Kit stood back and watched and listened as Wayland described his vision of the workshop, with words and gestures bringing offices and hull-frames and a gantry of pulleys to life. Mulligan asked a sensible question, which caused Wayland to pause and explain. Emboldened by the easy way Wayland responded, several of the others posed further questions. Kit grinned. It was clear Wayland had, indeed, gathered a group of men who would form a tight-knit crew and work with him and Kit in transforming their dream into a reality.
At the end of his exposition, Wayland showed the men the new tools he’d assembled and arranged on the floor along the far side of the warehouse, then pointed out the stacks of timbers he’d begged and pleaded and managed to have delivered late yesterday—solid beams for the gantries, and pieces of various sizes for supports, frames, and struts.
The men pored over the tools like children on Christmas Day.
Wayland whipped out his notebook and asked what else they would need.
Several requests came for certain types of wood files, and two smaller saws and more vises. Wayland jotted it all down.
Then Mulligan, who, with the others, had been crouching and examining the tools, rose and, planting his massive hands on his hips, turned to Wayland. “Seems like the very first things we need to build are racks to hold all these tools. Can’t keep them on the floor like this—they’ll end damaged.”
“Ah.” Wayland hesitated. Kit knew his partner had assumed they would immediately start on framing the offices, but then Wayland nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. So—tool racks first. Then”—he looked at Mulligan—“I thought we could rough-in the frames for the offices before starting work on the gantry. Once we have that up, two men could continue working on the offices while the rest of us make a start on the frame for our first keel.”
Mulligan mulled, then nodded. “That should work.” He looked at the others. “Right, lads. Let’s get to it.”
Wayland had already draped his coat over a pile of wood closer to the door.
Kit shrugged out of his coat, laid it with Wayland’s, and started rolling up his sleeves.
“So,” Wayland said, also rolling up his sleeves, “you have six men to put to work.”
Mulligan was bent over, sorting timber. At that, he looked up. “Six?” Then he saw Wayland’s and Kit’s preparations, and his brows rose. “You two want to work in with us?”
“If you’ll have us,” Kit replied. “We each have two hands, and both of us have some small experience in carpentry.”
Along with the other men, Mulligan stared at them for a moment, then Mulligan snorted. “I won’t say no—we’ve a lot to do, and you two are the bosses, after all. But”—his eyes twinkled—“p’rhaps you’d better leave the hammering to us. I suspect you’ll need your thumbs.”
Once the chuckles from the men and the resigned looks from Kit and Wayland had faded, they got to work on two racks for the tools.
Within half an hour, Mulligan and the team had forgotten about Kit and Wayland being the bosses and were treating them like apprentices, which made Wayland and Kit grin.
Every now and then, some hopeful carpenter would turn up at the open door, and Wayland and Mulligan would go and chat to them and decide whether or not they were of the right caliber to join the workforce of Cavanaugh Yachts. Mulligan had suggested and Kit and Wayland had agreed that any employees they hired that day would start on Monday.
“Too many cooks, otherwise,” Mulligan had said.
After two hours’ hard work, Wayland paused, then looked at Mulligan. “Why not put these racks on wheels? Then we can move them around the hulls. I’d hope to have at least two hulls in progress at any given time, and it’s likely we’ll have another being polished off.” Wayland waved around them. “We’ve space enough for three.”
Mulligan slowly nodded. “That’s not a bad idea.”
They worked out the logistics, then Kit and Wayland left to purchase two sets of large iron wheels, four wheels for each rack.
As they rolled the heavy wheels, lashed together, back to the warehouse, Wayland said, “I can barely believe we’ve actually made a start—that we’ve managed to get this far this fast and all relatively smoothly.”
“Don’t jinx us,” Kit replied. “But yes—it’s...” He realized he was lost for words to describe the effervescent enthusiasm coursing his veins.
“Uplifting,” Wayland supplied. “I feel positively giddy.”
Kit laughed. They reached the cobbled lane along the Grove and had to slow, wrestling the wheels along.
While laughing with Wayland at their efforts to keep the wheels heading more or less in the right direction, Kit was struck by how simply happy he was.
Their enterprise was progressing step by steady step, and everything was, thus far, going well. There’d been nothing about the day that he would choose to change.
His mind slid sideways to whether Sylvia and the school were also having a good day—their first in their new premises.
Her intention in storming into his office on Wednesday morning hadn’t been to assist him in getting to where he now was, yet in reality, her tempestuous arrival had been a critical juncture in the evolution of Cavanaugh Yachts.
Wayland and Mulligan had been enthused by the quality of men turning up at the workshop door, largely sent their way by connections associated with the school.