Cricket headed to Colorado yesterday afternoon, and Pat and I fly to Maine this morning. But we kicked some butt yesterday in the shop. We started by taking a few steps backward, revising a few of the deck arch supports to be more accurate to the original. Then we started decking with 3/8″ plywood, but took another step backward and downsized to 1/4″ like Bert did. The arch of the decking makes the 1/4″ plenty stiff.

One detail I missed in the last post. Turns out Bert was a Seagrams Crown 7 drinker. So we added some to the paint. Seemed like the right thing to do.

Is that grin maniacal?
Knocking down the bow post. It’s made of part of one of the old boat cradles from Grand Canyon National Park. The cradles held the historic boat collection for several decades–boats from Julius Stone, the Kolb Brothers, and so forth. I’m sure a little magic seeped down into them.

We made a commitment to quit around 2 yesterday so we could deal with our lives and imminent travel arrangements. But we couldn’t stop. We finally got the decks on at 3, toasted Bert and ourselves, left the shop an utter shambles, and stumbed out the door.