Tomorrow is the big day... we finally take Cherokee outside! If you're in the area, you're welcome to come out and watch it happen. Be advised, though, we're getting to the museum by 7 am to make sure we have enough to time to make this happen slowly and safely. No no no rushing.
This is the first time we've been able to actually step back and see what she looks like from the side. As you can tell from all the photos up to now, we can get a good fore and aft view of her, but there's not much room to step away from her on the sides.
So, we've had lots of photos like this
and this
and this
Today, however, we put her up on her cradle and began to move her around the shop.
Woah... that's one pretty boat.
We'll have tons of photos on moving day for sure...
The plan is to get her outside where she can be picked up by a hydraulic transport trailer and carried over to the IYRS front yard. There, she'll be attached to her keel, painted, and the hundreds of fiddly things that need to be done to finish her will be taken care of right out front.
In the meantime, here's a few things that have been going on over the last week.
The hardware is getting attached to the boat as soon as it's finished. Remember those heavy-looking bonze knees? They look a bit more delicate now that the lightening holes have been cut into them.
And perhaps you recall the nice slots that were cut in the covering boards for the chain plates? Here's the raw stock for the chain plate being fit into the slot.
And here is is down below.
There will be a good bit of shaping before it's done.
There's no traveller on this boat, so David and the folks over at
Pedrick Yacht Design have worked out a pulley system that will act somewhat like a traveller. The pulleys will be set just below the deck aft of the boat steerer's cockpit. Here's one of the pulleys with a paper template showing the shape of the bronze hardware we'll build to mount it.
And of course, you need to seal and finish the deck where this system will come through the canvas, so we built a few bronze flanges to make everything neat and finished. Here they are waiting to be welded.
Perhaps you were asking yourself when you saw the marks that the boat measurer made on the hull, "How will they find those marks in the future?" Excellent question! They've now been made permanent with small screws fastened to the hull.
Now future measurers will be able to easily find these marks even after the hull has been painted.
Remember the bronze curved strips that will cover the canvas at the forward and aft ends of the boat? The canvas needs a place to go underneath those strips, so we've routed out some channels that the ends of the canvas will go into.
The cockpit coamings have been removed to facilitate fairing the decks. Now they're all sanded smooth and ready for decking.
Of course, all that sanding creates LOTS of dust. In a shop as small as this, you have to work out a way for the folks who are sanding and the folks who are varnishing to peacefully co-exist. Our solution: Chez varnish.
Here, all the coamings can be worked on in peace.
If you have a very sharp eye, you may have noticed a little sign taped to the bottom of the Boothbay Harbor banner earlier. What sign? This sign:
Let's just say we found a little surprise in the bilge one morning. It wasn't lit, but boy, the crew was.
So, if you come by the shop tomorrow for the big move out, and you pull out a trusty ol' stogie to celebrate... well, this little bit of history might help to explain some of the looks you could receive.
But we're a flexible bunch, and if you bring us food all is forgiven!