fact, a
small _yacht_. We knew that every vessel with sharp lines must
necessarily be wet, unless the weights she would have to carry were all
concentrated about her midship section, or broadest part, so we decided
that as far as was practicable such should be the arrangement with us;
and we knew that, if we could succeed in this, our barkie might be as
sharp as we could make her, and still be dry and comfortable. We
accordingly prepared a list of our requirements, as far as we could
think of them, calculated the space they and the ballast would occupy,
and then roughly sketched out the proposed lines. These were altered,
rearranged, and improved upon time after time, until at length we felt
we had got them as near perfection as the dimensions of the boat and our
own knowledge would carry us. And I may as well say at once that
throughout the entire voyage we never had the slightest reason to think
our little vessel could be in any way improved upon by alteration.

It is not probable that so long a voyage as ours will be often
undertaken again in such a very small craft as we accomplished it in;
but there are many men, I have no doubt, who would gladly receive a hint
as to the most advantageous form for a small boat in which they might
safely adventure, alone, or with a friend, a cruise, say round the
British Isles, or across the Channel and along the French coast; and
therefore, as this story is written for the amusement only of such
people as love boats, I think I may venture to trespass so far on my
readers' patience as to give such a hint in the shape of a brief
description of the _Water Lily_, as Ada christened her.

She was, then, thirty-six feet long, and twelve feet beam on the water-
line; but, in designing her midship section, we caused her sides to
swell out boldly _above_ water, so that her greatest beam was fourteen
feet, at a point one foot six inches above the water-line. At this
point her side _tumbled home_ two inches as it was carried upwards to
her deck, and from the same point the side curved quickly inwards and
downwards until it met the water-line, when it swept under water with an
almost imperceptible curve for some distance, and then took a moderately
quick bend downwards to meet her keel. This gave us a vessel in shape
very much like the centre-board model of boat, but with a deep keel, and
consequently great lateral resistance, and space low down in the hull
for the stowage of ballast.