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Kite messengers.
A simple toy boat. |
242 What Shall We Do Now?
rolled tightly and tied at distances of a foot. Its exact length will depend on the strength of the wind and can be determined only by experience, but, roughly speaking, it should be five times the height of the kite, or, with the kite which we are making, fifteen feet long. It is best to have the tail in two or three pieces, and then it can be lengthened or shortened at will. For instance, if the kite plunges in the air and will not keep steady, the tail is not long enough ; but if it will go up only a little way, the tail is probably too long. Be sure to have plenty of string, carefully wound, so that there will be no hitches in paying it out. When starting a kite you need the help of some one who will stand about thirty yards away, holding the kite against the wind, and throw it straight up when you have the line tight and give the signal. If it does not rise it may be well for you to run a few yards against the wind. At first you must not pay out line very rapidly, but when the kite is flying steadily you may give it, also steadily, all the string it wants.
A messenger is a piece of cardboard or paper with a good-sized hole in it, which you slip over the string when the kite is steady, and which is carried right up to the kite by the wind.
The following directions, with exact measurements, apply to one of the simplest home-made sailing-boats. Take a piece of soft straight-grained pine, which any carpenter or builder will let you have, one foot long, four inches wide, and two inches deep. On the top of the four-inch side draw an outline as in Fig. I, in which you will be helped by first dividing the wood by the pencil line AB, exactly in the middle. Then turn the block over and divide the under four-inch side with a similar line, and placing the saw an eighth of an inch each side of this line, cut two incisions right along the wood about a quarter of an inch deep. The portion between these two incisions forms the keel. Then carry the line up the middle of the end A. and repeat the incisions as |
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