I am currently restoring an Old Town dinghy. It is 7' LOA and built in the wood and canvas method like the canoes. The serial no. is (spacing intentional) : 4 4884 7 - 6. If anyone knows if there are plans for this boat, especially with some of the construction details, I would be grateful. Also, can the origin date of the boat or any other details be gleaned from the serial no.? Thank you.
Dinghy
- Thread starter Dmgreen
- Start date
Welcome and congratulations, the Old Town with serial number 44884 is a 17 foot long canoe from 1917 so that isn't a good match. My guess is that there is a light numeral one which is just outside the frame to the left of your picture. The build record for serial number 144884 shows a 7.5 foot long, AA (or top) grade, Dinghy model with open mahogany gunwales, a keel, outside stems, a floor rack, and roped outside gunwales. It was built between April and November, 1946. The original exterior paint color was white enamel. It shipped on January 27th, 1947 to Boston, Massachusetts. A scan of this build record can be found below.
This scan and several hundred thousand more were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will donate, join or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See https://www.woodencanoe.org/about to learn more about the WCHA and https://www.woodencanoe.org/join to donate or join.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match. The ten foot version of this dinghy was John Alden's design number 545 from 1932. More information about this design is available from the MIT Museum. See https://www.aldendesigns.com/99years/detail.php?ID=820&s=1 for more details. Two diagrams showing the centerboard trunk from the original Alden plans are also attached below. Page 21 of the 1947 Old Town catalog at https://woodencanoemuseum.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/Old Town 1947 reduced_0.pdf has more information. Let me know if you have other questions or if there is anything else that I can do to help. Good luck with the project,
Benson
This scan and several hundred thousand more were created with substantial grants from the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association (WCHA) and others. A description of the project to preserve these records is available at http://www.wcha.org/catalogs/old-town/records/ if you want more details. I hope that you will donate, join or renew your membership to the WCHA so that services like this can continue. See https://www.woodencanoe.org/about to learn more about the WCHA and https://www.woodencanoe.org/join to donate or join.
It is also possible that you could have another number or manufacturer if this description doesn't match. The ten foot version of this dinghy was John Alden's design number 545 from 1932. More information about this design is available from the MIT Museum. See https://www.aldendesigns.com/99years/detail.php?ID=820&s=1 for more details. Two diagrams showing the centerboard trunk from the original Alden plans are also attached below. Page 21 of the 1947 Old Town catalog at https://woodencanoemuseum.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/Old Town 1947 reduced_0.pdf has more information. Let me know if you have other questions or if there is anything else that I can do to help. Good luck with the project,
Benson
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Benson, Thank you for your response. I especially appreciate the construction details. Possibly Old Town has copies or files of the 7 1/2 footer. Besides Old Town, in case they don't have the plans, do you know of any other potential sources? Possibly there are photos of a couple somewhere. Which museum would you recommend to check for sources? Anyway, I sure appreciate the help. David
The MIT Museum holds the John Alden archives. Here is the link for design No. 540, which Benson posted the details from above: https://www.aldendesigns.com/99years/detail.php?ID=810&s=1
I didn't see the 7-1/2 foot design in the catalog, but I didn't look very hard either.
The curator at the museum is pretty responsive, I obtained plans for Alden's Thousand Islands One-design sailboat within days of inquiring.
I didn't see the 7-1/2 foot design in the catalog, but I didn't look very hard either.
The curator at the museum is pretty responsive, I obtained plans for Alden's Thousand Islands One-design sailboat within days of inquiring.
Most of Old Town's design work was done by eye with full sized prototypes. The Alden designs were exceptions. I am not aware of any other dinghy design information that is available. They made a huge variety of different dinghy models over the years as shown in the chart below that Dan Miller made.
Several of these were listed in the 1947 catalog page below.
The 7.5 foot by 42 inch version was listed in the catalogs from 1927 to 1947. This was probably based on the nine foot long dinghy that was designed by B. B. Crowninshield and first appeared in the 1904 Old Town catalog. The Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts at https://pem.as.atlas-sys.com/repositories/2/resources/491 may have more information. None of this size have shown up at https://wcha.org/classified-archive/Old-Town-Dinghy.html in the classified archive. There may not be much additional information available and please let me know if you find more documentation. Thanks,
Benson
