With great anticipation

Much has been going on in our shops over the past week - for starters the 25-foot Launch has been moved out of the Framing Bay to make room for the No. 2 Monomoy. The shop was nearly entirely stripped, and everything reorganized to streamline material handling and management in quantity. A new 16-foot workbench along the East wall is ideally suited to working with planking stock, and all of our large power tools are now stowed beneath it. The entire West wall was framed up with stickers (shelves) for new timber stock of all varieties up to 25 feet long, with our heaviest materials (concrete, scrap metals) and rag, wood scrap and junk line bins beneath. Right now, it is a sight to behold, empty for the first time in over a year, and ready to rock yet another project. Thanks to everyone who lent your efforts to shop preparation - all of which will pay dividends as work continues. Not to mention, the improvements make us look more and more substantial - "inspiring confidence" as one volunteer so eloquently put it.

BT

Work begins on keels, stems and sternposts for both of the restoration Monomoys this week. The full sized plans - that's right, no lofting here - have been printed and are sitting on my desk at this moment. Several copies of critical sheets allow us to cut out the lines to transpose them onto the plywood to be subsequently cut into patterns. The patterns will be made starting today, and by Wednesday we will likely be in a very good position to begin laminating the white oak planks into timbers that will be shaped to form the backbone and ends of the boats.

Also of note, we'll be laminating the timbers for both boats simultaneously. In fact, the entire process of making new parts for the boats will continue side-by-side, although only the parts made for No. 2 will be assembled as they are produced. More on the plan for this process after the timbers are complete.

That completed, it is my hope that shaping can be completed by December, ahead of our deadline on the 15th. That would make for a great holiday season of making and setting up the molds and placing ribbands.

BT

I'll make up for the lack of humor tomorrow. I'm crotchety today after fighting with the plotter and huge sheets of paper strewn with running ink. Bah humbug.

NNNN