Karyk sat atop the yard, and grabbed one the first block. He hadn't seen any iron bands in the warehouse, which only the fanciest and newest of ships in Zeltiva used, so he decided to use the groove and notch method, as his mum had called it. This meant that he needed to adjust the yard first, a common practice back home. Karyk set down the block, and fetched a mallet and chisel from his pack. Karyk sat stride the yard and scooched down toward the end. He leaned forward, torso against the yard, making sure to cross his ankles beneath the wood, just in case he slipped, he could lock them and save himself.
Chisel in his left hand, mallet in his right, Karyk set it at a half angle against the wood. He tapped the chisel with the mallet, digging a thick shaving of wood, driving it in a shallow cut. Karyk moved further along, chipping away as he worked his way from the top of the yard down and around the backside. Karyk went through, evening out the notches from his rough cuts. Once the groove was carved, about half the width of the rope Karyk intended to use, he needed to carve the set notch for the block's eye bolt. He sat upright, locked his ankles, hooked an elbow around the yard, and slowly eased his body to the side, swinging to side and hung himself upside down from the yard.
Karyk tightened his stomach muscles and gripped the yard with his knees and thighs. Looking upward at the groove he'd carved around it, Karyk smoothed at the cuts he couldn't reach from above. He then set the chisel inside the groove perpendicular to it, and slowly tap-tapped the chisel into the wood, biting about half a thumb length deep. He pulled the chisel free and did it again, widening the notch more and more. Once it was big enough to his liking, Karyk swung an arm up over the yard, hooking at the elbow. He grunted, and pulled himself back, once more sitting astride the yard.
Karyk grabbed a block and a short length of rope. Karyk fed the rope through the block's eye bolt. He dangled the block beneath the yard, and pulled it up, so the eye bolt rested into the notch, holding both ends of the rope, one in each hand. He did a bend in the right hand side, and with the left, wrapped it around the back of the bend, over the front, and underneath itself. He then fed the left hand length up through the right hand bend, and tightened it. This bowline knot would not shrink or expand with tension, and the notch would allow the eye bolt to move as needed when the lines moved with the rigs. Karyk fed a long length of rope through the block, letting it dangle down so it could be used as needed for the accessories and smaller sails and rigs.
Karyk continued to carve these grooves and notches and affix the blocks. The only change he made was one he fastened to the top of the yard. Feeding a rope through this top mounted block, Karyk scooted his way to the most, rope in hand. Standing on the yard, Karyk looked up at the trestle trees and cross trees, and tied the rope to his belt. Karyk reached up and gripped his fingers into a sheave carved into the mast, and using it as leverage, jumped up, and grabbed the bottom of a cross tree.
Karyk hung there, swinging back and forth a bit before heaving himself up and grabbing another cross tree. Karyk set his feet against the mast and push outward, bending his body at the waist and slowly walking up the mast, bending more and more as he went. When he couldn't go anymore, he held himself with one hand, and used the other to reach up and grab onto a trestle tree. Once he had a firm grip, he brought his other hand up and grabbed the trestle tree next to the first.
Karyk flexed his arms, and tightened his back, and pulled himself up. Slower and slower he climbed until he got an arm hooked over a trestle tree, and continued to pull himself up and over. He kicked his leg up and onto the platform there, and pulled himself the rest of the way up. Karyk undid the rope from his belt, and fed it up through the center hole of the platform, and temporarily tied it off to a peg with a figure eight knot.
Sweaty and huffing lightly, Karyk looked down at his work. The entire yard was fitted and accessorized and ready for the next phase. It was starting to get late, so Karyk decided to clean up. Karyk climbed back down off the platform, and gathered up his tools. He closed up his toolkit, and tied it up with a modified barrel hitch, and lowered it down to the deck, dropping the rope behind it. Karyk lowered himself down to the yard, and reached beneath it to grab the stay line. He hooked the rope with his feet and squeezed them together and slowly lowered himself down so that he hung free of the yard.
Slowly he lowered himself, using his feet to control his descent, while his arms kept him on the rope. Hand over hand, he lowered himself until he dropped down to the deck. He gathered up his tools, and carried them over to the locker areas, and found an empty one. He carefully put his tools inside, and stopped. He grabbed a chisel and carefully carved his name into the face of the wooden footlocker.
Making his way back up the gangplank, Karyk gathered up the extra ropes, coiling them up around his shoulder and tying them up, then carried them and the leftover blocks back into the warehouse, putting them back exactly where he'd gotten them. He searched all over and found a straw broom. Returning to the deck, Karyk swept off all the shavings he'd made, and knocked them into the lake.
And with that, Karyk was done for the day, and began to make his way home, forgetting all about the spoon he'd stuck in his pack.
by Karyk on June 3rd, 2017, 2:34 am 
