Special Delivery...

"You're good!" I shout, as Dad's license plate folds up between the trailer and the driveway.

It's been a busy few weeks. The wood arrived at its destination -my backyard- at the end of July. Dad drove down from Maryland with the load still strapped to his trailer, and I was waiting with my friends Ian and Selwyn to help me unload. Together, the four of us unloaded the timbers with a combination of block and tackle, rollers, inclined wooden planks, and a LOT of muscle:

"Heave!"

"Everybody watch your fingers!"

Unloading most of the "smaller" backbone pieces -the stem and stem knees, deadwood, stern knees and sternpost- was a difficult job, but one quite within the realm of possibility for four guys, as long as we didn't mind losing about a gallon of sweat in the process (this wood is heavy). The 6-inch by 18-inch by 25-foot long keel timber, however, was another story entirely.

Initially, we thought that we might be able to simply drag it straight off the back of the trailer by lashing it to the utility shed at the corner of the yard. We were forced to abandon that idea, however, when it became clear that the shed was more likely to move than the timber was - provided that it wasn't first crushed into an hourglass shape by the restraining cable! 

"We're going to need a bigger shed..."

Our second attempt involved placing metal rollers beneath the keel, and placing Selwyn in the bed of the pickup to provide the tension necessary to stop it from rolling uncontrolledly off the back as Dad hit the accellerator.

"Tight enough to keep it under control, but not so tight that it pulls you out after it!"

This cunning plan might have worked, but for the fact that the two-wheel drive truck was unable to obtain sufficient traction on the sloped wet grass of the back yard, and instead merely dug itself into a pair of begrimed divots beneath its rear wheels. Enter: Jenny the Jetta!

"I think I can! I think I can!"

With a heavy-duty tow line connecting the winch on Dad's massive Cummins diesel to the trailer hitch on my trusty little TDI wagon, the two of us counted down, and at Dad's signal we both gunned it, my squealing tires sending clouds of smoke billowing forth from the concrete of the driveway. It took two or three tries to get the timing right, but eventually Jenny's 90 extra horsepower proved to be enough to make the difference.

With the truck back on level ground and the keel teetering partway off the trailer, getting it the rest of the way became a simple matter of driving out from underneath - just as we'd originally hoped a few exhausting hours previously.

"So now there's this big hunk of wood in the back yard..."

Shortly after the work was completed, we were hit with a late afternoon sunshower, followed by a beautiful double rainbow over the neighborhood. If that's not a good omen, I don't know what is.

So now that that's out of the way, all I have to do is build the thing!