The Sloop Boscawen: Hull Construction and Design During the Mid-Eighteenth Century in the Champlain Valley

Abstract

In 1983, the British sloop Boscawen and two other vessels were discovered in the shallow waters near Fort Ticonderoga, New York. The vessels located at the site are believed to be some of the oldest sailing vessels in Lake Champlain and among the handful of naval vessels from the mid-eighteenth century that have been excavated in North America. Using Boscawen as the focal point, this dissertation explores how colonial shipwrights designed, built, and rigged early sailing vessels for use on Lake Champlain and considers Boscawen's hull construction in context with other eighteenth-century watercraft. Some of these vessels include those built by the British and French for use on the lake during the same conflict, while others were built for use on different inland and coastal waterways in northeastern North America. These cross-vessel comparisons reveal how multiple factors contributed to ship design and construction of the period and identify certain shipbuilding trends among these northeastern North American-built vessels.