David said the night before we were to move Cherokee out that he expected her to be set up on the ground and waiting for the hydraulic truck by 10:30 in the morning. We all arrived at 7 am Thursday to make sure that we had lots of time to work if things didn't go quite as planned. Hey, you never know.
We built a cradle for her the week before, and by Wednesday night, she had been lifted up and set on the cradle.
We had a set of heavy duty rollers, called Turtles, that went beneath the cradle and allowed us move her around with very little effort.
To turn the boat, all we needed to do was to lift the cradle a bit with a crowbar, angle the turtle,
and set the cradle back down. Now we could push the cradle at an angle with ease.
By Wednesday night, a ramp had been built from the doors of the museum, leading to a large platform.
The plan was to move the boat onto the platform where it could be turned 90 degrees,
and then rolled down a new ramp made from the old ramp.
We were lucky to have a perfect day. Just a little cool, sunny, no wind.
The first order of business Thursday morning was to remove the door frame to give ourselves every inch of width and height possible.
This turned out to be the hardest part of the whole process.
The head of the museum volunteers showed up with a few of the volunteers and we made fairly short work of it.
And there she was, like a big dog not sure if she wants to go outside.
We had to do some rearranging of the posts inside the shop to allow her to go forward and nose out of the door.
This was the plan:
Get her nose out of the door enough so that her transom could swing past the brick chimney inside the shop, straighten her out so that she faced directly out the door, and roll her down the ramp. Along the way we'd have to move a post or 2 and replace it with a floor jack to keep the 2nd floor up where it belonged.
With that first post out of the way, we were able to get her pointed out the door.
A little push
And she saw the light of day.
Sniff sniff. Hmmm.
Sniff sniff sniff.
Ok, I'll put my head out a little bit.
Looking a little tight, but so far so good.
Meanwhile, inside the building, the boat had gone as far enough forward to clear the chimney, but there was still a post to contend with.
With a temporary post set up and the original post out of the way, she's clear to swing past the chimney.
So, with Jack on the safety line, we straightened her out
And gave her another push
Here's how it looked from outside in stop-action. Click on the movie below to get it to play if it's not already going.
It was a VERY tight fit
but we made it with no scratches at all. It was almost too easy. Of course, easy is what you get when you've had a crew that's planned and worked very hard at getting the setup right.
Once she was outside and safely on her platform
we canted the turtles 45 degrees off center, and simply spun her around like a record on a turntable.
Again, easy easy easy.
Time for a group shot. 9:25 am.
Inside, the place seemed eerily empty.
Joel, who came on to the project after it was well underway, realized that he'd never stood in the center of the room before. There was always a boat in the way.
But, back to work. Working with the volunteers, we moved the ramp from the doorway and led it down to the gravel.
We set up another safety line looped around a 4' tent stake, and slowly guided her from the platform to the ground.
And there she was, outside and on solid ground for the first time.
10:25 am. Not bad, David, not bad at all.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again, that's one pretty boat.
And nice job to you as well, Olin.
A big thanks to Jack Ryan and the volunteers for all their help, and to Wendy Knox who took almost all of these photos. You folks are the bomb.
Next up, we'll move her to IYRS and do all the painting and final work on her out in front of the school. As always, feel free to stop by and say Hello. Then you too can say, "Wow, that's one pretty boat!"