"This is not a book for yacht-builders, but it is intended for beginners in the art of boat-building, who wish to make something with which they may navigate the waters of ponds, lakes, or streams. It begins with the most primitive crafts composed of slabs or logs and works up to scows, house-boats, skiffs, canoes and simple forms of sailing craft, a motor-boat, and there it stops. In writing and collecting this material for boat-builders from his other works and placing them in one volume, the author feels that he is offering a useful book to a large audience of new recruits to the army of those who believe in the good old American doctrine of: If you want a thing done, do it yourself." (Dan Beard)Reprint of the original edition from 1931.