Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1531433
26 PROP CULTURE I WINTER 2025 billions of dollars in cargo, they finally reopened the canal. But for us, the damage was done. The backlog was so bad that we were forced to use air cargo instead, which more than tripled our shipping budget. My Mondays usually started with me going over Tomo's latest Air Table files. I was amazed at what was for sale. Like here, Japan has an aging population, and the younger generations no longer have an interest in or the will to hang onto old antiques. It didn't matter what we were looking for; Tomo could usually find it, and I would simply type "BUY!" in my reply notes. This became our process as we steadily amassed all the amazing things I needed. For more detailed buying, I would either ask our historian for input or, for example, include our tea ceremonies master in the meetings so she could explain to Tomo what was needed. Who knew there were such big differences between making spring or winter tea and the Zen of the ceremony? Quill and Perry were well into making the mold for the whale boats, while Bob had the job of cutting the scarf joints into 100 sheets of marine plywood. With these, Bruce then glued up four sheets at a time to make 32-foot lengths of plywood. It was going to take 20 sheets of marine plywood for the outer strakes or planks for each boat. Bob did an amazing job. Quill and Perry started building the first of five whale boats using the full-sized patterns taken off plans Douglas provided of Senzanmaru, the oldest plank-built boat in existence, preserved at the Tokushima Castle Museum. Finally, I paid a visit to our Costumer, Carlos Rosario, who I had never worked with before. He was so welcoming and spent a lot of time explaining his ideas through his illustrations and color palette boards. He talked about the Regents and the armies they each had. Each Regent's army had its own colors: brown, green, red, silver, gold, etc. We agreed that my props needed to complement, not stand out from, what he was doing. For the armies, we agreed that the cordage on their swords