Explore "Stem to Stern" by Oliver Optic on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The strange craft appeared to be modelled after the catamaran, though the builder thereof had never seen one. It consisted of two logs a foot in diameter and ten feet long, which were placed three feet apart. In the middle of the supports two boards were nailed on the sticks, so that the thing looked more like the letter H than it did like a catamaran.
On the cross-boards was an old window-glass box; and on the box was seated Tom Topover. He was the naval architect of the structure which bore him, and the craft was not at all creditable to his ingenuity. If he had nailed the cross-boards across the ends of the logs, there would have been more stability to the affair, though in that case it would have been stigmatized as a raft.