CHAPTER I

A SHORT HISTORY OF BOATS

No one knows who first invented boats. Probably they were used by primitive man long before he discovered how to use bows and arrows or had even learned to chip stones into simple tools and weapons. But those early boats were not boats as we know them today, for it has taken untold centuries for mankind to improve and develop boats to their present state of perfection. It was a natural and easy matter for a savage to straddle a floating log and, thus supported, cross some pond or stream, and when some member of the tribe discovered that two logs lashed together were more comfortable and less likely to roll over and dump their passengers into the water than a single log, he no doubt felt as if he had made a marvelous invention and was probably looked upon as a prehistoric Fulton by his fellowmen.

Later on some man found that a hollowed log was more buoyant and stable than an ordinary tree trunk and from this crude beginning rude dugout canoes were developed. Even today many races have never progressed beyond the hollowed-log state of boat-building and dugouts, forty or fifty feet in length and capable of carrying great weights, are in daily use in many lands. Some of these are very crude, heavy craft, while others are beautifully made, are light in weight and are very speedy and seaworthy.

1—Dugout made from a log. 2—Birch bark canoe. 3—Eskimo kyak made of skins. 4—Catamaran. 5—Turkish goofah. 6—East Indian balsa. 7—Malay proa.

Quite a different type of savage craft were the canoes of bark or skins. These may have been evolved from dugouts but it is more likely that accident or chance led to their discovery. A piece of floating bark bearing some wild animal or bird may have pointed the way toward the graceful birchbark canoes of the American Indians, while a stiff piece of dried hide may have given the first hint of a kyak to the Eskimos.

However, it is useless to speculate upon the incidents that led our primitive and savage ancestors along the path to the shipyard for such matters are shrouded in the impenetrable mists of the dim and distant past. We know, however, that nearly every race possessed boats of one kind or another as long ago as there was any history and we know that the boats used thousands of years ago varied as greatly in construction, form, materials and other details as boats of today.

Strangely enough, many of the most primitive forms of boats are still in daily use. I have already mentioned dugouts, but birchbark canoes and kyaks are also used at the present time as widely as ever. It is evident that some of these prehistoric craft had been developed to the utmost point of perfection before the advent of civilization for many of them have never been improved upon. With all our knowledge we have never found any boat so well adapted to its purpose as the red man’s canoe, and while we now make them of canvas instead of bark, we follow the same models as those used by the Indians centuries ago.

In certain parts of Great Britain the people still use the queer craft called _coracles_ which Cæsar found the Britons using when his Roman legions invaded Albion, and although these curious boats, that look like the shell of a turtle or half of a walnut shell and are made of plaited willow, are among the most ancient forms of boats, yet the Welsh find them superior to modern boats in many ways. Somewhat similar are the _goofahs_ of the Orient, circular, basket-like craft made of willow wands and covered with pitch which are used upon the Tigris and Euphrates and have not changed in the least since Bible days.

In the South Seas and other places the natives still use _catamarans_ and _proas_ which are really nothing but two logs fastened together, and yet the most efficient and safest of life rafts used by our greatest steamships are merely modifications of these same catamarans.

The purpose of any boat is to float and support its occupants while traveling across the water, and while it seems a far cry from the coracle or the dugout to a palatial steamship or a stately, four-masted, sailing ship, yet the principle of each is identical and each serves the purpose for which it was designed equally well; it is merely a matter of improvement, and many of the terms and names of parts which were used by the earliest sailors are still retained on our greatest liners and largest sailing vessels.

_Starboard_ and _larboard_, for example, are merely corruptions or _steerboard_ and _leeboard_, terms applied to the two sides of the ships of the Vikings and referring to the great steering oar on the right-hand side of the vessel and the board dropped over the opposite side to prevent the craft from making _leeway_ or sliding sideways through the water. The _bowsprit_ was originally a small spritsail spread to the vessel’s bow; the _stern_ was once the _steering_; the name _forecastle_ was given to the sailors’ quarters when the deckhouses were literally _castles_ in form, and we still speak of _cockpits_ though we seldom stop to remember that the term was originally bestowed because this open portion of a boat resembled the circular areas wherein cockfights were held.

The enormous steel frames which support the great plates of a steamship’s sides are still as much _ribs_ to the sailor as the flimsy bits of wood bent into place by the naked savage building his frail canoe, and scores of the ropes, sails, rigging and other portions of a ship’s fabric retain their ancient names in a similar manner. The seaman is the most conservative of beings and adheres to every time-honored custom, belief and habit and when the last sailor and the last wooden ship have disappeared many of the terms and ways that were dear to the heart of Jack Tar will still live on and be perpetuated for all time.

It is partly owing to this unwillingness on the part of the sailor to adopt anything new or unusual which has led to the survival of distinct forms of boats, for the seaman and boatman of every country believed the craft of his own waters to be superior to those of any other place. In rig, sail and other details each race of maritime people has preserved the traditions of their ancestors and even in neighboring localities we find boats which in form of hull, sails and rigging are absolutely distinct. Many of these are used only in one locality, one harbor or on one small island, but many others have been carried hither and thither and one can almost trace the history of a country or the wanderings of its people by the types of boats used.

Of course, the first boats were propelled by hand, either by pushing them along with poles or by rough paddles, but even naked savages soon learned that they could let the wind work for them and raised mats, skins or even bushes to catch the breeze and waft them across the water. But it was many, many centuries before man learned that he could do away with oars entirely and could sail in any direction, regardless of the way the wind blew.

Even in the time of Columbus the ships could scarcely make headway against the wind and were more or less at the mercy of every passing breeze, but once sailors discovered the secret of sailing to windward the advance and improvement of ships and rigging was very rapid. The great, cumbersome, square sails of the earlier ships were divided into many pieces so as to be more readily handled and trimmed; triangular sails took the place of the picturesque spritsails on the vessels’ bows; hulls were built lower and deeper and while the number of masts varied they were reduced until two- and three-masted, square-rigged vessels, known as _brigs_ and _ships_, were the standard types of ocean-going craft.

Among smaller vessels there were sloops, luggers, ketches and other types of fore-and-aft-rigged craft, and as these sails had many advantages over the square sails and their awkward yards they replaced the latter in some cases and thus _barks_, _brigs_ and _brigantines_ came into use.

Then some brilliant sailor genius did away with the square sails altogether and a new type of vessel came into existence which was called a “schooner.” But conservative, croaking Jack still pinned his faith to yards and square sails and for many years schooners carried lofty topsails of the same form as the upper sails of square-rigged ships.

Today the fore-and-aft-rigged vessels are more numerous than all other rigs combined and the square-riggers, stately and beautiful as they were—the handsomest vessels ever built by man—have been almost driven from the seas. With the outbreak of the European War and the demand for ocean-going cargo-carriers the old square-riggers have once more come to the fore, and in ports and harbors where a crossyard mast had not been seen for many years, barks, ships and square-rigged vessels now line the docks and are an everyday sight. But they are only temporary and every boy and man who loves the sea and its ships should take advantage of this opportunity to view a passing type of vessels and should learn all about them, their rigging and their sails, for to them we owe much of our commerce and prosperity, our independence and our progress.

Although the cheaper, more easily handled and more simple schooners forced the square-rigged ships into the background, and while these in turn have been largely superseded by steam for deep-water voyages, yet the small boat has held its own throughout the centuries. In form, rig and other details the small boats of today vary as widely as ever, for small boats are designed and used for specific purposes and no one can say which is the _best_ boat or the _handiest_ rig.

Steam and motor boats have taken the place of sailboats for business purposes in many places, but as long as men love the sea, as long as they enjoy the sting of the salt spray and the thrill of a plunging bow, as long as our eyes brighten and our pulses quicken as we grasp tiller and sheet and lee rails are awash, so long will the small boat hold its own. We may conquer distance by steam, we may annihilate time by paper-like hulls loaded with roaring motors of gigantic power, we may travel in floating palaces called yachts, but nothing will ever be made by man to take the place of the small boat for the out-and-out pleasure and perfect enjoyment it gives the true boat-lover.

Although there is an endless variety of hulls and rigs among small boats they may all be divided into a few general classes. In form of hull most boats may be grouped under two broad types: round-bottomed and flat-bottomed boats, but there _are_ intermediate forms and there are also some kinds of boats which are a sort of hybrid or combination of both.

In rig we have the schooner, ketch, yawl, sloop and cat and while these cover the matter in a general way there is a wonderful variety in the sails, rigging and other details, and many boats which possess great advantages cannot be properly classed in any of these groups.

The best boat to use and the best rig to adopt depend largely upon the purpose of the boat and its rig, the place where it is to be used, the owner’s ability as a sailor, the weather likely to be encountered, the character of the neighboring shores and waters and various other conditions.

In order to select intelligently the best boat for your use it is necessary to consider the various types of hull and rig, their advantages and disadvantages and the purposes for which they are intended, and then, knowing these things, select the one which you think best adapted to your own requirements.