From time to time we have to participate in what I have nicknamed “boat shoving” or moving boats around in our warehouse or International Small Craft Center. Whether it is for exhibition changes, in order to rig sails, so work can be done in one section of the building, or because we need to stage photographs, it is a challenging procedure. This time we were moving several boats in and out of the warehouse so they could be photographed for an upcoming exhibit at another institution.

In the storage areas, most of the larger artifacts are on wheels in order to make it easier to shift things around. Still, it is challenging and sometimes it can be very dangerous to move them. Just getting thousands of pounds of boat from a dead stop to forward movement takes multiple sets of hands and a lot of muscle power. Once they are in motion, we need to worry about keeping all the wheels lined up in the same direction, coordinating everyone involved in the move and not running into or over anyone or anything.

We had six pairs of hands involved this time and both boats were safely back in their storage spots within a couple hours. Jason, our photographer, took a lot of photos, but since he is still editing them, I only have these images to show. You can see, despite all the hard work, we can still find a few things to laugh about.