The Adventure Club Afloat eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 237 pages of information about The Adventure Club Afloat.

The Adventure Club Afloat eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 237 pages of information about The Adventure Club Afloat.

The after cabin, or owner’s stateroom, held two extension seats which at night were converted into wide and comfortable berths.  At the forward end a lavatory occupied one side and a clothes locker the other.  Other lockers occupied the space between the seats and the three ports.  This compartment, like the main cabin, was enamelled in cream-white with mahogany trim.  Three steps led to the bridge deck, a roomy place which housed engine, steering wheel and all controls.  The engine, although under deck, was readily accessible by means of sectional hatches.  On the steering column were wheel, self-starter switch, spark, throttle and clutch, making it easily possible for one person to operate the boat if necessary.  Two seats were built against the after bulkhead, chart boxes flanked the forward hatchway and the binnacle was above the steering column.  Forward, the compartment was glassed in, but on other sides khaki curtains were depended on in bad weather.  When not in use the curtains rolled up to the edge of the awning, which was set on a pipe-frame.

From the bridge deck three steps led down to the main cabin.  Here in the daytime were two longitudinal couches with high upholstered backs.  At night the backs swung out and up to form berths, so that the compartment supplied sleeping accomodations for four persons.  There were roomy lockers under the seats and at meal times an extension table made a miraculous appearance and seated eight.  Forward of the main cabin was the galley, gleaming with white enamel and brass.  It was fitted with a large ice-chest, many lockers, a sink with running water, a two-burner alcohol stove with oven and a multitude of plate-racks.  It was the lightest place in the boat, for, besides a light-port on each side, it had as well a hatch overhead.  The hatch, although water-tight, was made to open for the admission of ice and supplies.  Still forward, in the nose of the boat, was a large water tank and, beyond that, the rope locker.  The gasoline tanks, of which there were four, held two hundred and fifty gallons.  The boat was lighted by electricity in all parts by means of a generator and storage battery.  An eight-foot tender rested on chocks atop the main cabin.  The boat carried no signal mast, but flag-poles at bow and stern and abaft the bridge deck frame held the Union Jack, the yacht ensign and the club burgee.  All in all, the Adventurer was a smart and finely appointed craft, and a capable one, too.  Steve’s father had had her built only a little more than a year ago and she had seen but scant service.  In the inelegant but expressive phraseology of Perry, “she was a rip-snorting corker of a boat.”  The consensus of opinion was to the effect that Mr. Chapman was “a peach to let them have it,” and there was an unuttered impression that that kind-hearted gentleman was taking awful chances!

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Project Gutenberg
The Adventure Club Afloat from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.