be a very awkward looking square corner. Make the lower arm of the knee longer than the upright end and of some such curve as I. have here shown.
Another little detail to which I want to call your attention, and which applies not only to 28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk" but to all boats, is the quarter bitts aft and heavy mooring bitt forward. This forward one should go down and be mortised into the forward deadwood, although many people only use a short bitt and key it fast on the underside to an oak block which fits from deckbeam to deckbeam. This, to my way of thinking, brings too much strain on a yacht's deck for the main mooring bitt forward. Such a style of construction is all right for the small quarter bitts aft, but I would not advise its use forward. How many people have ever considered the reason why the edges of the bitts were champhered off the way they are on ships? Very few, I'll guarantee. But when I explain the reasons for it by means of the diagrams, A. B. C. D. and E. a blind man can see the point. I have seen bitts-rounded off into all manner of fancy shapes, the man who did it evidently thinking that the idea of champhering a bitt was to make a fancy piece of furniture out of it. The real reason is this: The head of a bitt, as shown in figure A, is there to make rope fast to, and, naturally, the strongest part of this bitt is right at the deck. The higher up you go the more leverage the anchor cable has to break it. For that reason the champher is cut at such an angle as will make the cable ride down, and ride is the nautical word for slide, close 'to the deck. If you ever go to sea on an old sailing ship, where nearly everyone of the many ropes has to be coiled down over belaying pins, you would soon notice that on a belaying pin, shaped like Figure B, you can lay fake after fake over such a pin and they will pile up clear to the top without sliding off, as shown in Figure B. While with one shaped like C, when you get near the top the upper fakes of rope will begin to slide up over the top, as in Figure E, and you cannot coil nearly as much rope over such a pin. I have seen an old, deep water mate go along ship's bulwarks, and every pin he found patterned after that shown in C he'd heave away to leeward with a deep sea blessing on the head of the man who made it.
A precaution to be taken when you are building the deck frame of your boat is to fit inch and a half oak blocks, snug between the deck beams and nailed to the same so they will come underneath the deck wherever there is to be a deck fitting fastened above. Do not trust to the deck. Soft white pine will never hold the screws, nor is it a good practice to put a cleat on deck so that only one screw comes into a deck beam, and you trust to that one good fastening to hold.
Putting on the ribbands in 28-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Mollyhawk"
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