Rosie's Birthday

Sarah stared at the keelson for 10 minutes the other day. “Are you sure there are 6 digits in the serial number?”  she asked. “Yes, there has to be since it was made in the 1930s. All boats in that decade are in the 100,000s.” I said with certainty. “Well there isn’t room for 6 here” she said as she proceeded to show me the impossibility using her fingers. She was right. That meant that the serial number had to be **352. The first number appeared to be 9. Sarah could make it out even though it was greatly faded, plus it made sense with the Old Town numbering system. So I sent the inquiry for 9*352 into WCHA and within 24 hours they responded ... they found her build record. Her serial number is 99352. So we finally have Rosie’s birthday as well as her original specs and who she was sold to. This is very exciting, and leads us to wonder more and more about her life from her birth to our discovery of her in 2011.

Here is the information we got from the build record:

On Sept 21, 1928 she was conceived by an order sent from the Rochester Boat Corp in Charlotte, NY. She was born (shipped) on Dec 3, 1928. She was an AA grade dinghy (the highest grade possible), which means she came with mahogany gunwales, and mahogany seats.  She is 10' 2" long, had white cedar planking, and her canvas was originally painted white. Unfortunately the Rochester Boat Corp is no longer in business, but I hope to learn more about her first destination.

Here is her build record: