La Belle: Lessons Learned and Applied in Order to Restructure the Use of Watercraft Data

Summary

Although the archaeological team excavating La Belle performed an extraordinary job at timber recording, all 1:1 drawings were traced by hand on Mylar and then digitized into AutoCAD. That data was later assembled into lines drawings, profile and plan-view scale drawings.  In advance of freeze-drying individual components of La Belle, there was an immediate need for precision measurements from drawings that were already two generations removed from the original source. The pain-staking process to loft the required timber shapes worked in the case of reconstructing La Belle, but also set in motion a thought process of how to be more efficient and far more precise.  Recent advancements in recording 3-dementional forms offer that efficiency and are already in motion on subsequent watercraft stabilization projects.  This paper contrasts some of the issues between "analog" recording and 3-dementional digital recording, and how new approaches might be introduced into watercraft conservation projects.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Application of Traditional and Innovative Documentation Techniques in Nautical Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 694