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Documenting Maritime Folklife: An Introductory Guide
Part 2: How to Document
Documenting Artifacts
The investigation of many topics is required for a full understanding
of any item of culture within its natural setting. Documentation of items
of material culture should begin with a review of published and unpublished
information pertaining to the type of artifact to be documented. Although
the nature of information sought will vary according to the goals of the
project and the expertise of researchers, central topics to be investigated
include distribution, design, construction, and use. Moving from the general
class of artifacts to the specific example to be documented in the field,
researchers should ascertain:
- the date of its creation
- the name of its designer
- the name of its maker
- the names of present and past owners
- its uses
- the materials of which it is made
- its component parts
- modifications to its structure or use
- its significance to the community
The next step in the documentation process is the recording of physical
properties. This can be accomplished through the application of techniques
such as photography, drawings, field observation, and measurement of principal
dimensions. Because boats and buildings are two of the most prominent types
of artifacts to be found in maritime communities, additional comments about
the documentation of their physical properties are in order.
Boats are an
important and conspicuous class of objects in maritime culture, and they
often exhibit regional differences in form, construction, and
use as a result of adaptation to specific environmental conditions and
use requirements. For example, the light "glades skiff" is well suited
to the calm, shallow waters of the everglades of south Florida. Other
types, such as the Maine lobster boat, the New Jersey sneakbox, the Lake
Superior
fish tug, and the Louisiana pirogue, possess forms that have evolved
as builders attempted to improve their suitability to local contexts.
Because
of their importance to residents of maritime communities, boats are prime
candidates for documentation.
In many cases, the documentation of the
forms of boats requires specialized skills and knowledge. It is especially
important to learn how to take accurate
measurements by hand. Unlike buildings and other artifacts that possess
straight lines and flat surfaces, boats often have complicated shapes
based on complex curves. Such shapes, which generally vary greatly over
the length
of a hull, make the accurate recording of hull forms a painstaking and
time-consuming task and call for the use of certain tools and techniques.
In addition, to insure that component parts of vessels are properly identified,
it is necessary to become familiar with standard terminology as well
as localized terms. An excellent reference work for standard terminology
is
René de Kerchove's International Maritime
Dictionary.1
If the goal of a project
to document local craft so that exact forms can be preserved, then
the desired end product of fieldwork is probably
a set of accurate lines plans, and a table of offsets for
each boat. In addition to preserving boat forms graphically, such data
can be used to build replicas, and to study local design and construction
practices. If the project requires the production of high-quality lines
plans, it may be necessary to hire a naval architect to record the hull
form and execute drawings. Alternatively, researchers may elect to learn
how to "take the lines" of a vessel and supply these data to a naval
architect or competent draftsman for conversion to a lines plan. For
projects that
do not demand professional-quality lines plans, it may be possible for
fieldworkers to record hull measurements and execute adequate lines plans
for small craft (under twenty feet).
Essentially, "taking the lines" is
a process of obtaining measurements from an existing hull, recording
these measurements in a standard table
of offsets, and then using these measurements to draft (or loft) in two
dimensions, the set of drawings that defines the hull form. The amount
of time required to learn this process will vary, but it is probably
safe to say that a person can acquire the basic skills necessary for small
craft
documentation in a week or less.
The best way to learn is to observe
an experienced person take the lines of a boat, then imitate the lines
taker's actions. If such an opportunity
is not available, one may learn the basics by studying published descriptions
of the process, then practicing with an actual boat, preferably a boat
under twenty feet in length. Fieldworkers must bear in mind that no single
methodology can be used for the documentation of all vessels. Lines-taking
techniques must be modified in accordance which such factors as vessel
size, shape, and location. Techniques are discussed by John Gardner in
his articles "Taking Lines Off Bigger Boats," "Taking Off Lines Allows
Duplication of Existing Boats," and "Triangulation Method is Well Suited
to Lifting Lines," by Walter J. Simmons in his book Lines, Lofting
and Half Models, and by David A. Taylor in his article "Taking
the Lines."2 The lofting procedure is clearly explained in Allan H. Vaitses' book Lofting.3 A concise description of how the lines of a particular small
boat were taken off in the field is given in Appendix
B.2 of this book. If the project's goal is merely to record the general
characteristics of local boats, then fieldworkers can record key measurements
and other significant details. A "Boat Documentation" form which can
be used for the latter purpose is included as Appendix
A.5.
For a thorough documentation of a vessel, it is necessary to
gather a variety of contextual data. These data include information
about the history
of boat building and boat use in the area, as well as information about
the designer, builder, owner, and the uses of, and modifications to each
boat to be documented.
Properly executed measured drawings are the most
accurate record of a building. Unfortunately, exact scale drawings can
be expensive to produce
since they often require the services of an architect or draftsman. However,
for the purposes of many projects, serviceable drawings can be produced
by fieldworkers who do not possess formal training in architecture.
Before
measurement activities commence, it is important to decide which buildings
should be measured, how much time and personnel can be devoted
to the task, and the manner in which the work should be conducted. Since
it is essential to understand the structure of a building in order to
determine what types of drawings should be made, it is beneficial to make
a preliminary
survey. Because it is seldom possible to record every detail of a building,
the fieldworker must decide what features of the structure to record,
the types of drawings and their complexity. As Harley J. McKee points out
in Recording
Historic Buildings: The Historic American Building Survey, several
types of drawings can be made, including location plan (which
locates the property with reference to highways, towns, and natural features), plot
plan (which indicates the building's relationship to structures,
gardens, or other features of the immediate environment), floor plan (which
records room layout, and locations of doors, windows, stairways, and
structural supports of each level of the building), and exterior
elevation (which
represents the facade of a building projected on a vertical plane).4
With regard to the measurement of the actual structure,
best results are obtained by recording measurements by hand. This can
be efficiently
accomplished by three-person teams; two to take measurements and one
to record measurements in a field notebook. Two can accurately collect
data
if one calls out measurements and the other records them. Because it
is difficult to measure large surfaces without assistance, single fieldworkers
cannot work as efficiently. To insure that field measurements are properly
interpreted when it is time to use them to produce a scale drawing, it
is helpful to sketch the feature to be measured in the field notebook
before
measuring begins. Then, as measurements are taken, they can be written
alongside corresponding aspects of the sketch. Measuring devices employed
by fieldworkers include steel tapes, folding rules, and straight rules.
A profile gauge can be used to record the shapes of moulding.
In addition
to other data noted above, measurements of buildings should be supplemented
by interior and exterior photographs, and by inventories
of furnishings and sketches of their placement. If particular artifacts
found within the structure or on its property are significant, they should
be fully documented. A sample "Building Documentation" form which can be
used to record measurements and other data is included as Appendix
A.6.
Notes
1. René de Kerchove, International
Maritime Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Useful Maritime Terms
with Equivalents in French and German. 2nd rev. ed. New York:
Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983.
2. John Gardner, "Taking Lines
Off Bigger Boats,"National Fisherman 67, no. 1 (May 1986),
58, "Taking Off Lines Allows Duplication of Existing Boats," National
Fisherman 66, no. 12 (April 1986), 44-45, and "Triangulation Method
is Well Suited to Lifting Lines," National Fisherman 67, no.
4 (August 1986), 65-67; Walter J. Simmons, Lines, Lofting and Half
Models (Lincolnville, Me.: Ducktrap Woodworking, 1991); and David
Taylor, "Taking the Lines," Woodenboat, 19 (Nov.-Dec. 1977),
42-45. A detailed set of standards for the documentation of vessels, similar
in rigor to McKee's Recording Historic Buildings, can be found
in Richard K. Anderson's Guidelines for Recording Historic Ships (Washington:
National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Historic American
Engineering Record, 1988). Several techniques for taking the lines of small
boats are presented in Paul Lipke, ed., Boats: A Field Manual for
the Documentation of Small Craft (Nashville: American Association
for State and Local History, forthcoming).
3. Allan H. Vaitses, Lofting (Camden,
Maine: International Marine Publishing Co., 1980).
4. Harley J. McKee, Recording
Historic Buildings: The Historic American Buildings Survey (Washington:
U. S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1970), 24-5.
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