Boat ID. Home build?

[wstiles]

Greetings fellow paddlers,
I'm new to wood and canvas canoes, but have long had an interest. On a recent trip to Maine (near Gorham), I picked up a 20 footer for free that someone had glassed, poorly. Fortunately the glass and resin are jumping off the boat like a snake shedding skin.
The canoe was used for a wedding decoration, and then set on the side of the road to find a new home.
So now the question (first of many I'm sure), what have I got?
It's 20'6" at the extreme, with a 48"beam.
The guy getting rid of it said it was a home built boat according to his son in law, but he thought it was basically a cedar strip boat (referenced Gilpatrick's book) .
Planking is 2.5" at the widest, ribs about 2, secondary ribs, 1.
Gunnels appear to be spruce.
I don't think the decks, thwarts, or seats are original, and they might be a bit wide. . No numbers or badges anywhere.

I'd love to get it back on the water, but figure if nothing else, it'll make someone a large decorative item.

 

[Benson Gray]

My guess would be a home made canoe. The dimensions might match one listed at https://wcha.org/catalogs/plans.html which may help identify the original plan. The U.S. Coast Guard mandated that all commercially made canoes in the U.S.A. have hull identification numbers on the starboard stern in 1972, and Canada implemented a similar system in 1981. Good luck with the project,

Benson

 

[Todd F]

Pretty cool. If you want to restore it you came to the right place. Looks like a nice canoe to restore and use.

 

[dtdcanoes]

Seems like it may be a little tender but with a moose and two happy hunters, I bet stable enough. A good find .
Dave

 

[MGC]

It appears to be pretty well made. It might be a guide-built boat. Even as recently as a few years ago there are/were a few old Maine guides around who built a couple a year, often finishing them with glass.
The 20 is a lot of canoe and moose is certainly within it's capacity. We used to put our boys in ours seated side by side and then load in a week's worth of gear and still have plenty of room. Packing was never a problem. A virtual minivan water taxi. Carries left a mark.

 

[wstiles]

I've finally got around to removing all the fiberglass and outwales. It definitely seems like a guide build glassed from the beginning. There's at least 1 rib and 1 half rib to replace and a decent bit of planking. Stem tips of course. I was considering just patching the inwales, but while I've got it all apart, I think I'll save some planking work and rib tip splicing by placing the new rails below the originals and trimming it back. This sucker is 16" deep, so I can spare an inch.

White cedar and spruce is hard to come by here in TN (northern white cedar occurs but is a state listed species). I was able to find some 16' clear spruce in the form of 2x6 tongue and groove, and was particularly lucky that my dad saved the arborvitae log he cut out of the flower bed of a house he was working on. It's not a particularly nice log, but I should be able to get enough rib and planking stock out of it for this job.

 

[Dan Lindberg]

This is probably a "wild goose chase" but,
I vaguely think I remember a boat like this in the old Bob Spelt's The Real Runabouts book that covered canoes.
It was a small builder, maybe Canadian or Maine?

 

[MGC]

This is probably a "wild goose chase" but,
I vaguely think I remember a boat like this in the old Bob Spelt's The Real Runabouts book that covered canoes.
It was a small builder, maybe Canadian or Maine?

Probably not a total wild goose chase. I can't imagine a home builder who would tackle building a 20-foot canoe. There is a ton of wood in a boat that big. A 20-footer is not a casual undertaking. And, that canoe looks reasonably well built, so not someone's debutant effort.

 

[Benson Gray]

The list at https://wcha.org/catalogs/maine-list.htm has 221 canoe builders in Maine alone and most of them can't be identified without a tag. The builder of this one is likely to remain unknown.

Benson

 

[Dan Lindberg]

I checked on the book, and think (the one I think I remember) it's the "Oat Canoe Co" of Maine.

 

[wstiles]

This one has no tag, and no number of any kind that I can tell. While it was certainly built by a handy person, there are certain things that make me lean towards a non professional. The stems are rather crudely carved on the bevel and show tool marks on the back, plus they're not nearly the same shape. I know they can be asymmetrical, but this doesn't look particularly purposeful. There are also some places on the planking where it seems that they left it pretty unfaired, like where a garboard twisted and split, and the cant rib is fit to that shape. Of course these things could happen over time too. I have no doubt that it was and again can be a serviceable canoe with some light tweaking and repair. I'll keep sharing the process as I go.
Any thoughts on continuing to use this thread for that, or should I start another dedicated? I don't think I can edit the title to clarify that.