This weekend the village of Yarrow is celebrating Yarrow Days complete with its annual parade!

Thanks to the Imagination Corporation, our float is all ready and we can't wait to see everyone out on Yarrow Central Road at 10 am!

We will also have a booth set up at Yarrow Pioneer Park so come on by and take a look at the scale model in person!

See you soon!

We've all heard the story of the fellow who built a giant ship in his workshop and then discovered there was no way to get it out of the door without some serious demolition. Today was the day we would see if the Avellana would actually fit out the door of our shop.We had, of course, carefully measured the door and the ship hull as we built it. However, the unique challenge was that our shop has a round door. It's widest point is at about five feet off the floor. To squeeze the ship hull through we would have to lift it to that height - no mean feat for something this large and heavy! 

The solution was to borrow our neighbour's forklift for the task. Our good friends at Extreme Boat Sports were gracious and lent their forklift for the task. I drove it into the shop to pick up one end of the ship. Matt picked up the other end with our forklift. Peter and Janessa watched each side as we slowly eased it out of the door. There was a half inch of clearance on each side - just as we planned! :) Now we begin the upper portions of the ship.

Today was a busy day onsite as we started removing soil in preparation for the Inn's foundations. Collin, our civil and geotechnical engineer, from Out of the Box Engineering gave the ground his stamp of approval and tomorrow we will begin to build everything back up with engineered fill. It's exciting times!

It seems like we have had a very long journey to get to this point. We've drawn many versions of the plans, built a scale model, had many, many meetings with engineers of every sort. But, at long last, we are done the planning. Shovels, as they say, are about to be in the ground. It will be a little while before we begin the actual on-site construction, but the land preparation will proceed, starting tomorrow morning, bright and early! This is going to be exciting... 

Peter had a grin on his face the whole time the crew was building the giant head a few weeks ago. Now that grin has been replaced by an even bigger smile as he begins work on the sailing ship which will protrude from the tower of the North Star suite. Guests who stay in this luxurious suite will sleep in the ornate stern of the ship.

The ship started as a concept drawing, then became a scale model (it was at this stage that we worked out many of the ornate details). Those steps were relatively easy and quick. However, it took a few tries before we sorted out the ship's engineering - apparently, safely balancing the full sized hull of a ship on top of a eight foot tall concrete wall is no easy task. Thankfully, our structural engineer, David Lee sorted out all of the math; imagine those calculations! It sure is good to have an engineer who gets what we do! 

With the design work safely behind us we have begun the actual construction of the ship. We first cut out the thick steel plates which will define the waterline of the ship. Above this line will be the walls of the ship and below will be the floor of the suite and the lower hull. At the moment however, the ship is upside down. There is a tremendous amount of fitting, cutting and welding in this stage. Everything has to one hand fit one piece at a time because each piece is unique to allow for the curved and tapering shape of the hull. Once this main structure is finished, we will hand forth body of the hull with a pencil rod armature. Then, we will hand sculpt the timbers and planks using fibreglass reinforced concrete. This is what guests will see. All of the carefully fit and welded steel structure will be hidden inside, never to be seen again.