Most people who watch us work are convinced we never use a tape measure, level or even draw detailed plans. A lot of the time that is true for we love to build by eye to a visual standard. It has to look and feel right. We alway build to plans (which are sometimes only in our heads.) Often there are 'napkin drawings' which our engineer uses to produce real construction drawings. The building plans for the park in Trinidad numbered more than a hundred pages... but other than glancing at them to check them we never used them for the pieces we built in our shop.
The Viking ships are a different matter. Instead of figuring things out as we go we need to make detailed plans which will be reviewed by the engineers and the client. We will have to follow them closely. Other pre-manufactured components need to bolt onto our pieces and fit perfectly. To further complicate things our frames will have to be created of a size to fit into the galvanizers vats and then bolt together perfectly. Peter and I have spent days putting together the plans. We've both worn off a little more hair off our heads as we scratched our noggins frequently figuring everything out. There are still a few more details plus dimensions and notes to add but soon we will break from the design desk and start the real work in the shop.
