In order to make the staves pliable, I soaked them in water for a week, and then heated them over a fire, afterwards bending them to the required shape.

At the end of nine months of unremitting labour, to which, latterly, considerable anxiety--glorious hopes and sickening fears--was added, I had built what I considered a substantial and sea-worthy sailing boat, fully fifteen feet long by four feet wide.
It was a heavy ungainly looking object when finished, and it required much ingenuity on my part to launch it.

This I eventually managed, however, by means of rollers and levers; but the boat was frightfully low in the water at the stern.

It was quite watertight though, having an outer covering of sharks' green hide, well smeared with Stockholm tar, and an inside lining of stout canvas.

I also rigged up a mast, and made a sail.