The Yacht Club by Oliver Optic

The Sea Foam was a sloop yacht, thirty feet in length, and as handsome as a picture in an illustrated paper, than which nothing could be finer. It was a fact that she had cost twelve hundred dollars; but even this sum was cheaper than she could have been built and fitted up in Boston or Bristol. She was provided with everything required by a first class yacht of her size, both for the comfort and safety of the voyager, as well as for fast sailing. Though Mr. Ramsay, her builder, was a ship carpenter, he was a very intelligent and well-read man. He had made yachts a specialty, and devoted a great deal of study to the subject. He had examined the fastest craft in New York and Newport, and had their lines in his head. And he was a very ingenious man, so that he had the tact to make the most of small spaces, and to economize every spare inch in lockers, closets, and stow-holes for the numerous articles required in a pleasure craft. He had learned his trade as a ship carpenter and joiner in Scotland, where the mechanic's education is much more thorough than in our own country, and he was an excellent workman.

The cabin of the Sea Foam was about twelve feet long, with transoms on each side, which were used both as berths and sofas. They were supplied with cushions covered with Brussels carpet, with a pillow of the same material at each end. Through the middle, fore and aft, was the centre-board casing, on each side of which was a table on hinges, so that it could be dropped down when not in use. The only possible objection to this cabin, in the mind of a shoreman, would have been its lack of height. It was necessarily "low studded," being only five feet from floor to ceiling, which was rather trying to the perpendicularity of a six-footer. But it was a very comfortable cabin for all that, though tall men were compelled to be humble within its low limits.