Do a search of the magazine archives at WoodenBoat Magazine's web site. I
got about 4 articles on the topic of the taking of lines off a boat there.
There's more than one approach though, and having the boat level and square
is a convenience ...it can be done with the boat out of level too. The
article that I liked the best described both the method where you use
centerlines, baselines, and a level boat AND the method of taking of lines
via triangulation ...very accurate, especially for rounded hulls. This
article was written by D.W. Dillion in WoodenBoat issue Number 107 ...not
sure of the date as I only have a Xerox copy of the article. Not sure where
my issue #107 went. There's also an article in WoodenBoat #19 from Nov/Dec
1977 by David Littleton-Taylor that's reasonable ...although not as
informative as the one by Dillion in #107. Note that regardless of which
method you use, you will still need to use appropriate 3-view drawing and
fairing methods to produce new, exact, lines. Or you could use one of the
newer CAD packages like Rhino or ProSurf to fair the lines once they've been
recorded.

On the boat that I'm currently building, there were no lines available for
the boat ...just loftings and a building/construction manual in book form.
I took the lines off my boat for my own purposes and I used the baseline
method since in my shop, there was no room to physically use the
triangulation method. See http://www.reelboats.com/tongass/step15.html for
photos and text describing what I did.

Have fun!

Brian D



"Reynaud" wrote in message
...

"Reynaud" wrote in message
...
I would like to build an replica of an old Chestnut canoe. I have the
full size boat to refer to but am not sure how to take off proper
measurements . Could someone suggest where to find information or clue me
in. Help would be much appreciated.

Rey

@#@
Thanks for all the information gentlemen, I'm going to put it to good
use.

Rey