There is a tremendous lot of charm in sailing and messing around a small boat. Folks are just learning this; because in these hard times they have to. And if this small boat has a tiny cabin, an engine, a modest rig, why then the fun of owning and playing with it is tripled. Ben Bow Too is 19 feet 3 inches over all, her water line length is 19 feet, her breadth 5 feet 6 inches, and her draft 2 feet 4 inches. The freeboard at the bow is 2 feet 8 inches and at the stern 2 feet 0 inches. So you can see she is a tiny slip of a thing in over all dimensions. However I have wrangled around with the drawings for days in an effort to produce a comfortable cabin, full sized cockpit, separate engine room, sitting up headroom, and seaworthiness in a very small motor-sailer.

The rig is efficient and while small is ample for sailing when there is a good breeze. The total sail area is 125 square feet. The rigging is plain and without complicated features. One shroud each side and a head stay completes the standing rigging; Mainsail and staysail halyards, and topping lift, the running rigging. Then there are the main and staysail sheets. Nothing unnecessary; and not much to get snarled up in.

The cockpit is of the self draining kind and should prove ample for two. Remember this is not the kind of boat to load up with a party of six; there is a limit to everything and two is Ben Bow Too's limit. In very hot still days the boom can be topped up and an awning spread over the cockpit and companionway.

Inside, considering the over all dimensions, there is excellent room. Two built in bunks, stove, shelves for dishes, work table, bins under the cockpit floor for gear of one kind and another, coal bin, lockers under the bunks, and a comfortable little seat running along opposite the stove and work table. What more does a hardy man require than accommodations for a week end voyage? There is just comfortable headroom for sitting up. About headroom. I am nearing the half century mark and still find it easy to bend aver, wriggle in and out of small hatch ways, find comfort on a hard seat, and perfect joy in a tiny cabin. I sometimes wonder what is the matter with men fifteen or twenty years younger than I who require seven feet of headroom, spring berths, and great open spaces under a glass canopy. And so I like the layout of this latest of MoToR Boating's family; and I am glad to know that there are a great many cruising men who are of a like mind.

The lines show a wholesome hull of moderate displacement and one that will drive easily under either sail or power. There is enough deadrise to assure an easy going boat in rough water without sacrificing stability. Very hard bilges are not desirable in any small cruising yacht. The profile below the water line was designed with a view to making the craft quick in stays and at the same time easy to hold on a course. And I have borne in mind as well ease of construction, and expense of construction. The arrangement of the propeller, shaft, and stuffing box is simplicity itself. It is consideration of details of this kind that keep the cost of building down to reasonable sums. The propeller shaft has very little angle. This is always a desirable feature. In this little ship the after sections show a reverse curve which leaves a nice deep bilge aft, and of course the base of the engine sets well down in this. When the boat stove shown in the plans is installed Ben Bow Too will require approximately 100 pounds of lead stowed under the seat on the starboard side; and another 200 pounds of ballast under the flooring between stations 2 and 6. Small beach stones, about the size of eggs, make excellent ballast.

There are some very fine motors well suited for powering Ben Bow Too; among these are the Falcon single cylinder 4-5 h.p.; the Palmer 2 h.p.; the Regal; Red Wing; or the Kermath, all suitable single cylinder outfits and to be fitted without reverse gears. There is not an over abundance of room for your power plant which shuts out multiple cylinder motors. If any thing over 5 h.p. is installed Ben Bow Too will be over powered. The motor is completely separated from the cabin by a water tight bulkhead. The fuel tank, batteries, and every thing connected with the engine are abaft this bulkhead.