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Updated: June 9, 2025
Taking from one of the lockers, in the standing room, an awning which was used to spread over the forward deck, he unrolled it, and proceeded to make his calculations, while Cyd stood by, scratching his head and wondering what was going to be done. The cabin of the Isabel was entered by two doors, one on each side of the centre-board, which divided the after cabin into two apartments.
MacWilliams jumped from his bed and began kicking about the floor for his boots. "Oh, that's all right," he said. "I wasn't asleep, I was just " he lowered his voice that Langham might not hear him through the canvas partitions "I was just lying awake playing duets with the President, and racing for the International Cup in my new centre-board yacht, that's all!"
Aft of the great centre-board case, through what was properly her keel, a hole was bored. The end of the hook was inserted from the outside, and Charley, on the inside, screwed the nut on tightly. As it stood complete, the hook projected over a foot beneath the bottom of the schooner. Its curve was something like the curve of a sickle, but deeper.
He accepted my invitation with some embarrassment, as became a "paid hand," but a bottle of Bass soon put him at his ease. We began by discussing various nautical topics, such as the relative merits of a centre-board or a keel for small boats, and whether whisky or beer was really the better drink when one was tired and wet through.
The boat sails well on the wind, though hard to pull against a strong head sea. A fin-shaped centre-board takes the place of a keel. It can be quickly removed from the trunk, or centre-board well, and stored under the deck. The flatness of her floor permits the sneak-box to run in very shallow water while being rowed or when sailing before the wind without the centre-board.
This famous craft was a large, flat-bottomed barge, with round bow and square stern. With centre-board down and mainsail and topsail set on its fixed mast, it made fair progress in the wider stretches. But on the up trip it was for the most part poled or 'set' along.
Each boat was fitted with a centre-board, or sliding keel, which was drawn up, when not in use, into a case standing in the boat's middle, very much in the way. But the American whalemen regard these clumsy contrivances as indispensable, so there's an end on't.
In the forward part of the cabin of the Isabel, reaching from the foremast to the centre-board, was a fixed table; and while Dan was cooking the bacon, Cyd prepared it for the morning meal. They had every thing which could be found in any well-ordered house, and the table had more the appearance of that of a first-class hotel than one provided for the use of the runaway slaves.
These experiences were to my creature what the centre-board is to the racing yacht. With these memories I could keep an even keel, and without them I must have capsized many a time.
She was built, as all lifeboats are, diagonally, of two skins of teak, and thus had immense strength, though, in the matter of looks, all a hybrid's failings. Hunger and 'Tea's made! from below brought me down to the cabin, where I found breakfast laid out on the table over the centre-board case, with Davies earnestly presiding, rather flushed as to the face, and sooty as to the fingers.
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