Another pump, made, and we believe patented, by Messrs M'Conechy and Co., Glasgow, attains a like object in a simpler way. It is a lever pump, and by a very simple but effective arrangement, the lever can be shifted to either side, thus securing all the advantages of the other, and being much more easily worked.
The general construction and arrangement of these boats is shown in the drawings (Plate XXV.), and the scantlings are in pretty close accordance with the following tables, but some of the fittings, being as far as we know, peculiar to these boats, deserve particular mention, such as the ballast shelf, mainsheet horse, &c. These are illustrated in the cuts, and their uses further explained by the text.
In the larger boats, and where there is an extra heavy lead keel, a keelson may be advantageously adopted.
The weight of a 17ft. boat built to these scantlings would be about 5cwt., hulls, spars, sails, &c., complete, of a 19ft. boat 7cwt. to 8cwt., while a 22ft. boat would weigh 15cwt. to 18cwt. The dis placements, if built to this drawing, being 22cwt., 314 cwt., and 49cwt., would leave 17cwt., 23cwt., and 31cwt. for ballast and crew. Of this ballast, one-fourth might advantageously be put on the keel, but, unless lead were used, this amount could not be got in the space at disposal.
The usual rig for boats 19ft. and under is a single standing lug, as shown in the plan (Plate XXIV.), but for cruising, and for racing in some of the clubs, a standing lug, with boom on foot, and short bowsprit with jib, are used; these are shown in the plan by dotted lines. For the single lug the mast is stepped about one-seventh of the boat's length from the stem, for the lug and jib, about 18in. further aft. Most of the boats are fitted for both rigs, and, farther, have several mast steps, so that the rake of the mast may be altered. One of the mast beams is generally bolted to the gunwale, this being strengthened at the part by a heavy clamp piece running two to three feet fore and aft. The mast is further supported by a wire shroud on each side, and a forestay (1I steel). These are shackled to the cranse at the masthead, made as shown in Fig. 100, and have a large thimble spliced in at the other end to take the lanyard. Many of the boats are fitted with " channels," to
give more spread to the rigging, the mast being so far forward, so lofty, and the boats so fine in the nose, that without these the shrouds would give little support; they are of the "skeleton" kind, being made as shown in the sketch. The lengths and diameters of mast and spars are given in the table. A traveller works on the mast, and in construction is identical with that of the New Brighton boats described at page 317, the hook being welded solid on the ring, and hooking into a selvedge strop on the yard, the halyard (2in. tarred hemp) being spliced into its eye. But into the other end of the halyard a double block is spliced ; and a fall rove through this, and a single block at the foot, forms a luff tackle purchase for hoisting. The single thick rope is cut a foot or eighteen inches short, so that the yard has to be lifted up and hooked on; this of course is necessary, that the sail may be hoisted " chock-a-block." The tack is simply slipped on to a hook in the mast beam, the tackle on the halyards bringing the necessary strain on the luff to peak the sail. The mainsheet is a gun-tackle purchase, the upper block shackling on to the clew of the sail, while the lower has a thimble spliced on to its tail, which works on the horse across the stern, as shown in the sketch (Fig. 101). When the boom lugsail is in use, the same sheet is simply shackled into a strop on the boom, thus doing for both. It is evident that by carrying the horse back, say a couple of feet (which might easily enough be done), all the advantages of a boom sail conld be retained ; there is, therefore, a rule which enacts that "if a horse is used it must be at right angles to the keel." The spars and sails carried by these boats are enormous ; one 19ft. boat, indeed, having a mast gift., deck to hounds, or 18in. longer than the five-tonner Diamond. She, however, was exceptionally heavily sparred, the general proportions being : which dimensions have been kindly given us by Mr. D. M'Kenzie, of Greenock, the local lugsail Lapthorne.