Photo: Steve Haines for The Boston Globe

Rebuilding a historic ship has got to be part craftsmanship, part engineering, and part treasure hunt.    In the case of the oldest surviving sailing whale ship, the Charles W. Morgan at Mystic, CT, one of the challenges has been finding good quality shipbuilding timber.   In August of 2009, we posted about a literal windfall of live oak trees knocked down by Hurricane Ike in Galveston, TX which yielded over around 175 tons of timber for the rebuilding of the Morgan.

Now several years later, with supplies again running low, a new stock of shipbuilding timber has been discovered in the Charleston Navy Yard in Boston, MA.   Construction crews working on a new Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital facility discovered an underground supply of 140 live oak and white oak timbers in what had once been a timber basin for the Navy Yard. The timbers had been preserved by the mud for nearly a century. The timbers, set aside for future wooden ship construction or repair but long forgotten, will go to the rebuilding the Morgan, which the Seaport Museum hopes to launch in 2013.

Lucky find in Charlestown saves whaler’s restoration

Buried in the briny mud at the Charlestown Navy Yard was a cache of pristine antique oak, hand-hewn specifically for use in ships of the great tall-ship era.

“Manna from heaven,’’ Quentin Snediker, who directs Mystic’s preservation shipyard, said last month while inside the Morgan’s hold, where the Charlestown oak has been laid alongside fallen brothers from the Gulf Coast and the 1841 ship’s original beams. “It was chosen and cut by masters of the trade, ideal for its application.’’

The white oak salvaged from Charlestown dated to the 1860s and came from Ohio, specialists at the University of Arizona have determined. The live oak, while difficult to date, probably comes from the same era, when it was treasured by shipbuilders for its gentle curves and extreme durability.

“You can’t fabricate that kind of strength,’’ said Matthew Stackpole, a member of the Morgan restoration team. “It’s grown into the wood.’’

Built in New Bedford, the Morgan has been docked at Mystic Seaport since 1941, and has been the centerpiece of the museum ever since.

The wood is “a gift from the past to the present,’’ Stackpole said. “It’s history helping history.’’

Thanks to C. Whiting Rice for passing the article along.