NEW BEDFORD WHALEBOAT

From 1720 to 1920 nearly 60,000 whaleboats were consumed by the American whaling industry. With a useful life of no more than three years, whaleboats were discarded on the spot throughout the coastal U.S. and around the world. Remarkably, only a dozen or two have survived to become part of today's museum collections.

In 1916, the Dartmouth Historical Society commissioned the building of a half sized model of the bark LAGODA. Local whaleboat builder Joshua Delano was retained to build the seven half-sized model whaleboats needed for the project. Delano built these models according to the design of the full-sized boats he had built for the whaling industry for more than forty years.

Whaling historian Erik A.R. Ronnberg, Jr. made a thorough study of Delano s half-sized boats in order to produce this kit of a uniquely American working craft.