9' Old Town Dinghy Production Infomation

[Bob Baker]

I recently received the build sheet on my Old Town 9' Dinghy. The s/n 176134-9 revealed it to be produced June 24, 1966. I am surprised that wood/canvas boats were still being produced in the mid 1960's. When was the last year of production of the 9' dinghy? How many were produced in 1966?
thanks,
bkrsdoz

 

[MikeCav]

Perhaps Benson or Roger can give a better idea, unfortunately the build records are inages only, not a database file - so that information is not readily available. You can still order a wood & canvas canoe from Old Town today.

 

[Benson Gray]

It appears that the nine foot long dinghy was the most popular one that Old Town made since 246 appear in the database sample including one from 1966. The extrapolation approach used for the canoes listed at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/models.html indicates that a total of 3396 of these dinghies were produced between 1906 and 1967 which averages out to about 55 per year. They were listed in the Old Town catalogs from 1904 to 1971 and then again in 1983. The Island Falls Canoe Company still offers them today at http://www.islandfallscanoe.com/our-canoes.asp?cat=1087 as well. Hopefully this will answer your questions since an exact count of the number produced in 1966 would involve a manual review of several thousand build records as Mike indicated.

Benson

 

[Roger Young]

Bob:

In an effort to attempt to answer your question, I went through the Old Town build sheets for all the serial #'s in the 175000, 176000 and 177000 series. These 3000 craft seem to cover the 1966 year fairly well.

I found 18 9' dinghies having been produced, although the last two really didn't ship until the 1967 calendar year, and some of the first I have listed here were started in 1965, but were not shipped until 1966. The numbers I recorded are: 175084, 175164, 175253, 175271, 175292, 175354, 174393, 175455, 175881, 175890, 175943, 175985, 176087, 176134, 176157, 176781, 177242 and 177479.

During the same period, there were roughly 20 or 21 7-1/2' dinghies produced and about a dozen 11-1/2' dinghies. There were also about ten or twelve 10' fiberglass dinghies that I noticed.

My experience while checking the earlier OT records certainly confirms what Benson has already noted. The 9' length was the biggest seller in the first 100,000 units of production, followed by the 11-1/2' and then the 7-1/2'. At least that's my impression. After 1927 or so, the 7-1/2' length seemed to gain in popularity, and it's production numbers were running much closer to the others. Again, that was the picture created in my mind when flipping through the files.

Hope this helps to answer your question.