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/70

 up or lowered by a rod working in a tube which passes through the keel into the boat. When hoisted, the plates fold up and lie snugly alongside each other in a chamber cut into the middle of the keel.

LEE-BOARDS

The simplest method of supplying a boat with the means of offering lateral resistance to the water, and so checking leeway, is to fit her with lee-boards. Lee-boards are not often to be seen in England save on Thames barges; but on the shallow Dutch waters, where small-boat sailing is as well understood as it is here, lee-boards are to be found on nearly every yacht. Lee-boards have several advantages over centre-boards; they do not jam, break off, or strain the boat when one runs aground, but always come up at once on touching the bottom. Some shallow waters (the Danish fiords, for example, among which the author once cruised in a lee-board boat) are in summer overgrown with weeds, through which a centre-board craft could never force her way: the long water growth would wind round the plate and choke the trunk; on the other hand, a lee-board can always be pulled up without difficulty when it gets foul, and be quickly cleared of the weeds.

If expense is a consideration, the novice cannot do better than fit his first little boat with lee-boards. We will suppose that he has purchased a second-*hand craft for a few pounds. To fit a centre-board