Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/314

Although a full-rigged, delicately balanced ice-yacht looks like a very complicated piece of mechanism, when it is carefully examined the framework will be found to consist of two pieces crossing each other at right angles. The top of the cross is the bowsprit, the bottom of the cross the stern, and the sides the runners. At the intersection of the cross pieces the mast is stepped. Image missingFig. 185.End of Cross-board, showing Runner-block and Skate. The principle is simple enough, and with some sticks, two small pieces of inch lumber, three old skates, and two boards, a real little "Tom Thumb ice-yacht" can be built to hold a crew of one, and to be rigged like a catboat or with a jib and mainsail. The cross board may be made about 3 feet long and 6 inches wide. Make two runner blocks of inch lumber, and let them be each 6 inches long and 3 inches wide. With a bit and brace or a red-hot poker bore holes at proper distances apart for the straps of old-fashioned skates to pass through. One inch from each end of the cross board, fasten on the runner blocks securely with nails or screws (Fig. 185). For the centre plank use a board about 6 inches wide and 5 feet long. Nail the cross plank on to the centre plank in such a manner that a line drawn through the centre of the latter will intersect the cross board exactly at its middle. The planks must be at right angles to each other, forming a cross, the cen-