It’s been a challenging project — the discovery process of what this boat was all about was unique. This is not for the faint of heart.”

Dan Shea

Dan Shea has been building boats for a few years, and he had a few minutes to talk about it. But before getting into the details, he patted a well-worn work bench at the end of a large shed at Bristol Marine headquarters on Poppasquash Road.

“I made this bench when I was just a kid, starting to work on boats. It’s a low bench, good for working on big parts. It’s also good for this,” he said, taking a seat.

Mr. Shea has been working on boats since 1973, when he began as an apprentice at a custom boat building operation in Sturgeon Bay, Wisc. He worked his way up to general manager before coming east. A resident of Bristol since 2003, he spent about a decade on Burnside Street, restoring Herreshoff Yachts, mostly for private clients, but he also did a handful of restoration projects for the museum, while helping to keep their iconic 12 1/2s sailing. He also worked developing volunteer and youth programs for Herreshoff, and he developed and ran the Mt. Hope High School and summer boatbuilding programs.

He has been with Bristol Marine since January, engaged in what has been one of his most challenging projects to date: the total restoration of a 1911 40-foot motor launch.

The project is shrouded in contractual secrecy, from its provenance to its current owners, who plan to operate it as a private vessel in New England waters. Until it was pulled for this wholesale restoration, it was a regular on the Newport yachting scene.

The casual observer might not think restoration should be that complicated, given that the vessel was seaworthy not long ago. An experienced shipwright knows better.

“Boats like this require periodic restoration every 40 years or so,” Mr. Shea said. So a boat dating to 1911 would have very little physical material dating to its origin, if any.

“The vestiges of the old boat — its soul — never goes away,” he said. “The hard stuff … that all gets replaced at some point.”

The yacht’s original builder is unknown, and there are no extant drawings of the original design. The process of sorting out that original design requires some extensive detective work on the part of the shipwright.

“It’s an interesting process, when you have a wholesale restoration without any documentation, no drawings, no measurements — which with boats can get really precise — you have to methodically determine original shape,” said Mr. Shea.

“You have a hull structure that has deteriorated to the point where it’s rather fluid. Figuring out where it was to begin with and reforming it, it’s almost like archaeology. Getting the original character back is an important aspect of the restoration … You need to understand the form, methodology, tools and materials, and establish all the definitions for processes. Then you can go forward from there.”

The internal structure of the boat is all new, from the frames to the planking, but it’s based on the original hull and hull form, as discerned by Mr. Shea and his team.

Other unique features include period hardware dating back to the early 1900s, back when boats and coaches shared many common fasteners and bolts, and the precise wrapping of the hull form is Alaskan yellow cedar planking. The seams are currently being caulked, a process by which the seams are made uniform and stuffed with cotton, as they would have been in 1911, followed by a seam compound. “No matter the year, the cotton would be the same,” said Mr. Shea. “But now we use contemporary compounds. Historically accurate ones were all lead; now we use a modern polyurethane that is much longer-lived.”

An 18-month restoration

The team at Bristol Marine is about two-thirds done with this 18-month long project, which is scheduled to launch in mid-June. When it does, it will be outfitted with an electric motor, powered by automotive batteries with a specialized charging system. Surprisingly, that might actually be historically accurate.

“The original power could likely have been electric,” said Mr. Shea. “There were all sorts of things being electrified in 1911 — even motors.”

Another element of this project, close to both Mr. Shea’s heart and Bristol Marine President Andy Tyska, is what you don’t necessarily see rendered in wood.

“When you have a project of this significance, it has a compounding effect on the local economy, pulling in individual master shipwrights and other businesses to contribute,” said Mr. Tyska.

“It’s a collaborative process, and marrying details to people of the right skill sets is a big part of my job,” said Mr. Shea. “This includes other departments within Bristol Marine, both in Somerset and Boothbay, as well as in Bristol. It’s such a rich environment and we are able to utilize tradespeople from around the region to contribute and collaborate. That’s really the best part.”

Nurturing the marine trades is an important part of this ongoing project, and will continue to occupy this space at Bristol Marine, long after the 1911 vessel is launched.

“The space was purpose-built, not only to do build outs like this, but also as a space to provide opportunities for Dan to build on the work he began on Burnside Street, engaging young people in the marine trades and making them aware of opportunities in this industry, which is so deeply rooted in the community,” said Mr. Tyska.

“Beyond the commercial and historical aspects of this work, we need to pay attention to next generation,” said Mr. Shea, of encouraging people to become involve in this very multi-dimensional trade.

“It’s been a challenging project — the discovery process of what this boat was all about was unique,” said Mr. Shea. “This is not for the faint of heart.”