So it’s been a while since the last post, unfortunately I had a pretty bad back injury that laid me up for almost a week… It’s all good now though, and we’ve still managed to get a bit done. We have removed the lofting floor, built the cradle, moved the keelson, and have started the final fitting of the keel pieces before we bolt it all together.

We built the cradle out of a big white fir that came down next to our friends house. White fir aka grand fir isn’t all that valuable, and the tree would have probably just been cut up for fire wood. Instead our friends milled it up into big beams for us, and it became our cradle. Then once we finish the boat it will probably become fire wood…

Once the cradle was built and leveled out we hooked two come alongs from the keelson to the base of a pine tree next to the shed. We worked in unison to slowly inch the keelson from the remains of the lofting floor to the cradle.

It went surprisingly  easy. Which rarely ever happens… after the successful event we drank beer and stared at the fruits of our labor.

Next I started triming and fine tuning the pieces of the keel so everything goes together as it should.

Probably a day or two more and we’ll be ready to glue and fasten all the pieces of the keel together, and turn the whole assembly on it’s side for the ballast pour!