Page:Boating - Woodgate - 1888.pdf/173

 gunwale. lience it is that the skiff build is gradually super- seding the once universally popular gig.

A dingey is a short craft, originally designed as a sort of tender to a yacht, but adopted for pleasure purposes on the ‘Thames for nearly half a century. It is sometimes built with a flush gunwale like a gig, but more commonly with flared rowlocks like a skiff, thercby affording the required leverage for swells, while at the same time reducing the beam on the waterline.

Besides the above mentioned craft, which arc designed to carry at least two oarsmen (or scullers) and a coxswain, modern boat-builders construct what are called sculling dingies and gigs, which are fitted with only one pair of rowlocks, and are intended mainly for occupation by a single seuller, though they will at a pinch carry sitters both in the stern sheets and in the bows. They also build sailing gigs and dingies, which are usually fitted with a ‘centreboard,’ and are of greater beam than those specially designed for rowing or sculling ; though they can healso propelled by oars ar sculls when required, they are less handy for the latter purposes, in consequence of their construction for the doulle duties of both sailing and oarsmanship. The following are dimen- sions commonly adopted by builders, such as Messrs. Salter of Oxford, for various classes of gigs, dingics, and pleasure skiffs :— #

Length, Beam. Gig, pair-oared, inrigged. : a =o Sade. 3 ft gin. ditto tandan. . : » 28 ft. 3 ft. 9 in, Skiffs, paix-oared. . = . » 25 tt. 4 ft. oin ditto ¥ a 3 x » 23 ft. 4 ft. 6 in, ditto Pee) eo 6h oda

The yariations in beam being in such vessels designed con- versely as regards the lengths, in order to obtain approximate equivalent of displacement—

=i Length, Bean. Skiffs, randan 3 % + 26 ft. to 27 ft. 4 ft. oin. ditto eee ee 25 4 ft. Gin. to 5 ft.

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