Talk about a blind stroke of luck!! I have been researching the history of this float. I managed to contact the owner previous to Mike, he gave me a little bit more information and made me realize how close this boat was to being lost. When he acquired it, it was sheathed in glass and poly resin which also included some kind of fiberboard that was glassed to the top. It was outside and so water logged it took 4 people to load it into a pickup. Regardless, he stripped the glass and let it dry in his barn for over a year.
Well, stepping ahead to yesterday. I started delving around Mystic Seaport's online resources where I typed in the search string scull. There were 147 hits with most of them being text links. I scrolled for a minute and then clicked on sort by pictures where this was about the 5th pic to come up!!
http://mobius.mysticseaport.org/detail.php?t=objects&type=all&f=&s=scull&record=17
I am 99.9% certain, that they were the maker of the boat in my possession.
First, Brooks Boat Co. was based out of New Haven, CT during the 1880s. Making it quite fathomable for the boat to wind up in NH and matching what the previous owner had passed along, that the boat was "factory built circa 1890".
The cover is the exact same shape and built with the exact same locking mechanism.
The boat in the picture was obviously canvas decked and it looks to have some type of rail holding the canvas around the edges. My boat, has no cotton caulking between any of the decking seams (while still having plenty between the hull seams) and there are screw holes in the decking consistent to what would have been a rail.
Next up, my coaming has these little blocks with notches for a board that served as what I assumed to be for a seat mount. The seat in the picture would fit into them perfectly.
Lastly and one of the big ones for me, you can see in the photo some kind of rope going around interior of the coaming. I assume it was for placing vegetation, although I'm not 100% of its purpose. However, my boat has several bronze eyelets with the remnants of some type of shockcord (obviously a later replacement to the rope) and there are also holes in the coaming that match up with where the missing eyelets would have been.
Regardless, I'd love to hear what you guys think.
As for the restoration, I'm keeping the boat as true as form to possible but still making her a functional, lasting float. The inside is done minus a little more sanding. The center board had deteriorated some prior to the previous owner saturating it with West Systems epoxy. While extremely solid when I received it, the port side of it needed to be built back up to height which I did using cabosil thickened epoxy. All of the seams, gouges, nail holes, screw holes and cracks have been filled. Assuming the last of my fairing putty has set, I will do a final sand on the hull this evening and it will be ready for glass. I've looked into canvas decking but am probably going to go the faux route which involves using 8 oz glass, squeegeeing the epoxy after applying the layer of glass and not filling the weave.
Still waiting on my kiln dried cypress for the decks and have the ash & white oak for the remaining braces and coaming.
Give me just a second to edit this post from my phone and I'll add some photos of the restoration (can't access photobucket from work).
Brad
