We've yet to build something that doesn't fit out the giant magic doors of our shop but it has been a little tight on occasion. Over the last weeks the Viking ship seemed to get bigger and bigger with each passing day. A few days ago Peter and I actually got concerned enough to break out the tape measure to check things out. It looked good. Today it was time to actually begin pulling out the structure for the ship. We knew that the first piece would be the toughest. We first moved shelving and benches away from the back wall of the shop. Then we used the forklift to push the ship frame up against the back wall. The forklift was barely up to the task but after a couple of runs at it the job was done.

Then we unbolted the first large section of the hull and hooked up the chains. Again it was all our little forklift could handle but it managed to lift and pull the section of structure away from the rest. One end was hoisted onto a pallet jack. I then moved the forklift to the other end gingerly side shifted the piece over and over until it was against the side wall. Then we pulled the other end towards the door. With a couple of inches to spare it cleared all of the obstacles (as carefully planned of course) and we inched it out the door. It took four hours to remove about two thirds of the pieces of ship. We were much more concerned about safety than speed. The parking lot was suddenly very full! Tomorrow we'll remove the rest and begin work on the next one.