e craft happens to be short-handed, as we should be. I believed,
however, that this difficulty might be overcome by watchfulness and the
taking of timely precautions; therefore, after weighing the matter
carefully, I decided in favour of the cutter rig. Bearing all the above
requirements in mind, I set to work, and ultimately evolved a design for
a craft thirty feet long on the water-line by ten feet beam, and six
feet draught of water aft. To build a boat of these dimensions, with
only Billy to help me, was a sufficiently ambitious project; but I had
learned a good deal while building our existing boat; and, after all, I
felt sure that if I should need more manpower, Bowata would willingly
lend me some of his people. Also, realising that henceforth Billy and I
would be fully occupied in building the new boat, the thought occurred
to me that it was high time to secure such domestic help as would enable
us to give our whole time and thought to our work without troubling
about such matters as cooking, house-cleaning, and so on. Such help
could only be obtained through Bowata. I therefore decided to seize an
early opportunity to interview him upon the whole matter.

Meanwhile, however, now that I had at last determined to attempt the
building of a sea-going boat, I was all impatience to make a beginning;
and as I, further, came to the conclusion that the beginning--so far as
the framing of the keel, stem, and sternpost was concerned--must be made
aboard the wreck, where all the materials were at hand, we lost no time
in again removing ourselves, with all necessary goods and chattels, to
what remained of the _Yorkshire Lass_. Here I made a start by laying
out, full-size, in chalk, upon the after-deck, an accurate outline of
the keel, stem, and sternpost, which greatly facilitated my work. My
chief difficulty, I discovered, was to find bolts at once of the
required length and the necessary strength, since I could not possibly
make them; and this difficulty absorbed so much time that we spent
nearly a month on the wreck before the keel, stem, and sternpost were
framed together in readiness to be set up on the beach at Eden, where I
intended to do the remainder of the work.

The framework was much too big and heavy to be conveyed to Eden
otherwise than by towing; and as the whole trip was more or less a beat
to windward, the transport of it cost us two days, our arrival "home"
occurring so late in the afternoon that th