Page:Small-boat sailing; an explanation of the management of small yachts, half-decked and open sailing-boats of various rigs; sailing on sea and on river; cruising, etc (IA smallboatsailing01knig).pdf/25

 new stern-post and rudder were found to be necessary; a huge piece of lead was actually put on the rotten and loosened keel; a new suit of sails was ordered for her; no expense was spared in luxuriously fitting out her cabin. At last, on coming down to visit her one morning at high tide, the dismayed owner could see nothing of his beloved vessel save her masts rising above the Thames's turbid stream. She had foundered at her moorings. Bumping on the hard gravel at each low tide, the old craft's bottom had been knocked in; for she could not bear the weight of her own ballast when unsupported by the water. The boat-builder would have gladly undertaken to raise her, repair her bottom, and make her what he was pleased to call 'sea-*worthy' again. But the young man had had enough of it; he had at last come to his senses. After having thrown away several hundreds of pounds—he might have built an excellent ten-ton cruiser for less—he realised that to patch up a hull so rotten that the bolts, when any strain was put upon them, dragged through the timbers as through so much tinder (they pulled the chain-plates out of her on one occasion when setting up the rigging) was a sheer waste of money, and that he could never hope to sail to Gravesend, far less to Spain, with such a craft. So he wisely abandoned her, and she was rapidly broken up by the wash of penny steamers bumping her crazy frame against the hard foreshore. This experience sickened him of yachting, so he