and fittings, and other requisites for ease of transportation, were considered of secondary importance to seaworthiness and sail-carrying power; and the canoe was intended more for pleasure cruising in ordinarily frequented navigable waters than as a travelling craft for navigating inland lakes, rivers, and canals in thinly-populated districts. The canoe we are now about to consider is designed to perform the latter work, of travelling. The term cruising is distinguishable from a voyage in that the cruise extends from port to port, with the intention of returning to the home port; whereas the voyage would be a journey to some distant place, and intermediate ports would only be visited for stores and necessaries. It will therefore simplify matters to assume that cruising consists of short trips in home waters, whereas travelling includes journeys to distant places and to places in foreign lands. To arrive at a suitable design for a travelling canoe, the starting point should be that sailing and paddling are equal in value as modes of propulsion; and then the nature of the particular travelling the proposed canoe is most commonly to perform must be considered before preponderance is given to the one quality or the other. It is on this preponderance of sailing or paddling requirements that the leading details of construction and equipment are dependent for their proportions and position. For instance, where the work is chiefly to be the navigation of rivers and canals, paddling will be of more value than sailing, and consequently the craft should have small beam and good length; and as transport on land and "carrying over" will be constantly occurring, lightness of structure and fittings will be most desirable. A low freeboard and a well-rounded deck also will make paddling easy, and yet allow sufficient room inside. On the other hand, if the canoeist is bent on a rough tour, in which he will probably have to cross large open lakes and arms of the sea, and yet often have to work his way down rivers and through canals, sailing will, or should, undoubtedly play as important a part as paddling; hence good freeboard and beam, coupled with a flat floor, are necessary for this work. To go any further on this side of the balance would simply be towards making a craft which would be useless as a general travelling canoe, and inferior as a sailing canoe; and on the other side one would be nearing the details of ordinary river or "hack" canoes, whose form and fittings are easy of design and application. The travelling canoe par excellence is that in which paddling and sailing are considered as of equal value as means of propulsion—a craft that paddles "light off the hands," that sails and "goes full and by" without making much leeway, has good freeboard and moderately rounded deck, is built lightly but strongly, and is fitted with a watertight compartment for safety, and in which stores and clothes may be kept dry-at the same time be the conveyance or the camp of her master. The drawings on Plate XXXIX. show: Firstly, a "one-man canoe," Fig. A; and, secondly, a "two-man canoe," Fig. B. Either or both these canoes can be built from the body plan D, from which the building mould plan E is taken; bearing in mind, however, that for the "one-man " or Fig. A canoe the sections 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., are 1ft. apart, where in Fig. B they are 1ft. 2in. apart; otherwise the same heights and breadths are common to both. As to the drawings, the sheer plan (Figs. A and B) is that from which all heights, depths, and lengths are taken, and also shows the position, longitudinally and the sectional shape, of various fittings. 2 0* Centre of mizenmast from stern post Midship mark a from perpendicular of fore side of stem head 7 0 * Shown as 1ft. 6in. in the drawing. |