July 14, 2005
the move
a bit belated, but here is a picture from the move.
Skate moving Ocean Blue across town
June 24, 2005
hooray!!
the boat (and all the material, tools, and infrastructure required to build it) is safely moved to its new garage home!!! Hooray!!!!
We moved it yesterday. Andrew, Sarah, Andy S, Becky, John D and John I came to help. Getting it out of the basement wasn't too bad at all! The difficult parts turned out to be getting it re-oriented to come out into the yard while it was cantilevered out on the next door neighbor's roof. It got scratched up kinda badly on the stern end. :( But, it will be okay. I got wheels to attach to the bottom to help it go out on the roof, but they didn't fit underneath it (the fence's upper cross-support limited our vertical extent). The boys, in particular Andy!, were incredibly strong and managed to lift the whole boat a few times while having access only to the bow end!!
The other tough part was actually getting the fence apart. The wood, untreated, had become brittle and dry over the year, nails were rusty; some slats were really difficult to get out. We only split one board. Managed to get the thing back together (also pretty difficult so that it looks pretty good unless it's inspected carefully (which it won't have need to be, being in the bowels of the back yard and bordering someone's .... roof). Meanwhile Sarah and Becky sawed the strongback in half and took all the hardware out of it so I could roll up the black plastic on the floor, with all the waste material inside, and throw it straight in the trash (although it is too large for that; something more drastic will have to be done to dispose of it. it looks like a body bag. ;-)
The next tricky part was driving across town with it!! It came close to falling off Skate once. It didn't have a bow/stern line (no attachment place in the unfinished boat!), and I was afraid to tie it down really hard. We stopped twice on the way over to ballard, John following behind me, to make adjustments. But we made it ok. :D
Later that night I cleaned up the basement; today I will be turning in the keys to that place.....
End of Chapter!!
:-D
