One deck down

It's a funny little quirk of building two schooners at once like this, and both of them unnamed at this point, that I'm never quite sure how to reference one to distinguish her from the other. If you call one vessel Schooner 1, are you not assigning some significance to that hull over the other? And doesn't it sound just a little like Doctor Suess? (Thing One and Thing Two). When talking about them here, we'll often refer to the schooner closest to either Plant 1 or Plant 2 (the grandoise names of the two buildings here at The Dory Shop Boatyard). But I think maybe the safest thing is to distinguish them based on location.

Having explained all of this, you can now look at the pictures and see that the gang has finished laying the deck of the eastermost schooner (!!) and are now working on the westernmost vessel. Meanwhile Jay has nearly finished those hatches he's been working on.

All hands on deck

Decent weather and a couple of new hands has created a lot of very visible progress on deck this week. Check out these new photographs (and remember, you can get a closer look if you double click on the pictures).

Deck planks

We've fallen down a bit on posts to this blog lately. Seemed to happen right after Captain Dan left us (maybe we all needed a holiday?). Actually a lot of it has to do with the weather and the fact that while our schooner builders are hardcore, enduring all manner of snow, rain and blood-chilling cold, our photographer is kind of wimpy and likes her nice warm office.

This last week has been particularly tough for the building gang. Monday afternoon brought a quick and dirty snowstorm, followed by desperate deep cold. "The worst week yet," says Dave. Not that he's complaining; he never does. You just see him rub his hands together a bit more often.

But today it's Friday, sunny and finally above freezing, and most of the gang is outside working on the deck planking; the exception being Jay who is building hatches inside The Dory Shop. The wood being used for the decks of these twin schooners is Determa, a very stable and durable South American wood.