(above) The whaling ship C harles W. Morgan passing through the Mystic River H ighway Bridge en route to her new home at Mystic Seaport, 8 November 1941; (below) The Morgan in her first berth at Mystic, high and dry in the sand. She stayed in this position until 1973, when the museum restored her so she could be re.floated.
rhe sand for rhe firsr rime in rhiny years. In 1982, rhe Morgan was hauled a second rime for a rhree-year major restorarion that addressed her structure, but onl y from the waterline up. Even then it was understood that the next major effort would have to address the ship's structure from waterline to the keel. Regular mon itoring of her condi tion was ongoi ng, alo ng wirh the planning and the acquisition of the wood inventory required for the work that wo uld start in the 1990s. Before the museum co uld haul the 340-plus-ton vessel, they had to first replace the shiplift, as the old one from rhe 1970s required majo r reb uilding and u rili zed an our-of-dare technology. In 2007, Myscic Seaport complered insrallario n of rhe
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new stare-of-the- art H ays and Ros C lark Syncrolift shiplift and the construction of an environmentally compliant haul-ashore area-all told, a ren-million dollar proj ecr. On 1 November 2008 , a large crowd ga rhered to watch as rhe ship slowly emerged from the water. What they would see in the lower part of the ship was essentially the sam e wood that "half the town" of New Bedford had watched go into the water for the first time in August of 1841 . Once the keel was clear of the water, the ship had to be moved ahead, was hed off at the haul-ashore area, tracked sideways, and shored up so as to be able to wi thsrand the work to come. Mystic's president Steve White has asked, "What does it mean to be the lase of your kind? " For a museum, it m os t cenainly means preservarion, srewardship, and documentation. Before a single plank or fastening was removed, the museum first embarked on what was considered high priority in the restoration plan-extensive documentation of the ship. The shipyard sraff describes this stage of the res toration as an archaeological effort. Archaeologists undersrand the critical need to documem sites in situ; once a sire has been excavated, no one will ever again be able to see the anifacrs as they we re originally situated. So too for the Morgan . Even though the whaleship has been in constam view for mosr of her life, certainly since she came to Mys ticseven tyyears ago, the original details of her construction deep in the bilge and behind ceiling planking were hidden from sighr. The shipwrights have understood that chis is a one- time opportunity to see and document an authentic American wooden whaleship as she was originally constructed. Thus, every aspect of the ship as she existed on that day, and at each succeedin g stage, has been photographed and recorded-including a 3-D laser scan of the interior and an X- ray examinarion of the keel bolts. W ith the first stage of documentation completed, at last the acrual restoration work on the hull co uld begin . Before any material was removed, actions were taken inside and o utside of the hull to protect her structural integrity. Next, her internal ceiling planking was carefully removed, exposing the ship's futtocks (fram e sections) for the first time since 184 1. Th e shipyard was entering a time machine. The shipyard SEA HISTORY 134, SPRING 2011
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