High tech restoration on 'Morgan'

Mystic (WTNH) - A crew working to restore the world's last wooden whaling ship, the Charles W. Morgan, is taking a 21st century approach to repairing the 19th century ship.

Using a laser, Feldman Land Surveyors of Boston is able to create a 3-D view of the Morgan.

"As you watch that green laser going around it's taking up to fifty to a hundred shots per second," Michael Feldman said.

Targets were set up as reference points throughout the hull and the laser then scans literally every nook and cranny.

"It's made up of millions and millions of individual x,y, and z measurements and down to a level that we can see the different cracks and splinters in the wood," said Stephen Wilkes, director of 3D services.

From those details a 3-D computer recreation and blueprints which will help those at the Mystic Seaport restore the 168 year old ship.

"We can give them very critical dimensions on each piece of wood they need to put back and the spacing and how it was," Feldman said.

The images will help the restoration crew keep things they way they were originally made, preserving her historic significance while making her seaworthy once again.

"She's the last American whale ship and she's actually the oldest American commercial vessel so she wears two hats," said Matthew Stackpole of Mystic Seaport.

"It is the only one left and so we not only want to preserve it but we want to remember all the details."

The timbers of the Charles W. Morgan will be replaced with downed trees recovered from Hurricane Katrina.

That restoration is expected to be complete in 2012, when the Morgan will sail back to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where she was built in 1841.