Canoe Id: Possible OT Otca?

[floydvoid]

I recently purchased a canoe to restore. I have done a little id research, but not fully sure on its history yet.
I think it is an OT otca

-17 feet long
- large, long decks with a combing
- diamond head to thwart and seat bolts
- it has the serial # 95829 on the inside of the stem- not followed by the length though, just those five digits
- it has a floor rack

If anyone has any info it would be much appriciated.
If this is an Otca, can anyone give me info about this product line? (or point me in the right direction)

Thank You,
Ryan

 

[Kathryn Klos]

OT Otca

Old Town 95829 is a 17 foot Otca model in CS (common sense) grade, with red Western cedar planking, open spruce gunwales, oak decks, oak thwarts, and oak seat frames, which was fitted with a keel and floor rack and painted dark red-- with "Moua" [I think] in black on the right and left sides of the bow. It was shipped to George N. Varney, The Weirs [I think] New Hampshire, on May 9, 1928.

Much of the part of the record indicating dates for various stages in building this canoe have the appearance of having been entered by a small chicken or bird or a medical doctor, and I couldn't make it out. The build record is attached below.

Scans of approximately 210,000 records were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. Additional information about the project to preserve these records is available at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details.

Please join WCHA or make a tax deductible contribution so that services like this can continue. See http://www.wcha.org/wcha/ to learn more about the WCHA, http://www.wcha.org/wcha_video.php to watch a 10 minute video about WCHA and our programs and http://www.wcha.org/join.html to join. If you are already a WCHA member, THANK YOU!

It's believed the model name "Otca" may stand for Old Town Canoe [model] A. I'll track down some other info and post separately... I'm guessing you may already have located the information on the Dragonfly site and used it to figure out that your canoe is an Otca. If you don't feel this record matches your canoe, we can try again.

Kathy

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Here's the Dragonfly canoe I.D. and info site... scroll down on the left to Old Town, if you haven't done so:

http://dragonflycanoe.com/id/index.html

Sue Audette's book, "The Old Town Canoe Company: Our First Hundred Years" is a must for Old Town canoe owners and has valuable information on wood canvas canoes in general.

Attached below is the Otca as pictured in the 1928 Old Town catalog, courtesy of The Historic Wood Canoe and Boat Catalog Collection, version 2, edited by Dan Miller and Benson Gray, published by Dragonfly Canoe Works and available at www.dragonflycanoe.com.

Other valuable sources of information re your canoe would be the folks who post here in Forums, and the bi-monthly WCHA journal Wooden Canoe, and the yearly WCHA Assembly (info available on the home page of this website).

Kathy

 

[floydvoid]

thank you

Thank you for the quick response. It is great to have such a well researched history.

I'm not sure how the scaned records work, are they all scaned to that size or is the image scaled down for the forum?

Is it possible to send a larger image?


Thank you for you help,

---Ryan

 

[Kathryn Klos]

I can send a larger size image directly to you, if you PM or email me what your email address is. My slow dial-up connection is what limits things.

Kathy
arms_akimbo@earthlink.net

 

[Benson Gray]

It's believed the model name "Otca" may stand for Old Town Canoe [model] A.

Actually, the more generally accepted theory is that the Otca name was derived from the telegraph or cable address for the Old Town Canoe Company which was OTCACO as shown at http://www.wcha.org/ot_records/letterhd.jpg on the top of their letterhead. Old Town did not have any single letter model codes but many dual letter ones like HW, IF, CR, XX, FB, GG, MC, etc.

Benson