The starboard aft waterway timber is back in place. Yesterday, Team Carpentry broke out the epoxy and lag bolts to turn three shaped and scarfed pieces of Douglas Fir into one very big piece of waterway timber. It’s a more complicated version of what we did to make the channel blank, only this time the carpenters were doing all their work on the weather deck, in typically balmy Erie weather (i.e. nineteen degrees and blizzarding outside) instead of in the comfort of spar alley.

Today, with the foredeck planking and the waterway timber in place, we took some time to clean the ship and organize the shop. Over the last few weeks, the contents of the tool room have been slowly but surely migrating to the weather deck, and the shop itself has been getting more and more chaotic–not surprising, since we have a half-dozen people frantically working on twice as many projects.

Now that everything is neat and organized, on Tuesday we’ll be able to clutter it all up again with a clean conscience. The rig shop crew will be just as busy: they’re putting final coats of paint and varnish on the spars, dressing the yards, and prepping for  Crane Day and Cover Day.

(As Chief Mate always says: we couldn’t do any of this without our volunteers, and this time of year that’s especially true. Huge thanks to everyone who came out for sail training and the Saturday work party today, and to all of our regulars who’ve volunteered throughout the week!)