Restoring the L.A. Dunton

Restoring the L.A. Dunton. . , The L.A. Dunton has belonged to Mystic Seaport Museum since 1963 and was recently hauled out for a major, multiyear restoration., Visit the Shipyard Gallery for updates and to learn more about restoring historic ships and tools and materials we use., Why does the L.A. Dunton need restoration? , Wooden ships were built for a limited lifespan, and the L.A. Dunton is over 100 years old. One of the biggest issues is "hogging." The ship's center is more buoyant than its bow (front) or stern (back), so over time the ship's boards and keel have bent so the center rises and the ends droop. We also expect to replace many pieces of deteriorated wood., What is happening here right now? , Our focus is on documenting the ship's spaces and evaluating what needs to happen next. We're also starting to dismantle and remove interior pieces of the ship., What kind of wood do you use? , We generally replace old wood with wood of the same species. For the L.A. Dunton, we expect to use mainly white oak, white pine, live oak, and long leaf pine. We cut trees in local forests with permission, and we bring them here as complete logs. For trees that grow elsewhere, we acquire and stockpile those other species when we can., What happens when the restoration is done? , The plan is for the ship to return to its berth here at Mystic Seaport Museum as a visitor exhibit, but we do also hope to sail the ship when it is ready., Modern Technology for Historic Preservation , These are 3D LiDAR composite scans of the L.A. Dunton. LiDAR maps the outline of an object by sending light towards it and then calculating very precisely how long it takes to reflect back. Some of the newest smartphones now have LiDAR technology built in, so soon you'll be able to experiment with a version of this technology at home!, We are using these scans to plan our restoration, for example by analyzing how the ship's current shape deviates from its original intended lines. It also helps us to understand exactly how each point on the interior relates to the exterior., Restoration or Replica? , Two thousand years ago, the Greek historian Plutarch posed a question about a ship sailed by Theseus, the founder of Athens. If Athenians carefully maintained it, replacing every piece of wood over centuries, would it still be the same ship? It's a tough philosophical conundrum, but one answer is that a ship is more than the sum of its parts. Many of the cells in your body have regenerated over time, but is it still the same body? Our philosophy here is that as long as there are never two ships, and never zero ships, it's a restoration rather than a replica., It would actually be less expensive to build a new ship than to restore this old ship, but our goal is to preserve this authentic history!